A Bomb in the Senate

THE man spoke in "a low, hard tone," recalled the operator on duty at the Capitol switchboard. His message was equally ominous: "This building will blow up in 30 minutes. You will get many calls like this, but this one is real." At 1:32 a.m., 33 minutes after the phone warning, a dynamite bomb demolished an unmarked, out-of-the-way men's room in the Capitol basement. It was only the fourth time in history that protesters had brought violence to the domed symbol of U.S. democracy.*

The explosion occurred in the original section of the Capitol, begun during George Washington's term in office and restored after the building was burned by the British in 1814. Besides the damage to the men's room, the Senate barbershop and the back-corridor hideaway offices of Senators Everett Jordan, Caleb Boggs and John Sparkman were damaged. Architects and engineers will spend weeks searching for damage around the fragile west front of the building, which is already buttressed to support cracks in the sandstone facing.

Vulnerability. The Capitol blast followed the bombing or attempted bombing last year of 32 buildings across the country that are owned or leased by the Federal Government. Well before last week's explosion, security at all federal buildings had already been tightened in the wake of the alleged plot by the Berrigan brothers (TIME, Jan. 25) to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating ducts in the capital's underground area. The 7.5-mile tunnel system that connects the basements of Government office buildings in Washington has been equipped with an alarm system and most of its manholes sealed.

The "Weather Underground"--like "Weather People," a self-appellation for the Weatherman--sent a letter to the Associated Press claiming credit for the explosion as a protest over American involvement in Laos. They were rebuffed by Attorney General John Mitchell: "In the past we have noticed that every time you have had one of these unfortunate occurrences, there have been quite a number of communications sent to newspapers or different offices, and it does not necessarily mean that the writer is representative of the parties that carried out the activity."

More troubling than the physical effects of the explosion are the implications for the future. The openness of the Capitol--even to someone carrying 15-20 lbs. of dynamite in a briefcase --has been one of the strengths of the American democracy: the nation's laws have been written within full view of its citizens. Now security measures are likely to be forthcoming, and they will alter tradition, however slightly.

The White House was once a building as accessible as the Congress is now. Originally, it would be thrown open on a regular basis for the public to greet the President. But gradually, reinforced by the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy, it has become closed to the average citizen. Though none of the assassinations occurred at the White House, once the President was established as a target, it was natural to increasingly fortify the place where he spent most of his time. Today, the ordinary citizen's personal access to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is limited to a glimpse of the furniture in a few ceremonial rooms.

* While attending a state funeral in 1835, Andrew Jackson was shot at but unharmed as he stepped from the rotunda to the Capitol portico. In 1915, the old Supreme Court Chamber in the Senate Wing of the Capitol and a reception room were bombed by a college professor angered over U.S. munitions sales to Britain. In 1954, Puerto Rican Nationalists opened fire from a House gallery, wounding five Congressmen on the floor below.

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