N.Y. Braces for Security Nightmare 2000

Four decades ago, a gathering of world leaders here was a security nightmare.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro stalked out of the Hotel Shelburne and threatened to sleep outdoors because his entourage couldn’t pluck and cook chickens in their rooms. Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table at the United Nations, stirring passions. And the presence of both men brought anti-Communist demonstrators into the streets.

But more important, faced with the presence of the two volatile leaders and dozens of other dignitaries, federal agencies and New York’s police formulated a security plan that to a large degree remains intact today.

That plan, updated after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, will be severely tested when heads of state and government from more than 155 countries convene here today for the U.N. Millennium Summit.

The security shield will be immense, befitting what is being billed as the largest meeting of world leaders in history.

To the consternation of many New Yorkers, acres of Manhattan will be stripped of all traffic for the three-day summit. Planners anticipate that as many as 175 motorcades totaling 1,300 vehicles will require additional street closings.

Leaders will stay not only at their nations’ missions but at numerous hotels and private homes, prompting a huge 24-hour deployment of protection. Many of the dignitaries have other events on their agendas, requiring security forces to be highly flexible.

In a preview of what lies ahead, one set of bodyguards traveled Tuesday to the Asia Society on Park Avenue with Mongolian President Natsagiin Bagabandi, who viewed an exhibit on his nation’s culture; another traveled to the Bronx Zoo, where President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo visited the Congo Gorilla Forest.

More than 6,000 police have been assigned to the summit along with thousands of federal agents. Permits have been issued for at least 91 demonstrations.

On Tuesday, a coalition of Jewish groups angered at Iran’s recent conviction of 10 Jews on charges of spying for Israel held a protest outside the U.N., as did members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, who were angered by the presence in New York of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

Outraged at Castro’s attendance here after the return to Cuba in June of 6-year-old castaway Elian Gonzalez, exiles from Miami pledged that they would travel to New York to join demonstrations outside the world body and the Cuban mission.

Later in the week, Castro’s supporters plan a tribute to him at Manhattan’s Riverside Church. Police could face the dicey task of separating pro- and anti-Castro demonstrators.

In a pre-summit security briefing last week, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made his feelings clear: He accused Castro of being a “murderer” but pledged to protect him.

After a Secret Service security survey, key summit meetings of the leaders were shifted from the ornate Economic and Social Council chamber on the second floor of U.N. headquarters to cramped and far less elegant basement conference rooms.

The chamber was deemed vulnerable to a possible truck bombing, and Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive--a key commuter highway alongside the building--would have had to be closed.

As part of the security shield, police parked patrol cars on the edge of the highway to inspect and remove any vehicles that stop near U.N. headquarters. A flotilla of police launches and Coast Guard craft is anchored in the East River nearby as an additional precaution.

Before the summit, planners with the New York Police Department intelligence division ranked the leaders according to risk of facing protests--or worse. Castro is one of 18 regarded as at high risk, and he will receive increased protection.

Presidents Jiang Zemin of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat also fit the high-risk category.

Some of the motorcades requiring the highest security will include special armored vans containing emergency service police armed with heavy weapons. The officers, wearing body armor, will be seated in swivel chairs so that they can lay down a broad pattern of fire in case of attack.

As part of the preparations, the intelligence division--working closely with the State Department and the Secret Service--added an Albanian-born officer and several detectives with Middle Eastern backgrounds.

The massive summit comes just as the NYPD--the nation’s largest police department, with more than 40,000 members--has a new commissioner, Bernard Kerik, and faces multiple challenges in addition to the meeting at the United Nations. These include protecting the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, the MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall later this week and the sixth annual State of the World Forum in Manhattan.

The forum gathering Thursday at the Hilton New York will include more than 500 leaders of finance, labor, science and government, ranging from former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, former head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Clearly, the planning for this week’s summit has come a long way from the pre-computer era in 1960, when officers wrote on a blackboard the whereabouts of Castro, Khrushchev and the other world leaders in attendance.

The threat of chemical and biological terrorism has brought new methods and concerns. But the NYPD is an organization that depends in large degree on historical memory. The lessons learned 40 years ago--including quick mobile response of reserves, extra security at the missions of countries of concern and detailed tracking through checkpoints while motorcades are en route--remain cornerstones of current procedures.

Discussions about providing protection for this gathering “started over a year ago,” said Emmett Nelson, the U.N.’s assistant chief of security. “We never had so many heads of state visit at one time.”