Level of Security at Park Was Subject of Early Debate

From the beginning, long before the corporate logos went up above Centennial Olympic Park, security chief William Rathburn urged that access to the area be tightly controlled.

“This will not be a public park,” Rathburn said nearly a year ago.

Among other things, Rathburn and other security officials believed that, if the park were wide open, crowd control would be difficult and law enforcement would be hampered in the 21-acre space.

But Rathburn, a former LAPD deputy chief who oversaw security for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, was opposed by Billy Payne, the strong-willed head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), and by the city’s mayor and its leading newspaper. They favored a place open to all, a vibrant city center that would act as a magnet for Olympic revelry and would stand after the games as a monument to Atlanta’s moment in the international spotlight.

Rather than adopt the strict security measures at every other Olympic site, planners carried out Payne’s vision: an open area, surrounded by a fence and filled with security guards but no tickets, metal detectors or inspections.

Now, with the entire world riveted on a terrorist attack that left two dead and injured 111, the debate over security at the park has been renewed as officials scramble for ways to reopen it.

“This was not an athletic venue,” Georgia Gov. Zell Miller said Saturday. “This was a place that did not require tickets. In fact, it was a place if you could not afford a ticket you could take your family and enjoy the Olympic spirit for free. It was a public park.”

Not that the park has been without security: Hundreds of authorities under the command of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation mingled with spectators at the park, keeping an eye out for trouble, trying to spot problems and confiscating alcoholic beverages, among other things. Some of the authorities were equipped with night-vision goggles, and a host of additional officers were close at hand in the event of trouble.

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It was state agents, in fact, who were alerted to the suspicious package in a green knapsack shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday. After alerting other agents, they were clearing the crowd back when the bomb exploded a few minutes later. Without their effort, casualties would certainly have been higher, security experts and political leaders agreed.

“These folks,” Miller said of the agents, “saved lives.”

But even in light of that success, investigators are probing whether there also was a breakdown.

The state agents were never told that a man had called 911 at 1:07 a.m. to say that a bomb was planted in the park and would soon go off. At the time the call came in, the agents had already found the bomb, which would explode at 1:25 a.m.--18 minutes after the 911 call was placed from a bank of pay phones on the outskirts of the park.

“Our people at the scene knew of the device and were trying to deal with it,” said Woody Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Atlanta. “Unfortunately, it went off in a very short period of time.”

Still, authorities were working Saturday to learn why the 911 was never communicated from the city’s emergency service to the state agents in the field. They are also reviewing videotapes from cameras mounted on rooftops and lampposts in the park to see if they show a white male using the pay phones at the time the 911 call was placed.

When the debate over park security arose last year, Olympic planners opted for a large public commons similar to one that impressed Payne when he visited Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 for its Olympic Games. In the Atlanta version, AT&T;, Coca-Cola and other corporate sponsors established beachheads, erecting huge facilities intended to lure tens of thousands of visitors.

According to sources, law enforcement officials privately raised concerns in meetings with Atlanta organizers but publicly swallowed their reservations once they were overruled. That allowed the plans to go forward even as some federal and local authorities fretted that the setup made the park vulnerable.

“Why, when you have 27 venues with all these careful measures in place, why in the 28th venue would you have so little on the perimeter?” asked Ben Sherwood, a Los Angeles author who recently published a novel about a terrorist attack on the Summer Olympics. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Brent C. Brown, president and chief executive officer of an Atlanta-based security firm, agreed that while it is easy to second-guess security arrangements, the lax perimeter control of Centennial Olympic Park made it an inviting target.

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“Frankly, I was down there the night before last with my family and I voiced my concern with them,” Brown said. “Although I saw a lot of visible security, I was quite surprised there was no secure perimeter established.”

Concerns such as those were dogging Olympic officials Saturday as reporters from around the world joined investigators in hunting for clues to the explosion and explanations for how it could occur in a city that the mayor had boasted would be the “safest place in the world this summer.”

That description already had been called into question once: A man carrying a .45-caliber handgun eluded checkpoints at the opening ceremonies and got to a seat inside the Olympic Stadium. He was found before the event began.

Defending park security arrangements, Lawrence Fetters--another former Los Angeles police deputy chief and ranking member of the Olympic security team--said he was not sure that tighter precautions would have deterred a would-be terrorist. Although metal detectors might have kept such a person out of the park itself, he said, so many tourists are in the area that a bomb planted anywhere in the vicinity could have caused casualties.

“I don’t know that you would really prevent this with mags,” said Fetters, using shorthand for magnetometers, or metal detectors. “This area down here is just teeming with pedestrian traffic.”

Payne insisted Saturday that, in the past, he had not received recommendations for tighter park security. Although Payne was not asked specifically about last year’s public dispute over park access, he said that he believes organizers acted properly.

Saying it is impossible to “perfectly secure all public places,” Payne added: “People have to have some freedom of movement, and while we all regret this incident, I don’t think it was a consequence of doing other than what we should have done.”

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Similarly, Jill Strickland, a spokeswoman for Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, stressed that “an incident like this could have happened anywhere where a large gathering of people were.”

