Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [71]
Respect for Americans risking their lives was a major part of the concern in the Super Bowl postponement debate—but not the only reason.
Across the country, citizens worried about the danger reaching the United States. Chemical warfare was a significant threat to the troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait: Iraqi Scud missiles might include warheads filled with biological hazards. But the Scuds could not reach across the Atlantic Ocean to hit the United States. Instead, Hussein extended the conflict beyond conventional boundaries.
Terrorist groups (it remains unclear if they were working in conjunction with Hussein) set off explosions at American and British banks in Greece. On January 19, a plot to bomb an American cultural center in Manila was thwarted. And although he spoke of a low-level threat within the United States, Assistant Director of the FBI William Baker acknowledged that “various terrorist groups have infrastructures in the United States” and that “all of these organizations have the capability of having contact from abroad and could carry out activity in our country.”
“At the time it was a very considerable fear,” said David Isby, a Washington-based defense and foreign-policy consultant.
It became much more so after the World Trade Center bombings some years later, even more so after 9/11. But there was a very real concern. The most important thing was that Saddam Hussein had some months before put out a public announcement, a call for acts of terrorism worldwide. And that’s not an inconsequential thing. . . . Saddam basically put his credibility at stake. To be a third-world dictator, if you call for worldwide terrorism in solidarity and the terrorists of the world blow you off, that doesn’t add to your credibility. So, the fact that he had gone up and done this, there was a great deal of expectation.
Many Americans were hesitant to attend churches and synagogues, open Federal Express packages, or go to public places like malls and shopping centers. On Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive, in front of the Louis Vuitton store, a bomb squad swooped in to defuse a suspicious-looking bag. (They were relieved to discover that the package contained a pillow.)
Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, prohibited both curbside check-ins and unattended vehicles. Only people with boarding passes were allowed access to the gates. At O’Hare and Midway in Chicago, all mailboxes, coin-operated newspaper racks, trashcans, and even ashtrays were removed. International travel fell drastically.
Non-metropolises also feared the worst. In North Carolina, some people flocked to G.I. Joe’s Army Surplus and the Quartermaster Company, as did many in Brentwood, Pennsylvania’s Bonn’s Outdoor Army and Navy Surplus Inc. There, they stocked up supplies; gas masks were the most popular item.
“Probably not since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 have Americans felt a keener threat of calamity on American soil, a fear reinforced by televised images of Federal agents in gas masks practicing how they would combat terrorists at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., this Sunday, of armed guards closing off public access to the Birmingham Water Works in Alabama, and of new security rules at airports,” the New York Times reported that week.
According to a CBS/New York Times poll, 63 percent of Americans were “very concerned” about an impending terrorist attack.
The NFL and those in charge of preparations for Super Bowl Sunday could not ignore the growing concerns. Extreme security precautions were implemented throughout the week. A six-foot-high fence and concrete barriers surrounded the stadium to keep any truck or car loaded with explosives from crashing into the stadium.
“We really didn’t hear any threats until about the third day before the game,” recalled Jim Steeg, the NFL’s executive director of special events for twenty-six Super Bowls. “Then we heard through one of the intelligence security sources that somebody