The Presidency

Never before in its 194 years had the White House, the world's most recognizable symbol of democracy, been sprayed by bullets. The British invaders torched the building in 1814, but there was no gunplay there, since the unprepared Americans wisely chose to run away. Abraham Lincoln stood at his bedroom window and listened to Civil War cannonading across the Potomac, but the Confederates never reached the White House.

The two fanatic Puerto Rican nationalists who tried to assassinate Harry Truman in 1950 attacked him when he was living across the street in Blair House while the White House was being renovated. One was killed on the sidewalk. A White House policeman also died.

But never was the stately facade of the White House nicked by slugs fired in anger until Oct. 29, when the brooding Colorado Springs upholsterer Francisco Martin Duran, 26, pulled a Chinese-made SKS semiautomatic assault weapon from under his coat and shot 27 rounds of ammunition in short bursts across the north side of the building. Five bullets pocked the mansion's 4-ft.-thick sandstone wall, and three shattered a window and chipped the stone of the press-briefing room near the West Wing. Several bullets burrowed into trees. President Clinton, who was inside the White House watching a football game, was probably the safest person in the area, given the bulletproof glass and scores of Secret Service officers between him and the gunman.

U.S. prosecutors were considering charging Duran with attempted assassination, based on notes and other material found in his nearby pickup truck and threatening remarks he allegedly made to a co-worker at Colorado Springs' Broadmoor hotel. And the old question of how to assure a President's safety rose again.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who has jurisdiction over the Secret Service, announced that a review of the shooting spree and White House security procedures would be incorporated into a study already under way. It follows September's safety scare in which a light plane crash-landed on the White House grounds and slid into the wall below the President's bedroom, killing only the depressed pilot. Meanwhile, the National Park Service, which maintains the grounds and building, is working on a long-range plan for White House preservation, tourism and work space. The White House is the world's power stage, and a new set is needed.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Richard Griffin, the Secret Service agent in charge of presidential security, raised anew the idea of closing off that portion of Pennsylvania Avenue that runs in front of the White House in order to give agents easier control of sightseers. Protests came from all quarters, including Bill Clinton, who said, "I just don't think in a free society you can have the President of the country kind of hiding in the sand and just wall him off in the White House."

True enough. Being busily at work on the premises -- and visible -- is an ingredient of leadership. In fact, the Park Service has a contingency plan for disaster, natural and otherwise, that would rush in work crews and get the White House functioning again as soon as possible so the President could be seen by the public to be back on duty in the old familiar place. "There is no symbol as powerful," says a planner.