More Troops Sent to Atlanta as Bomb Threats Increase

Authorities reported a growing number of bomb threats at the Olympics on Sunday as the Georgia National Guard mobilized more troops and investigators indicated that the person who exploded a pipe bomb at the Games the day before might be an American.

“Bomb threat calls have increased,” Atlanta Police Chief Beverly Harvard said. She did not have specific numbers. But William Rathburn, chief of Olympics security, said there were “a lot,” and the Georgia National Guard said it was sending an additional infantry battalion to the Games to help handbag-searchers, metal-detector operators and guards.

The threats came one day after a pipe bomb exploded during a rock concert at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. The bomb was filled with nails and screws. It hurled shrapnel hundreds of yards and killed a Georgia woman. A Turkish television cameraman suffered a fatal heart attack, and 111 other spectators were injured.

There were three indications that authorities suspected a home-grown bomber.

* They said a caller who warned a 911 operator about the bomb sounded like a “white American male with an indistinguishable accent.”

* David Tubbs, an FBI special agent, said the agency was trying to compare fragments “to bombs that have been built over the years in our country.”

* A senior law enforcement official in Washington, who asked to remain anonymous, said FBI agents were calling the device a “Bubba bomb.”

This means, the senior official said, that the agents suspect a right-wing malcontent, probably with some military experience. The official added that authorities expect to make a breakthrough “fairly easily” and “probably shortly,” very likely within a few days.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie S. Gorelick said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that the FBI had “some very good leads.” When she was asked whether the agency had suspects, Gorelick replied: “We have descriptions of people. We have information. We do not have concrete suspects, as I would term that, right now.”

Gorelick said that she saw “absolutely no connection” between the Olympic bombing and the apparent bombing of TWA Flight 800 two weeks ago.

In Atlanta, Tubbs told reporters that hundreds of federal agents and police officers have gathered “a significant amount of evidence” about the Olympic explosion. The investigators, Tubbs said, were reviewing photographs and videotapes offered by spectators at the rock concert.

In addition, Tubbs said, the investigators were reviewing tapes from about four surveillance cameras that were focused on the crowd before and during the blast.

Based on witness accounts, Tubbs said, the FBI was developing several composite sketches of a man who made a call before the bombing from a pay telephone near a Day’s Inn, about two blocks away.

“However,” he said, the sketches “are not to be released at this time until we have further evaluated the information.

“We believe we have a number of significant leads that we are following, and our attempt is to determine the value of those leads before we go to the public. . . . We are trying to narrow everything down before we take that step.”

*

He added, nonetheless, that “the assumption would be pretty strong” that the telephone caller was the same person who left the pipe bomb in a green knapsack near the back of the crowd at the rock concert.

“At this point,” Tubbs said, “no one has claimed responsibility.”

The growing number of bomb threats, Harvard said, is tying up many of her officers. “The frequency of calls that we’re receiving . . . have increased. I’m notified whenever we get one, and my beeper is certainly going off more than before.

“All of them are followed up on. . . . It does tie up personnel. . . . They are not situations you handle and leave immediately.”

To assist with the need for more security, state officials said that they were sending the 121st Battalion of the Georgia National Guard from Macon to Atlanta. The troops would help the police, the officials said, as well as security guards at Olympic venues.

They are expected to arrive today.

About 4,000 Georgia National Guard troops have been deployed daily to help with security during the Games. The Macon battalion would add several hundred troops to that contingent.

Things have “not returned to normal,” said Rathburn, the Olympic security chief, as he paced around the Olympic Stadium, checking on added safety measures. “There are a lot of bomb threats and suspicious packages that are being found.”

Rathburn said he had no precise count, but he said none of the packages was turning out to contain explosives.

*

Nonetheless, Olympics officials said, total attendance was at 95%. Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, called it an Olympics record.

“Never before,” he said, “have so many people attended.”

A.D. Frazier, chief operating officer for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, or ACOG, said the event would finish in the black financially.

Additional costs for extra security, Frazier said, are not expected to affect profits. He noted that a $30-million contingency fund had been built into the budget.

The park where the bombing occurred was expected to reopen Tuesday, Frazier said. Security will be increased sharply, he said, adding that the number of guards will be doubled, bags will be searched at random and “observation points” will be established to increase safety.

In addition, Frazier said, the park will have more “observation technology”--presumably video cameras.

Gary McConnell, director of the state Office of Law Enforcement Command, a joint task force that coordinates security, brushed aside questions about the legality of subjecting people to searches in a public place.

“We will comply with the proper laws,” McConnell said.

Despite the additional security, Frazier said, officials are determined to maintain a sense of openness in the park, which was conceived as a grand public space for Olympic visitors and Atlanta residents who do not have tickets to sports events.

“Centennial Olympic Park is not, and was never intended to be, an Olympic competition venue with all the security measures that pertain thereto,” Frazier said. “Access is controlled on its perimeter only to the degree required for orderly crowd movement. . . .

“The tragic attack which took place on Saturday morning could have occurred in any public place. . . . The fact that it occurred in this place, which has been embraced so ardently by all, has resulted not only in outrage but also in a resounding public demand that the park be reopened in the same fashion originally envisioned.”

This, Frazier said, would be “a statement that an act of terrorism cannot and will not break the spirit of freedom and participation which heretofore existed.”

At venues for the Games, security tightened noticeably.

Spectators at the tennis matches, for instance, were already accustomed to having their shoulder bags and purses opened. But they are now being asked to take everything out. Most electrical devices, such as cellular phones, computers and even beepers, not only are being checked but also are being turned on.

“Because of Monica Seles, it’s always been tough here [at tennis],” said William Joy, an ACOG security official. In April 1993, Seles, the U.S. star and top-seeded player in the women’s singles draw at the Olympics, was stabbed in the back by a German spectator during a break at a match in Hamburg. She missed nearly two years on the professional tour.

At the rowing venue north of Atlanta, Joy said he found crowds experiencing, and understanding, long security delays. “Our security people were apologizing up there all day, but people seemed to know what had to be done.”

Local radio broadcasts praised the ingenuity of security officers at the volleyball venue, in the heart of the crowded Olympic ring at the Omni Hotel. While spectators waited in long lines to have their bags emptied and inspected, they were led in a sing-along.

Entering the Omni was a special headache because it was declared off limits to most vehicular traffic. Dignitaries from the IOC and other sports federations were forced to walk as far as three blocks, carrying their own luggage.

*

Security was tightened as well at the Georgia Dome, but it remained somewhat subject to whim. The facility was swept for bombs, but guards were sporadic about requiring reporters to turn on cameras and computers.

At the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, where 80,000 attended a U.S.-Cuba baseball showdown, the scoreboard flashed an announcement: “Please Do Not Leave Personal Items Unattended.”

Several spectators said security was not unusual--a fairly quick look through bags.

One woman, however, said her camera case was searched thoroughly.

“They looked at my camera, my slippers, my son’s medicine,” said Maureen Moss of Rockmart, Ga. “But we expected that.”

Harrison reported from Atlanta; Wright from Washington. Times staff writers Jeff Brazil, Ralph Frammolino, Robyn Norwood, Mike Kupper, Mark Heisler and Bill Dwyre in Atlanta, Eleanor Randolph in New York City and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

* ANTI-TERRORISM EFFORTS

Despite successes in solving crimes, efforts to prevent terrorism come up short. A17

* OLYMPIC TERROR NOVEL

Ben Sherwood’s novel “Red Mercury” is about nuclear terrorism at Atlanta Olympics. E3