Authorities Expanding Efforts to Intercept, Detect Letter Bombs

The Bureau of Customs and the United States Postal Inspection Service are expanding efforts to detect and intercept letter bombs sent to this country from abroad. While inspectors from both federal agencies regard the New York Metropolitan area, where most of the Jewish organizations have their headquarters, as the immediate prime target for the terrorist letter bombs, authorities have indicated that efforts to screen suspect mail will be increased in other major cities.

The move was sparked by the explosion yesterday of a letter bomb in a Bronx post office. A postal clerk, William Figueroa, 26, had both hands injured when an orange envelope he was sorting exploded. According to one police account, the envelope, with a Malaysian postmark was addressed to an unidentified former national official of Hadassah. Another account was that the envelope had been blown to bits and that there was no way to determine who sent it or to whom.

Eugene T. Ressides, assistant secretary of the Treasury, told the Zionist Organization of America’s National Executive Committee meeting here last night that US efforts to combat international terrorism included protection of Israeli citizens in this country who might be threatened and increased protection by the Executive Protection Service of the Israeli Embassy and other foreign missions in Washington and UN Missions in New York.

Meanwhile, more “spectacular” actions by Palestinian terrorists are predicted by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, according to Anita Evans, Beirut correspondent for the London Sunday Times. According to her, Shafik el Hout, PLO leader, stated that “We have to shock the West out of its guilty conscience about the Jews, and into recognizing the plight of the Palestinian people. That’s why Lydda and Munich were such tactical successes. They showed we were prepared to die for our cause.”

SCREENING DEVICES INSTALLED

Last week letter bombs were sent to two Hadassah officials but failed to explode when they were opened. One letter was sent to Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, honorary vice-president of Hadassah, and the other to Hannah Goldberg, former executive director of the women’s Zionist organization. Both letters bore Malaysian postmarks.

The letter yesterday had apparently come first to the Grand Central Post Office in Manhattan and then sent to the Bronx post office when the letter could not be delivered because either the name of the recipient or the address was wrong. Sgt. Ted Weiss of Police Emergency Squad 3 described the device in the envelope as about the size of a ball-point pen with two metal springs attached. Some of the previous letters intercepted, and the one that killed an Israeli diplomat in the Israel Embassy in London, were described as containing a device similar to a mousetrap which was placed between two stiff cardboards and detonated when the pressure on the device was released.

Federal authorities reported last week that they were X-raying suspicious mail arriving in the nation’s capital, particularly items addressed to Jewish members of Congress. This same type of equipment may be used to screen mail in other cities. Meanwhile, Jewish organizations have been meeting with federal authorities to be briefed on how to detect suspect mail and have developed their own methods of intercepting suspicious mail and visitors.

One Jewish organization, whose reception desk was previously in the corridor facing passenger elevators, has reconstructed its front office by installing thick cinder blocks and has moved the reception office behind this wall. Other organizations have beefed up private security squads and have installed a system of intercoms and closed television circuits. Postal authorities, however, concede that the heavy volume of mail received in post offices makes screening a difficult procedure.