President Clinton has been warned repeatedly by the Secret Service to curtail his morning jogs around Washington because there's only so much protection even a phalanx of agents can provide on city streets.
The events of last Monday, however, cast doubt on how safe a president is even in his bedroom. Fortunately, the family was spending the night across the street at Blair House while repairs were being made to the White House air conditioning system, and the Clintons were in no danger from the small plane that crashed onto the South Lawn.White House security was a topic President Bush discussed with us during an interview back in 1989. Dismissing concerns raised by security experts that the White House has little defense against airborne suicide attacks, Bush told us:
"You're talking with a man who is old enough to remember the kamikaze pilots of World War II . . . whose ship was attacked by such pilots. So I remember it personally and vividly, and I know what damage someone intent on sacrificing one's own life can do driving a plane."
Yet, he said confidently, "I am satisfied, without going into any detail, that the security of the White House is adequate. . . . Put it this way, I feel secure when I come to work every day."
Although politically motivated terrorism remains a threat, the acts of a lone lunatic can be just as dangerous. Such was the case on George Washington's birthday in 1974, when an unemployed Philadelphia man tried to hijack a plane at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He intended to crash-dive it into the White House. After firing his way onto the plane, killing two people, the man was wounded by a guard's bullet. He then turned the gun on himself.
Samuel Joseph Byck described his plan, which he called "Operation Pandora Box," in a tape that he recorded more than a month before the attempted hijacking. Just hours before his date with destiny, Byck mailed the tape to us.
"Whoever dies in Project Pandora Box will be directly attributable to Watergate scandals," Byck told us on the tape. "By guise, threats or trickery, I hope to force the pilot to buzz the White House - I mean, sort of dive towards the White House. When the plane is in this position, I will shoot the pilot and then in the last few minutes try to steer the plane into the target, which is the White House."
Weeks before the bizarre episode, Byck planned his suicide attack. Alone in his room, he began recording his scheme on Jan. 14, 1974, and concluded his hourlong tape nine days later. "I don't know what you can do with it," he said, "but it'll be a tape and there won't be any 18-minute inoperative beeps."