This Day in History 05-20-1995 Street in front of the White House closed to traffic President Bill Clinton permanently closes the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to all non-pedestrian traffic as a security measure. The road´s closure had long been a desire of the Secret Service, who saw it as necessary in order to guard against the risk of a possible car- or truck-bomb attack. President Clinton, like other residents of the White House before him, had been reluctant to accede to the request, but finally bowed to the recommendations of a panel of security experts including representatives of the Secret Service. The panel had begun a security study of the White House in the fall of 1994, after a drunken pilot crashed his light plane onto the South Lawn in September. That October, a man fired a semiautomatic rifle at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue; a passing tourist then tackled him. While a vehicle-free Pennsylvania Avenue would not have prevented either of these incidents, attacks at the World Trade Center in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in April 1995 had highlighted the potential threat of a truck bomb.
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 12:23:07 +0000
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