Halt! Who Flies There?

Catching an airplane at most major European airports last week was a little like participating in military maneuvers. London's busy Heathrow was boxed by tanks with cannons uncovered and Grenadier Guards in battle kit. Rome's Ciampino had a sandbagged machine gun nest atop its control tower manned by helmeted carabinieri. Armed Jeeps escorted aircraft along the runways of Orly outside Paris, while 850 flics and special riot troopers kept suspicious eyes on passenger traffic inside the terminal. Everywhere from Amsterdam to Athens there were gun-toting guards and behind them, plainclothes marksmen.

The explanation was a fear of terrorism, which lately has increased both in ferocity and sophistication at European airports. Adding urgency to the precautionary measures were rumors that terrorists were roaming the area with antiaircraft missiles. According to one report, the extremists had Soviet-built SA-7 Strelas, a shoulder-launched missile. Another rumor was that they had broken into NATO bases in Brussels and stolen Redeye missiles, the U.S. counterpart of the Strela. Whatever the case, European security men were plainly worried.

Since the December massacre at Rome's airport at Fiumicino, in which 31 people were killed by Palestinian terrorists, the new strategy is to deter such attacks with massive shows of force. But even security men admit that such demonstrations are not totally effective. Terrorists travel around Europe as easily as tourists nowadays, and they have already shown that they can obtain missiles. Raiding an apartment at Ostia near Fiumicino last September, Italian secret service agents discovered two 4 1/2-ft. Strelas, whose heat-seeking warhead can knock down a low-flying jet up to two miles away. The apartment had been rented by a 23-year-old Arab who carried Lebanese and Jordanian passports. He and four accomplices arrested later in Rome were suspected of planning to attack an El Al jetliner as it flew low near the airport.

Shoot to Kill. The Times of London, among others, last week directly blamed Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi for underwriting much of the terrorism, including the Dec. 17 massacre at Rome and an earlier Shootout at Athens International Airport. Gaddafi, who last week jointly announced his decision to merge his country with neighboring Tunisia, probably does give some oil money to the guerrillas, and provides them with haven from time to time. But it is an open question among intelligence agencies whether Gaddafi himself directly orders such terrorism. Many European authorities would just as soon not find out, since Europe is so dependent on Arab nations for its oil. Thus, after two of the five Arabs arrested in the Ostia incident were released pending trial, they disappeared; Italian authorities have shown no inclination to pursue them.

With the emphasis now on preventing further attacks, passengers are paying the price in both inconvenience and security expenses added to their tickets. In Munich, the Bavarian Interior Ministry demands written guarantees that arriving passengers at Riem Airport have been searched before takeoff. When airlines refuse such guarantees, their planes are ordered to an isolated runway, and passengers and luggage are thoroughly examined. Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin uses a code to indicate to air crews if any embarking passengers are Arab. At Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, overhead walkways have been closed off, and armed soldiers patrol them. Most airports have marks men on hand with orders to shoot to kill if anything commences that looks like terrorism.

Such precautions can trigger a kind of terror psychosis. At Rome recently, the pilot of an inbound Indonesian air liner mistakenly signaled an emergency. As soon as the plane landed, it was surrounded by fire trucks and a dozen police Jeeps. Guns ready, police waited for skyjackers to act. Passengers and crew, meanwhile, presumed that something horrendous was happening outside, and they refused to debark. In spite of radio communications between plane and tower, nearly an hour passed before the confusion was cleared up and Fiumicino Airport returned to normal.

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