As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked

International Herald Tribune

02-26-2008

As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked
Byline: Jeff Zeleny The New York Times Media Group
Edition: 1
Section: NEWS

DALLAS --

There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?

In Colorado, two sisters say they pray daily for his safety. In New Mexico, a daughter says she persuaded her mother to still vote for Obama, even though the mother feared that winning would put him in danger. And at a rally here, a woman expressed worries that a message of hope and change, in addition to his race, made him more vulnerable to violence.
"I've got the best protection in the world," Obama, of Illinois, said in an interview, reprising a line he tells supporters who raise the issue with him. "So stop worrying."

Yet worry they do, with the spring of 1968 seared into their memories, when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy were assassinated in a span of two months.

Obama was 6 at the time, and like many of his admirers, he has only read about the violence that traumatized and polarized the nation. But those recollections and images are often invoked by older voters, who watch his candidacy with fascination, as well as an uneasy air of apprehension, as Democrats inch closer to selecting their nominee.

Obama has had Secret Service agents surrounding him since May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been provided protection. (He reluctantly gave in to the insistent urging of Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and others in Congress.) As his rallies have swelled in size, his security has increased, close to rivaling that given to a sitting president.

His wife, Michelle Obama, voiced concerns about his safety before he was elected to the Senate. Three years ago, she said she dreaded the day her husband received Secret Service protection, because it would mean serious threats had been made against him.

Among friends and advisers, danger is something Obama rarely mentions.

"It's not something that I'm spending time thinking about day to day," said Obama, who has been given the Secret Service nickname Renegade, a way for agents to quickly identify him. "I made a decision to get into this race. I think anybody who decides to run for president recognizes that there are some risks involved, just like there are risks in anything."

Not long ago, his advisers worried that some black voters might not support his candidacy out of a fierce desire to protect him. It was a particular concern in South Carolina, but Obama said he believed the worry was also rooted in "a fear of failure."

Now that he has won a string of primaries and caucuses in all corners of the country and built a coalition of black and white voters, failure would seem to be less of an issue. The fears, however, remain.

Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised concerns in a letter in January to officials who oversee the Secret Service. Obama was already receiving protection, but Thompson said the intense interest in the election had prompted him to make sure that Obama and the other candidates were offered adequate security.

"The national and international profile of Sen. Barack Obama gives rise to unique challenges that merit special concern," Thompson wrote. "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. We need only to look to the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 1968 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy as examples."

In an interview, Thompson declined to elaborate on any specific threats that had come to the attention of his committee or the authorities. He said he wrote the letter to the Homeland Security Department without discussing it with Obama, whom he has endorsed.

"His candidacy is so unique to this country and so important that the last thing you would want is for him not to have the opportunity to fulfill the role of a potential presidential nominee," Thompson said. "It's out of an abundance of caution that I wrote the letter, rather than keep our fingers crossed and pray."

Before Obama decided to run for president, he discussed his safety with his family. His campaign employed a team of private security guards before he was placed under Secret Service protection. Since then, he has grown fond of the agents who surround him, inviting them to watch the Super Bowl at his home in Chicago and playing basketball with them on the days he awaits the results of an election.

Obama was reluctant to speak about his security or the period in American history that is often raised, without prompting, by voters who are interviewed at his campaign events. Mentions of the fate that befell President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy only increased after Obama was joined on the campaign trail by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.

"I'm pretty familiar with the history," Obama said. "Obviously, it was an incredible national trauma, but neither Bobby Kennedy nor Martin Luther King had Secret Service protection."

Indeed, the assassination of Kennedy in 1968 prompted Congress to pass a law authorizing protection of major presidential and vice presidential candidates. In this campaign, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has had Secret Service protection from the beginning because she is a former first lady. None of the other candidates accepted it during their primary campaigns.

Gerald Posner, author of books on the assassinations of John Kennedy and King, said he did not believe that Obama was under a significantly higher risk than President George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton. The fears are more openly discussed, he said, because he is the first black candidate to come this close to winning a major party's presidential nomination.

"Barack scares those of us who think of the possibility of an assassination in a different way," Posner said. "He represents so much hope and change. That is exactly what was taken away from us in the 1960s."