A military-style operation to keep Barack Obama alive was under way yesterday within hours of his victory. Even as the US President-elect celebrated with more than 160,000 supporters in Grant Park, Chicago, he did so from behind bullet-proof glass 12ft high and 3ins thick.
Mr Obama, wife Michelle, running mate Joe Biden and his wife Jill were under instructions not to stray from the line-of-fire protection zone. This zone had been identified by FBI agents pointing lasers at the stage from every building surrounding the park.
America will have to get used to such scenes. Such are the concerns for Mr Obama’s safety that many are already voicing their fears he may not even reach the White House.
Emory Douglas of the Black Panthers rights group said: “Nothing can be taken for granted that he actually will be the next President of the United States. There are people who don’t want Obama in that position and some of them are powerful. “There could easily be an assassination or a campaign to ruin him before he begins his term because of what he represents. Nothing is out of the question. Until January when he is inaugurated, we just don’t know if we will see a black man in charge.”
Fears for Mr Obama’s safety began the moment he entered the race for the White House and investigations are on-going into potential threats from race-hate groups in and outside the US.
As America celebrated yesterday the mood in both Secret Service and FBI headquarters was sombre as the scale of the task was analyzed. One security source said: “It’s not the crazies who tell you what they’re gonna do that are dangerous, it’s the crazies that don’t. And we all know they’re out there. It only takes one lunatic racist with a gun, one deranged extremist with a single bullet, one determined white supremacist, to end it all. And you can bet there are plenty of angry, disturbed people lining up for the chance to be that one.”
Mr Obama and his family spent the Presidential campaign with more full-time Secret Service agents–-a team of 10-–than any other candidate in the history of the race. That will now be increased, with a squad of six agents assigned to his wife Michelle, 44, and another six to watch over their daughters Malia, 10 and Sasha, seven.
Mr Obama’s limousine, supplied by the Secret Service, is bulletproof and reinforced to withstand bomb attack. A team of specialist investigators from the FBI has also been assigned to work alongside the Secret Service to monitor America’s 487 known white supremacist groups.
Senior advisers have already discussed with Mr Obama the possibility of him wearing a lightweight bullet-proof vest during public appearances–a proposal he has so far resisted, but which Secret Service chiefs are expected to insist upon. Many fear an assassination attempt is simply a matter of time.
Mississippi Democratic representative Bennie Thompson told Secret Service chiefs: “As an African-American who was witness to some of this nation’s most shameful days during the civil rights movement, I know personally that the hatred of some of our fellow citizens can lead to heinous acts of violence.”
Yet insiders admit the threat could come from many quarters: pro-lifers who fear Mr Obama will enshrine Americans’ abortion rights; religious fundamentalists; terrorists both foreign and domestic. Secret Service agents are trained to sacrifice their lives for the president. “Someone shoots, most people duck,” said a former presidential detail supervisor. “He is trained to open up, to take the bullet.” Two assassination conspiracies have already been uncovered and the plotters arrested as the special task force to preserve Mr Obama scours the internet and telephone calls for clues.
His Democratic campaign headquarters in Chicago received hundreds of telephone calls and letters threatening Obama and his family. Before the outcome of the election was known, Ku Klux Klan International leader Railton Loy said of Mr Obama: “If that man is elected president, he’ll be shot sure as hell. The hate would be so deep down South.”
Mr Obama acknowledges the danger, saying: “I think anybody who decides to run for president recognises that there are some risks involved, just like there are risks in anything.” Four US presidents have been assassinated–Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy–and eight have survived attempts.
Mr Obama is often compared to John F Kennedy, although it is his skin color that has added to concerns in a country that has more than 200 million legally held firearms and 30,000 gun deaths each year. The specter of assassination first arose in May when Hillary Clinton had to apologize after appearing to suggest that the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 during his presidential campaign was a good reason for her staying in the race.
Mr Obama was given Secret Service protection last May, far earlier than previous presidential candidates, after the FBI began to hear of threats against him. The role of the US Secret Service is outlined on its official website. It states: “After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the President of the United States. Protection remains a key mission of the United States Secret Service.”
The Daily Express
