KWAME HOLMAN: Pennsylvania Avenue sweeps majestically away from Congress’s home in the capital past some of Washington’s finest buildings to the President’s front door, the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Inaugural parades with their chief executives have traveled this route so many times it’s been called the Avenue of Presidents.
PEOPLE SINGING: We shall overcome someday.
KWAME HOLMAN: It also is known as America’s main street because Americans have gathered here to protest wars, march against abortion, and in support of civil rights. And over the years, up to 26,000 vehicles a day streamed along the two-block stretch of the avenue in front of the White House. At the center of a bustling city, it was a major East-West thoroughfare. Eugene Watson has driven a taxi in Washington for 25 years.
EUGENE WATSON, Cab Driver: In front of the White House on a special weekend during tour season is where you pick up a lot of fares, even though they don’t have a cab stand there, but you can always get a fare in front of the White House. There’s always business there.
KWAME HOLMAN: But all that changed just over a year ago. In the wake of the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, the section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed to vehicles. Assistant Treasury Secretary of Enforcement James Johnson is responsible for White House security and says the decision to close Pennsylvania Avenue was made by the President, himself, after an exhaustive security review, a review that was underway before the Oklahoma City bombing.
JAMES JOHNSON, Treasury Department: The Oklahoma City blast simply confirmed what we already knew, is that a car bomb, a large car bomb placed in a busy public area could have devastating and wide reaching impact, and there is probably no busier, no more public area than the area in and around the White House.
KWAME HOLMAN: Is the White House and the President, are they now safe from an Oklahoma City style attack?
SEC. JAMES JOHNSON: Yes, they are.
KWAME HOLMAN: As a result of closing the avenue?
SEC. JAMES JOHNSON: Yes, they are.
KWAME HOLMAN: Federal officials will not discuss specific security threats but say there’s ample evidence that the White House might be a target. They point to two recent incidents--the bombing of a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia and the arrest of 12 militia members in Arizona for possession of illegal arms and bomb-making material. Secretary Johnson uses transcripts from the recent World Trade Center bombing trial to make his point.
SEC. JAMES JOHNSON: Sheikh Omar Rahman and nine of his followers were convicted in New York for plotting a terrorist campaign against New York. The Sheikh exhorted his followers to target prominent national monuments, to target the places where the nation’s--the United States’ leaders reside. And that’s this White House. That is where the nation can be most vulnerable to a large scale car bomb attack.
SPOKESPERSON: There would be no restrictions to any kind of activity that people wanted to have happen. You know, right now--
KWAME HOLMAN: After the closure, the National Park Service drew up a plan to beautify the area in front of the White House. The $40 million design includes a pedestrian mall with new fountains, broader sidewalks, and a curved, narrow roadway for the inaugural parade. But Senator Rod Grams, Republican of Minnesota, says closing the avenue was an overreaction, and it should be reopened.
SEN. ROD GRAMS, (R) Minnesota: I think this was used--Oklahoma City was used an excuse, a knee jerk reaction, and when people come here and see that their White House is now somehow fortified between ugly concrete barriers and manned with armed guards and vehicles and dogs and patrols, this isn’t what we should be reflecting to the rest of the world.
KWAME HOLMAN: Washington Mayor Marion Barry went to Capitol Hill to tell Congress his financially troubled city has been dealt another blow by the sudden closure of the avenue.
MAYOR MARION BARRY, Washington, D.C.: And when businesses lose income in that immediate area, the district loses tax income. The Pennsylvania Avenue area is an important business area, a very important business district. And closing Pennsylvania Avenue is an obstacle to transforming the district in terms of trying to keep businesses in our city.
KWAME HOLMAN: And though he’s no expert, cab driver Watson believes closing Pennsylvania Avenue does not provide greater security for the President.
EUGENE WATSON: People are walking through there now. You know, cars wasn’t doing anything. It seems to me there was more protection when they had the street open.
KWAME HOLMAN: Neil Livingstone is a counter-terrorism expert. He has worked on security issues for corporate executives and is the author of several books on terrorism.
NEIL LIVINGSTONE, Security Expert: You know, when you had traffic out here on Pennsylvania Avenue, it formed a natural barrier to fence jumpers and so on. They’d have to dodge the traffic in order to get over the fence.
KWAME HOLMAN: Livingstone says the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue also will not prevent incidents like the pilot who crashed his small plane into the South lawn of the White House in September of 1994 or gunman Francisco Durand, who just six weeks later fired 27 rounds from an AK-47 at the White House before being subdued by passing tourists.
NEIL LIVINGSTONE: You see the guard shack right here, this is where most of the security presence is. They’re inside. They’re very insulated from what’s going on out here. And in the case of Mr. Durand, there was no one along here at all, and so as a consequence, it took two tourists that had to jump him and pull him to the ground as he was reloading his weapon. Uh, I think we need more security around the White House, and we should open up the avenue again.
SEC. JAMES JOHNSON: We do have more uniformed officers, uh, and we are concerned with something more than a lone gunman. The most devastating attack would be the attack of a car bomb, and leaving the avenue open would not prevent such an attack.
KWAME HOLMAN: Congress first must approve any spending for the Park Service plan, and some members are fighting to block it. Sen. Grams is author of a non-binding resolution calling for an immediate reopening of the avenue.
SEN. ROD GRAMS: I think we’ve got enough parks in Washington, D.C. We don’t have to put another one out in front of the White House.
KWAME HOLMAN: Predictably, Johnson and Grams also disagree on whether blocking off the avenue creates greater access for the more than 1 million people who come to see the White House each year.
SEC. JAMES JOHNSON: There are children that walk across the avenue and still visit the White House. There are all sorts of people that can walk through and around the avenue, and tourism and visitation to the White House remains the same. So the people’s house is still the people’s house.
SEN. ROD GRAMS: Closing Pennsylvania Avenue has cut off all access for those tour buses, people who come to Washington, can’t stop, but a big thing for them has been able to drive by the White House and at least wave and see where their President lives. So, no, this hasn’t created more access for the American public.
KWAME HOLMAN: Visitors to the White House also seem to be split on the issue.
SYLVIA CROOK, Tourist: It’s kind of a hazard to walk across the street if there’s a bunch of traffic on there.
LARRY CROOK, Tourist: I understand wanting better car access. If that makes a big traffic jam by closing it off and by rerouting it--it would definitely be nicer for tourists to be here.
AFSOON NAMINI, Washington, D.C. Resident: They’ve been able to protect the President with or without this being blocked or not, so I don’t--I feel like it’s unnecessary; uh, however, I do enjoy having this part of the road for rollerblading, but I think it would be more convenient for me to be able to drive on this.
KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. Grams works at the Capitol, a building ringed by its own security. Police check all vehicles entering the grounds, and visitors to the building must go through metal detectors and security searches. And like Pennsylvania Avenue, several streets around the Senate Office Building where Grams works are closed to traffic.
SEN. ROD GRAMS: So we don’t practice what we’ve been preaching, so, no, we’re going to be looking at these other areas and trying to get greater accessibility around the buildings, the Senate Office Buildings, et cetera, because we don’t think that closing these streets represents the democracy that we’re so proud of.
KWAME HOLMAN: But security officials say they consider the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to be essentially permanent, and the only person with the authority to reopen it is the President, himself.