If that isn’t enough to jangle your nerves, watching the broadcast media will unsettle even the coolest customer. Various outlets seem to be competing as to who can come up with the most phantasmagoric scenario. “Nightline” guaranteed viewers a sleepless night with a chilling account of how an anthrax attack evolves day by day. The program created a scenario in which a small group of terrorist commandos break open vials of the deadly bacteria and sprinkle it on the tracks of the Washington Metro. Three days later, area emergency rooms are overwhelmed with victims, the death toll is 25,000 and the city is in a state of anarchy as desperate citizens loot pharmacies in hopes of finding scarce stores of vaccines and antibiotics.
The media have gotten criticism for providing terrorists a road map to where Americans are most vulnerable. “Nightline” moderator Ted Koppel acknowledged the unease of some viewers, but defended his broadcast on the grounds that the program wasn’t telling terrorists anything they didn’t already know.
Threats that now loom so large have been around for some time, but law-enforcement authorities didn’t always advertise them. It was a judgment call–based partly on instinct and partly on intelligence–as to what threats were real and credible and whether it was useful to alert the American public. In the months leading up to the millennium celebrations, the Clinton administration learned of the possibility of terrorist attacks against Americans abroad and at home. The FBI was worried enough at one point to advocate going public with its concerns. Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart remembers top FBI officials at a White House meeting making their case for advising people about the danger.
Lockhart knew that sounding the alarm would shut down the millennial events planned around the country. He also realized that part of the impetus for making such raw FBI intelligence public was self-protection for the FBI, the president–and even for himself. “The investigative authorities knew if something did happen, there would be a witch hunt,” says Lockhart. “People would say: ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’” In the end, the plots were foiled by the FBI and the CIA, and the country enjoyed a safe transition into the new century. But Lockhart came away with a lesson he thinks applies to the current situation. “We can paralyze this country without another plane and without another bomb,” he says. “We have to trust our law-enforcement officials to decide between what’s a real and credible threat and raw intelligence you can’t draw conclusions from. If we get into the situation where there’s a threat a day, nobody will want to leave their house.”
Lockhart readily concedes that the challenges he faced as a White House spokesman–scandals, impeachment, a potential constitutional crisis–pale next to what the Bush administration is handling in its campaign against terrorism. But he passes along a piece of communications advice that the Clinton White House didn’t always follow: “embrace dissent, and not castigate dissent.” He notes that California Rep. Barbara Lee now travels with armed guards as consequence of casting the lone dissenting vote against the use of force in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Lockhart thinks Bush should have invited Lee to the White House and said, ‘What makes this country great is the fact that you can cast this vote, and we’re OK with it’."
For a party philosophically committed to lessening the government’s role in American life, the notion of federalizing airline security is a bitter pill for Republicans. President Bush supports more federal oversight, but stops short of full federalization. Democrats who favor turning the security operation over to the Feds expect there will be converts to their cause now that members have gone home and heard from their constituents over the Columbus Day weekend. New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt represents one of the toughest-to-win swing districts for a Democrat in the country. He says. “Ninety nine out of every 100 people that I talk to say, ‘Of course, we have to put the federal government behind airline security,’ including people who have never had a fond thing to say about the federal government or government workers. They take it as a given that it’s the only way to restore trust.” House Speaker Denny Hastert is thought to be sympathetic to federalization and has rebuffed an end-run by House Republicans to block such a bill. If Hastert permits a vote, federalization is likely to pass. Americans, apparently, are willing to put aside their own fears of big government, too: Polls show that 67 percent of the public “trusts government to do what’s right,” the highest number since 1962.
