U.S. Companies Ratcheting Up Security in Overseas Locales

As visitors pull up to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, they encounter three uniformed guards with rifles slung over their shoulders. Each vehicle is searched before it can proceed onto hotel grounds.

Guests must pass through a metal detector before entering the main lobby. Their luggage is searched. Their identification is reviewed at the check-in desk.

Such taut security reflects a new reality and an uncertain future for thousands of American companies with business abroad. As the world awaits the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, these companies have put themselves on high security alert, bracing for possible anti-American repercussions.

Since Sept. 11, businesses with far-flung operations have been forced to reassess what constitutes adequate security. Some are for the first time hiring armed guards, buying armored vehicles, evacuating nonessential employees and stocking safe houses for key executives.

Many more are hiring security consultants who provide everything from private intelligence services to paramilitary escorts if companies are forced to shut down and remove their personnel from a trouble spot.

Companies integral to the global economy find themselves with the daunting task of safeguarding employees, customers and facilities in scores of countries. And now they have to prepare for elusive attackers who have demonstrated the mobility and logistical skill to attack two of the biggest landmarks in America.

Experts say corporate icons, with names known around the globe, are choice targets for terrorists who already have singled out symbols of American wealth and might--the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

McDonald’s Corp., Eastman Kodak Co., Coca-Cola Co., Dow Chemical Co., Chevron Corp. and others declined to discuss their precautions, saying that could compromise their security or call additional attention to overseas operations.

“We don’t share information about security measures, terrorists or no terrorists,” said a spokesman for Bechtel Group, a large international construction firm.

But other companies, and some security consultants, agreed to discuss how they are preparing for the future.

Few companies have more overseas facilities than Bethesda, Md.-based Marriott International Inc., which manages and franchises more than 300 hotels in 59 countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And few may have more experience with instability elsewhere in the world.

It was on a Marriott hotel roof in Panama that U.S. troops landed when they tried to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega in 1989. For their own protection, some guests were dressed as staff and others were hidden in clothes dryers as Noriega’s troops later swept through the hotel.

Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the company executed its crisis plan.

“Within an hour or so, we had our international hotels at a threat condition, which increases the security,” said Alan Orlob, the Marriott vice president overseeing its international security measures.

The company designates three levels of threat conditions--blue, yellow and red, the highest. “The lowest level is designed not to have an impact on the guest,” said Orlob, a veteran of the special forces. “Some of our hotels are at red, and most are at yellow.”

Orlob would not specify the precautions taken under red or yellow conditions.

Some companies have started evacuating or relocating overseas employees in anticipation of a U.S. military action that could trigger retaliation from Muslim extremists. General Motors Corp. has moved about a dozen employees and their families from the Middle East to Europe.

Singapore-based International SOS Assistance Inc. helped remove some of its clients, which it declined to identify, from Oman, Pakistan and Ukraine after Sept. 11 and has received inquiries about evacuations from other overseas clients, company officials said.

Corporate Risk International in Fairfax, Va., is preparing emergency evacuation plans for clients who have people in Egypt, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

“All but vital employees are being pulled out of a number of countries,” said Neil Livingstone, chief executive of Global Options in Washington, a security firm whose advisory board includes former CIA Director James Woolsey.

Some companies are purchasing their own boats and aircraft for speedy evacuation, said Jerry Hoffman, an executive with Armor Holdings Inc., another worldwide security firm.

Other firms maintain guarded, secret safe houses in high-risk areas but more frequently use safe rooms in executives’ homes. Such rooms feature steel-fortified walls and may include multiple communications systems with direct links to corporate command centers.

“In certain areas of Latin America and Africa, among senior corporate people, almost 100% have a safe room within their home,” Hoffman said.

Companies are reluctant to evacuate because there can be an irreversible impact on business.

“What if you pull out?” said Henry Nocella, former security chief at Bestfoods and now a consultant.

“Do you close your plant? If you don’t, who is going to run it? Are there concerns about a foreign country nationalizing your assets?”

Most companies and consultants contacted by The Times said they are trying to continue normal business operations while preparing for potential trouble.

In London, security has long been tight after years of Irish Republican Army bombings. But since Sept. 11, “the level of anxiety and general tension is much higher,” said an executive with J.P. Morgan who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Now you don’t know what or where or when.

“If there were another event, particularly in London, you are sure to see a massive rush back to the homeland everywhere,” the executive added.

Some companies have been adding bodyguards for executives and armed guards for their facilities.

“Where we once provided unarmed security, we are being asked for armed security,” said Ed McDonald, operations chief for Worldwide Security Services Ltd., which provides security for U.S. corporations in West Africa and the Asia Pacific region. “We’re getting it from all of our customers. Does it address the real concern? No. But does it provide the level of comfort? Yes.”

A number of security companies shy away from armed security for safety and liability reasons.

David Samuels, head of security firm IPSA International Inc.’s office in New York, said hiring armed escorts or paramilitary members for evacuees is not generally wise.

“If you have armed people moving in an area of conflict, if you introduce a third force you have made a bad situation catastrophic,” Samuels said.

For oil companies, however, armed security often is a way of life. Some get protection from host governments or are permitted to have their own heavily armed squad.

Analysts say the worldwide security industry--pegged at $62 billion in annual revenue by investment bank Bear, Stearns & Co.--will grow by leaps and bounds.

But economists suggest that the obsession with security generated by the current crisis might prove self-defeating economically if it becomes a permanent fixture of global business.

“Enhanced security will slow down the process of business. It will slow down the movement of information, the movement of goods and services, and, as a result, it will lower American incomes,” said Peter Morici, senior fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, a Washington think tank.

“Expenses will be higher, income will be lower and prices in stores will be higher,” he said. “Overall, we’ll be worse off.”

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Times staff writers Tyler Marshall in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Marjorie Miller in London and researcher Emmanuelle Soichet in London contributed to this report.