BUNKER DIPLOMACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201090002-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 21, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 23, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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MEDIASCAN TRANSCRIPT
ABC 20/20
23 February 1984
Thursday
MODERATOR: Hugh Downs
tEPORTER: Sylvia Chase
iUBJECT: BUNKER DIPLOMACY
)OWNS: Right now there are more than 6,000 American diplomats in danger around_
the world. Tonight we want to tell you the dimensions of that danger and we
cant to tell you what the government is doing to protect those American
iiplomats. There was plenty of talk about terrorism in President Reagan's
televised news conference last night, which focused on -one of the most critical
trouble spots in the world--Lebanon. This week U.S.~Marines began pulling -
back from Lebanon to the safety of warships offshore. But 200 Marines will be
Left in Beirut to protect the embassy there, which has been evacuated of all
but essential personnel. Tonight, with a report on the hazards our diplomats
Eace everywhere from terroists, and the new_.defenses_ against those hazards, here
Ls Sylvia Chase. Sylvia. .- -
CHASEc .Hugh, I was in Beirut working on tonight's report just before that
embassy evacuation and although the State Department has .active security -
systems in place, we learned in our .report that the -United. States is struggling
to keep up with the terrorist challenge, especially the mew threat posed by
suicide truck bombs. We begin with a look.a_t_another. high-risk embassy closer
to home than Lebanon.
CHASE: This is our embassy in El Salvador. It is an embassy that is on the
very highest alert. In fact, it looks more like a military base under seige
than a diplomatic post. Marines, protected by sandbag bunkers on the roof,
constantly scan the busy streets surround the embassy. They're responsible for
defending everything inside the embassy compound, under orders to shoot if
attacked. The building is constructed with bullet proof -glass and the windows
are piled high with sandbags on every floor. The wall, surrounding the
building, is 15 feet of reinforced concsete--and the Salvadoran guard that mans-
that post is on a 24-hour lookout. Mirrors are used to check every vehicle
that enters the embassy grounds for bombs. And every visitor who has business
inside must pass through a steel turnstile. STEVE ROBINSON (LIFE MAGAZINE):
Once the visitor got past the gates, at the inside of the embassy, was checked
out by Salvadoran personnel, which in almost every case involved are frisked,
they would move into a waiting room where they would present their papers or
whatever.
CHASE: As a Life Magazine reporter, Steve Robinson was one of the only
journalists ever to be given a first-hand look at the .security measures taken
inside this, or for that matter any, embassy. Based on photographs and his own
notes from that 1981 assignment, we asked him to illustrate what would happen if
the embassy faced a full scale attack. He said employees would have two
priorities--destruction of sensitive documents and evacuation. ROBINSON: As
you can see there's one floor that's completely closed off with bars. That's a
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secured floor that would really be a refuge in ,the event that the embassy was
really stormed. The Marines would instruct all the embassy personnel how to
put on their gas masks, where to assemble, what to do in the event that they
were told to gather up all sensitive.da.cuments and take them to the burn
barrels. All the embassy personnel would be hoisted up into the helicopters
and presumably whisked away to safety.
CHASE: Marines assigned to protect our embassies now get special training. -
This is a drill at a mock embassy at the Marine Guard Training School in
Quantico, Va., and this kind of exercise, learning to hold back violent
demonstrators, was intensified here after 1979, a year three embassies were
overrun by mobs. But the worst was yet to come. DR. ROBERT KUPPERMAN (CENTER
FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES): The terrorists of the 1970s, by and large, were not
very bright. They were interested in holding, along with the media helping
them,?holding lives in the balance. Today we see very very crude operations.
They're willing to kill a hell of a lot of people.