Those views were echoed by some of the park’s corporate tenants, who ponied up much of the money to transform a once-seedy area outside the city’s main convention hall into a sea of corporate logos and bustling tourist activity. The park’s freewheeling atmosphere was welcomed by its corporate sponsors, who opposed limiting the pedestrian traffic carrying millions of people past their promotional materials.

“There’s certainly marketing dimensions to it, but it’s one dimension,” said Mike Siegel, a corporate spokesman for AT&T.; “We’re not there, to put it bluntly, to sell products and services. We’re there to create an overall positive experience for people. . . . It [the park] has been one of the brilliant jewels of the Olympics, from what I’ve seen so far. Today, obviously, we’ve entered the valley of the shadow.”

Siegel noted that AT&T; endorsed the idea of the Centennial Olympic Park being open but declined to discuss whether, in retrospect, that seemed unwise.

“I just don’t want to get into that ‘We should have done this, we should have done that’ kind of analysis,” he said.

Some officials took a different tack, saying they already have learned a lesson from Saturday’s explosion--a lesson that they will seek to avoiding repeating.

Mal Hemmerling, chief executive of Sydney Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games 2000, said Australian authorities would consider establishing one large security zone that would encompass all the Olympic venues for the next Summer Games.

“There were no plans for a Centennial Village-type area,” Hemmerling said. “But what happened here makes it more likely that there won’t be one.”

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Saturday the park was quiet, closed at least temporarily.

Inside barricades erected to keep the public out, investigators scoured for clues. Officers on horseback and Georgia state troopers carefully scrutinized passersby. Police helicopters hovered overhead. Bomb squad members responded to call after call across the city.

If the park reopens before the end of the Games, authorities said, visitors will find tighter security measures. ACOG officials declined to elaborate.

“Security at the park or at any location, at any time, in a situation like this is of some concern to all of us,” said FBI Agent Johnson. “It becomes, in a free society, a trade-off.”

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Brazil and Frammolino reported from Atlanta, Newton from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Robert L. Jackson in Washington and Eric Harrison and researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Making the Games Safe

An enormous security operation has been undertaken at the Centennial Olympic Games. It will continue to rely on high-tech gadgetry and a bit of deception to keep an eye on activities. In the wake of the bomb in Centennial Olympic Park, some additional measures will be taken.

New Measures

* Almost immediately after the 1:25 a.m. bombing heavily armed soldiers are deployed to competition venues. As Games resume, ticket holders are greeted by tougher and lengthier security checks.

* Centennial Olympic Park is barricaded and surrounding streets are patrolled by federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.

* Metal detectors are turned up to point that coins in people’s pockets were setting them off.

* Authorities tighten net around the games, increasing patrols in what was already an extraordinary exhibition of security.

* Venues protected by heavily armed soldiers. Sentries with machine guns guard gates and patrolled buildings.

* Athletes to submit to searches by hand-held metal detectors before being allowed into competition sites.

* Hundreds of security personnel examine each Olympic site, a precaution likely to be repeated for the rest of the events.

* More oversight on the mass transit system, with personnel checking trash containers and alert to suspicious-looking persons.

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Total cost: $227 million

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The Security Force

14,000 U.S. Army troops, assigned such tasks as checking cars entering parking garages as well as non-military duties such as driving buses and watering lawns.

* 10,000 private security guards, staffing security check points for the main media center, sports venues and other Olympic sites.

* 4,500 public safety personnel with SOLEC, the State of Georgia Olympic Law Enforcement Command, assigned to protect state-owned venues under SOLEC’s direction.

* 1,500 members of the Atlanta Police Department.

* About 1,100 foreign law enforcement volunteers assigned to help guard sports venues in central Atlanta.

* 1,000 FBI agents.

Canine Contributors

Bomb-sniffing dogs are brought on various sites, including athelete’s village, parking lots and other venues.

Ongoing Precautions

Surveillance Booths

At least 35 portable security booths are stationed at various sites. They can be raised to 20 feet in seconds.

Army helicopters: Carry infrared radars to track night movements in key areas.

Night vision goggles: For military personnel guarding the Olympic Village.

Bomb defusion: Two centers to detonate or defuse bombs.

Chemical or germ-weapon detection gear: Will be on standby to be deployed if needed.

Screening Devices

In high-security areas, a machine reads the hand characteristics of someone attempting to enter. It compares the information to a master measurement embedded in a microchip stored on the person’s ID card. A perfect match is required to gain access.

Surveillance cameras: Controlled by an operator at a command post miles away. They can provide a 360-degree field of vision, or focus on a particular individual. In some areas, the cameras will be obvious. In others, they will be concealed inside objects such as street lamps.

Blimp Patrol

It will feed video of ground activities to the city of Atlanta command center. The blimp is piloted by Tristano Caracciolo, who flew over the Los Angeles Games.

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Has placed on alert 25 specially equipped trucks that would support their command post with water, satellite links, generators and telephone equipment.

Researched by EDITH STANLEY and PATRICK McDONNELL / Los Angeles Times