‘Our Nation Joins With You In Grief’ Clinton Leads Prayers, Seeks Anti-Terror Laws

President Clinton led an anguished nation in prayer Sunday for victims of the federal building bombing as his administration proposed a series of broad steps to give the government new powers to fight terrorism.

“We have got to take steps aggressively to shut it down,” Clinton said in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to do just that.”

On a day he designated a national day of mourning, a solemn Clinton told a nationally televised memorial service: “Those who are lost now belong to God. Someday we will be with them. But until that happens, their legacy must be our lives.”

“In the face of death, let us honor life,” he told mourners, sharing a platform at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds with the Rev. Billy Graham.

“Wounds take a long time to heal, but we must begin,” Clinton said.

After the prayer service, the Clintons met privately with relatives of about two dozen victims, including the mother of a 1-year-old girl who had been photographed as a firefighter carried her limp body from the building.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Clinton, his eyes brimming with tears, told Aren Almon as he hugged her.

Clinton signed the paw of Almon’s teddy bear, “God Bless You.”

Hillary Clinton wept as she hugged three children whose father had died in the explosion.

“You’re so courageous,” she told some of the relatives.

The Clintons and others wore multicolored ribbons made up of white, yellow, purple and blue strands. The white stood for the dead, the yellow for the missing, the purple for children and the blue for the state of Oklahoma.

Scattered through the crowd were relatives of the dead and missing, hugging teddy bears and holding single-stem flowers. Many clutched photos of their loved ones.

“Today, our nation joins with you in grief. We mourn with you. We share your hope against hope that some may still survive,” Clinton said at the memorial service.

“We pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city and to bring to justice those who did this evil,” Clinton said.

Graham told the worship service the blast was “a violent explosion, ripping at the very heart of America.” Long after the dead are buried and the building is rebuilt, Graham said, “the scars of this senseless and evil outrage will remain.”

But, he asserted, “We stand together today to say: Let the healing begin.”

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra played slow, mournful anthems in the memorial service. And at one point, the entire audience stood and sang, a cappella, “Amazing Grace.”

Later Sunday, the White House said Clinton would seek new authority for federal agents to monitor the telephone calls and check the credit, hotel and travel records of suspected terrorists.

The president also ordered Attorney General Janet Reno to review security conditions at all federal buildings and report back with recommendations for improvements within 60 days.

Clinton’s proposals would reverse a two-decade trend away from federal surveillance of government critics, which was curtailed after disclosures of widespread abuses and harassment of civil rights and antiwar protesters in the 1960s and 70s. The new proposals seemed all but certain to raise concern among civil liberties groups.

Indeed, some of those groups were quick to express concerns about Clinton’s remarks Sunday night.

Philip S. Gutis, media relations director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said his organization has not seen the precise proposal but has been bracing for a renewed effort by Congress or the Clinton administration to seek to curtail constitutional rights.

“We are concerned about an overreaction that would threaten to sweep away the constitutional principles that have shaped our society and remain at the core of our liberty,” Gutis said. “The FBI now has all the power it needs to investigate wrongdoing. It doesn’t need any additional power. It may need additional resources.”

But the president and his aides defended their proposals as sensible responses to a threat that now seems palpably heightened.

“I don’t think we have to give up our liberties, but I do think we have to have more discipline, and we have to be willing to see serious threats to our liberties properly investigated,” Clinton said.

He noted that metal detectors at airports once had seemed invasive but now are accepted as routine, adding, “We still will have freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of movement, but we may have to have some more discipline in doing it, so we can go after people who want to destroy our very way of life.”

The president outlined the measures in an interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” that was broadcast from the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds here, and White House aides provided other details.

In the “60 Minutes” interview, Clinton was a bit blunter, repeating his vow that whoever was responsible should be executed and saying, “If this is not a crime for which capital punishment is called, I don’t know what is.”

Clinton also urged Congress to pass the omnibus counterterrorism bill that he offered earlier this year, which would authorize new federal jurisdiction over terrorist acts, including those planned overseas but directed at the United States, and would make it more difficult for terrorists to enter or stay in the United States.

That bill already has been condemned by civil liberties groups as an infringement on constitutional rights but has gained new momentum toward passage since the bombing last week.

The president sketched only the broadest outlines of his new legislative proposals, and while White House aides provided further details, it was unclear Sunday night just how far the administration is prepared to go. But the overall thrust of the proposals would be to let lawenforcement officials conduct greater surveillance of suspected terrorists, sometimes on the basis of less concrete evidence than previously has been required.