CHASE: And a lot of people have died. At our embassy in Beirut just last year
those crude operations first occurred. What happened here in Beirut on April
18, 1983, marked a beginning of a new kind of terrorism against American
embassies and American personnel--mobile bombs in cars or trucks driven by
individuals willing to die. It was an attack unexpected,. effective and
deadly. Sixty-three people died. One of the survivors of the attack was John
Reid. JOHN REID (FORMER BEIRUT EMBASSY STAFF): The first thing that I was
aware of was a tremendous flash. Everything in the office seemed to turn
light. I .didn't realize that the whole center section of the embassy had been
collapsed. It was just bedlam. It. was chaos. I don't think anybody expected
that somebody was going to drive a truck in there and kill himself tiying to
kill the rest of us. ~-
CHASE: To see how this new method of attack had been carried out we traced the
route taken by the suicide driver to discover just how he could have gotten
past what was supposed to have been the highest level of security. Back then
American Marines patrolled the embassy roof while below Lebanese troops guarded
the driveway surrounded by sandbags and barbwire. But in effect the entrance
itself was left wide open. No barriers were in place and the terrorist was
able to drive directly past the Lebanese guards and into the embassy's
midsection. The Americans were not adequately prepared and the host government
troops had simply not anticipated such an attack. GORDON HARVEY (STATE
DEPARTMENT OFFICE OF 'SECURITY): Right after the Beirut bombing we, again, went
to the host government and said this is obviously not the first time we've
expressed to them our concern about...about our security in their country and
we asked that they provide better protection for us along the perimeter of our
embassies, our office building, that they change traffic patterns so that -
vehicles will not have the same opportunity to either park near our buildings or
get a running start on them.
CHASE: Every American Embassy took immediate measures in an effort to stop the
suicide driver bomb threat. Here in Paris a simple system is used. After each
vehicle exits from the embassy, a staff car pulls in place to block off the
driveway. And outside the American Embassy in Rome another concern--a man
stood sketching the road system in front of the main entrance. When Italian
police asked what he was up to, he claimed he was drawing the scene of a recent
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car accident. This .is the type of suspicious incident embassy security guards
must look out for to try to prevent anyone from plotting the route for a
suicide driver.
CHASE: But a suicide driver was able to get through to our embassy in
Kuwait--something U.S. intelligence had been warning about for months. Now six
people were dead. PHILIP GRIFFIN (CHARGE D'AFFAIRES KUWAIT): An open truck,
moving at high speed, smashed through the gates of the embassy at approximately
9:30 a.m. and then it .detonated.
CHASE: It turned out that our embassy had made requests for money to improve
security there for three months prior to the bombing. Those requests were send
to Gordon Harvey in Washington. It sounds to me like what happened was the -
request for the improvements got tied up in red tape and I'm sure that
everybody here is very sorry that that happened. What steps have been taken
that that doesn't happen again? GORDON HARVEY (NO FURTHER IDENTIFICATION):
Since the Kuwait bombing we have put together a task force which meets every da~y?
and has considered all of the telegrams that come. A number of cables came in
after that requesting funds for additional improvements. We have approved them
all. DENNIS HAYS (FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION): It takes money. It takes
time to build these things. But what we're saying is let's do them and let's
do them as fast as we can because we can't afford another Ruwait, another
Beirut.
CHASE: So how do we stop the suicide truck bomber? As this test crash footage
illustrates, concrete barriers can stop a small truck. And n_ow a new
technology--steel, web shaped barriers built into the ground that are capable o
stopping even the largest trucks. The barriers are made here, outside Los
Angeles. They are driven by hydraulic arms that can raise the wedge from
ground level to 30 inches high in less than two seconds. The wall goes up
automatically if a vehicle approaches the embassy at high speed.
CHASE: Just last month outside the American Embassy in Rome, construction was
underwaq to set similiar steel barriers in place and when we returned there last
week the construction had already been completed. Three smaller wedges with
spaces for pedestrians to walk through were right there in place.
CHASE: And to keep back mob violence--stronger fences, anti-personnel barriers.
