Thread by @meekwire

My first story about US Capitol security was published for UPI 23 years ago. I interviewed lawmakers five months before gunman Russell Weston’s July 24, 1998 crazed attack which left 2 USCP officers dead. The issue was how to secure Congress and maintain public accessibility. 1/9

"The barricades give some amount of protection, but there's little protection against a determined terrorist," the late Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) told me in February 1998. (I’d known Ike since childhood.) "Americans should be able to visit their capital, and do it safely." 2/9

"The tragedy is that America's capital is subject to such threats," Ike continued in the interview 23 years ago. He was to become Armed Services Committee chairman before his 2013 death. "But we're blessed with excellent Capitol Police. I don't think you can do any better." 3/9

"Any type of threat concerns me — for visitors, for staff, for the legislative process that we have. But you can't let it stop you, you've got to keep going,” Ike said. I’m certain he would’ve cheered the chambers finishing the election certification after the #CapitolRiot 4/9

And security measures that protected Congress then?
"From what I see here in the Capitol, we have a very alert force. Terrorists would have to work long and hard to defeat them," Ike told me in 1998.
I’m sure he would have been as shocked as everyone else by the #CapitolRiot 5/9

After the shooting deaths July 24, 1998 of USCP Officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, a proposal for an underground visitor/security center took on steam. Costs soared from $200 mil to closer to $1 billion. In Oct. 1999, I spoke to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) 6/9

"You can never guarantee that you won't have some nut who can penetrate the building or assault a policeman," Sen. Lott said. "I think this [plan] maximizes protection of our constituents, this building, those who work here, and our policemen. Only Heaven is totally safe.” 7/9

There had been few incidents since the British burned the US Capitol in 1814. In 1890, Charles Kincaid, a Louisville Times reporter, fatally shot Rep. William Taulbee, (D-KY).
In 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists burst into the House and fired 30 shots, wounding five people. 8/9

After the ‘98 shooting, Rep. Ike Skelton told me, "The Capitol Police officers do an excellent job and I wouldn't change anything." Ike was opposed to the underground center. Trent Lott stood firm: "It's not going to guarantee Utopia, but ...it's better than what we have now.”9/9

My takeaway from the quarter-century I’ve been a reporter and professional staff member working in the Capitol (not so often anymore) is that leaders of both parties have tried to not turn the US Capitol into an inaccessible fortress of solitude. Framers wouldn’t have wanted that