Event Poses Security Nightmare

The dedication ceremonies of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library next month present a logistical nightmare for the U.S. Secret Service agents in charge of security at the historic event near Simi Valley.

Not only do Secret Service agents have to protect President Bush, they have to watch out for as many as four former Presidents and an array of foreign dignitaries.

The remote hilltop site of the library offers some advantages to security forces, which will include “an armada” of federal, state and police officials, said Douglas J. Carver, a veteran Secret Service agent coordinating the event.

“It is so wide open up there, you can see most almost anybody walking up there from a long ways away,” Carver said.

The biggest challenge comes with moving dozens of distinguished visitors and their entourages from the headquarters hotel--the J.W. Marriott in Century City--to the library perched on a hilltop just outside the Simi Valley city limits.

“We’ve got nine Secret Service protected motorcades,” said James Hooley, former director of the White House office that arranged presidential trips for Reagan.

Hooley, who rejoined Reagan’s staff to assist with the library opening, said there is no room at the library site to shuttle the former Presidents and other distinguished visitors by helicopter.

To complicate matters, Bush, all of the four former Presidents, Lady Bird Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney each have their own security details that must be coordinated with an overall security force.

“The logistics of it all are the most difficult,” Carver said. “There are so many varied and different people involved.”

About 4,200 former Reagan aides, political contributors and other invited guests are expected to attend the dedication ceremonies of the library, which houses an estimated 55 million pages of Reagan’s White House documents.

Simi Valley police plan to shut down a section of Madera Road and Wood Ranch Parkway for parking. All of the guests will be shuttled in trams up Presidential Drive. At the top of the hill, “everyone will pass through metal detectors,” Hooley said.

The dais, which will be filled with as many as 60 distinguished visitors and their families, is vulnerable to only one overlooking hill, Hooley said. He said Secret Service agents and other police will seize control of the entire area.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department will set up a command post next to the library with the Secret Service, Ventura County fire and medical services, said Cmdr. William Wade, head of the sheriff’s East Valley division.

“Anytime you get one President and four past Presidents and the kind of foreign dignitaries planning to come, you can bet that security is going to be tight,” Wade said. “The planning is ongoing.”