The manufacturer of a new kind of barbed wire demonstrated for us the ease with
which standard barbed wire can be crossed. Here at the *Man Barrier Factory in
Connecticut they manufacture miles of flexible metal with razor sharp barbs on
each side and when ~it is crossed the barbs will bend inwards and attack the
leg. They also make a product called "instant barrier". It allows an embassy
to pull it out only when it's needed, within dust a matter of minutes. The
State Department is already one of their biggest customers and we saw plenty of
their product used to channel people off the main street and away from our new
embassy in Beirut. GORDON HARVEY: The difficulty is that probably no two of
our buildings are the same. In one location (screen reference made to
Honduras) we have the ideal site to secure. We have the embassy in the middle
of the compound, we have space that's under our control, we have a high wall,
we have gates, we have systems that we can use to protect the site. In
another location, Damascus, our building's right on the street itself.
Everybody can drive by and they're 15 feet from the building. KUPPERMAN:
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Fundamentally you need some distance...considerable distance between a gate,
we'll say, and the building itself. If you have that you can put up tank
traps, you can put up barriers forcing people to go in, say, a zig zag path and
if they're suspicious at all, you know, you take them out literally...with a
small rocket.
CHASE: What .you are seeing is the security surrounding our new embassy in
Beirut. Americans moved here after last year's embassy bombing. And
even though most of the staff has now been evacuated, those 200 Marines are still
in place. Security here remains tighter than at any embassy in the world. The
street out front has been closed off to general traffic and all vehicles with
specific business here must be thoroughly inspected. The Marines have built a
bunker at the single entrance to the embassy and an amphibious tank provides
double protection there. Not only is the U.S. Embassy heavily guarded, but our
troops also man positions near the British Embassy just down the block. Here a
wire mesh net drapes the entire building to ward off grenade and mobile rocket
attacks. HAYS: We have taken a lot of steps to protect the ambassador. The
difficulty now is that because of this extra protection the terrorist have
changed their sights. And a terrorist says, 'if I can't get the ambassador then
I'll get the political officer. And if I can't get the political officer maybe
I'll go after the Marine guard'...whoever...whoever they can get. ~
CHASE: And if they can't get the Marine guard they go after a wife or child?
HAYS: I hope to God it doesn't come to that.
CHASE: At the State Department in Washington, a seminar for all Foreign Service
employees and their families. They're instructed how to drive through a
roadblock, how to recognize bombs, how to survive as a hostage--in effect, how
to prepare for the worst. AMBASSADOR STEPHEN LOW (FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE):
We suggest that they work out their legal problems, their particular signatures
are necessary, that they deal with insurance where payments may be necessary,
that they leave their papers in good order in known places and we give them a
whole list of the kinds of things they can do before they leave, while at their
post and if they are separated from their spouses.
CHASE: And listen to their question. What becomes clear is that members of
the Foreign Service are extremely concerned about their safety. UNIDENTIFIED
MALE SPEAKER: You say that the position of the U.S. government is that it will
not negotiate. What does that mean to me if I or a member of my family is
taken hostage.? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Why'does it take us so long to
close an embassy in a country that is obviously getting very heated? Why don't
we get out sooner before there's a tragedy?
CHASE: There are no easy answers. So today our diplomatic posts around the
world continue to do the only thing they can do--put their people through
elaborate security measures. Our embassies, once the very symbols of freedom
and openness to the rest of the world, have been forced into closing their
doors. HAYS: We're going to run out of embassies before they run out of
fanatics and we've got to look at the long run here. We've got to be...do what
we can to protect ourselves tomorrow and a year from now and 10 years from now
or else the diplomacy as we know it and as I think it has to be, is going to
fade away.
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CHASE: The security measures are very costly. This month we've learned the.
State Department is expected to ask Congress for millions more dollars to beef
up security. But the real cost may be to the image of America as an open,
effective nation. ~
DOWNS: And these incidences are no longer a matter of isolated zealots. Thes
are the acts of nations and they're operating under whole new rules.
CHASE: That's what the diplomatic sources say--that these bombs are too .
sophisticated to be an informal affair.
DOWNS: You know, when I think of it, I have to admire Americans who hold then
posts because there was a time when a lot of people considered an ambassadorsh
kind of soft duty. Would you accept an ambassadorship at this point?
CHASE: Well, the president hasn't asked me. But these people hold positions
of high honor and I think they deserve the best that we can afford to give the
DOWNS: I 'think so too. Thank you, Sylvia.
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