Security Tightened in State

Military and civilian officials throughout California imposed extraordinary security measures Tuesday designed for wartime while attempting to prevent the spread of panic.

Military bases went to Threat Condition Delta, the highest alert level, and all nonessential personnel were told to stay home.

While military officials were tight-lipped, routine maneuvers took on new and ominous potential. F-18 Hornet attack aircraft, guided by E-2 surveillance planes, patrolled the coast, and ships were sent to sea rather than remain in harbor.

Combat troops were on alert for possible deployment.

The state’s three major cities put armed guards around key locations: in Los Angeles at government and transportation centers, in San Diego at military bases and in San Francisco at landmark buildings and cultural institutions.

Throughout the state, government offices were closed, downtown high-rises were evacuated, and extra police were put on street duty.

“We have talked with the FBI and the Sheriff’s Department, and we have not been able to identify any credible threat against the city of Los Angeles,” said Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. “We want to reassure everyone that all is safe.”

Four police helicopters were deployed to circle Los Angeles throughout the day, and fire and police departments were on tactical alert.

In Westwood, a score of FBI agents wearing bulletproof vests and brandishing shotguns surrounded the federal complex at Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue.

The Los Angeles Urban Search and Rescue Task Force prepared to help New York emergency personnel.

Fire department officials said 64 people, including doctors, paramedics and firefighters, would be sent to New York.

In San Diego, which has the nation’s largest complex of military installations with 100,000 active-duty personnel and 30,000 civilians, city police joined with military police to stand guard at access points to various bases.

An erroneous TV report that the carrier Constellation, on its way back to San Diego after six months in the Persian Gulf, was being redirected back to the gulf brought a flood of calls from tearful relatives.

San Diego Deputy Mayor George Stevens, a Baptist minister, called for a day of prayer.

The Coast Guard restricted access to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and to San Diego Bay. Boats were allowed to leave but could not return until they were boarded and searched.

At the Point Mugu naval base in Ventura, nonessential personnel were allowed to stay home. But Diane Bidwell, a civilian employee who runs the global positioning system, which can help detect enemy craft approaching, was called to work.

“It’s all so devastating,” Bidwell said. “I think most people are just in a panic.”

At Beale Air Force Base, which houses the nation’s fleet of military U-2 spy planes on a web of runways 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, spokesmen were battling a report that the installation had some early warning of the attack.

The rumor cropped up after a radio traffic reporter in Sacramento said on a morning broadcast that, 36 hours before the blast, the air base had gone from a defense condition of alpha, the lowest level, to the next step up, bravo.

Master Sgt. Tim Helton, Beale’s public affairs superintendent, said that the condition status changed over the weekend simply because the base was participating in a national military exercise, not because of a warning.

Outside an office building in San Diego that had all but emptied, environmental analyst Dustin Fuller said his initial fear was allayed by news that military personnel are on heightened alert.

“I’m feeling less concerned with all the security and military and heightened security,” said Fuller.

Then a co-worker suggested that having military bases nearby could make San Diego a target.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Fuller said.