The terrorists ride high.(on the right)(airline security)

NEW YORK, AUGUST 25

RETURNING vacationers will not be without a security story, and I am no exception. At the little country airport were five functionaries, two of whom, as it happened, knew me and my work but--a curious exercise of formalism--required me at flight time to fish out yet again my driver's license, so that they could pretend to focus on the photo reassuring them that the gentleman they had been talking with was not an impostor faking a passable resemblance.

Then in came the inspector. He satisfied himself that there was nothing hidden in my shoes, but turned to my toilet case with avaricious curiosity. Do you remember Adolphe Menjou? It was he, the tidy hair, the hairline moustache, and, always, the little smile. He picked out perhaps 12 items that fell under the proscribed rubric, each containing a substance squishy (toothpaste) or liquid (shampoo). He swept the dangerous objects into a large, and presumably bomb-proof, canister, bound for a demolition center.

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A few days later, I was told by my cosmopolitan son that such vicissitudes were not to be complained about given that we are at war, and ought not even to be noticing minor impositions. One doesn't dismiss lightly the judgments of one's children, but an evening's rest restored mind and body, bringing me to say: The ordeal of plane travel is properly viewed as a broken window. The idea of the broken window greatly illuminated criminology when James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling reasoned that the neglect of a broken window signified the probable neglect of an adjoining skyscraper.

What we need to accept is the challenge of passenger security, because if we reduce it to looking for toothpaste, the terrorists have achieved what they desire to achieve, the activation of fear.

Suppose that in order to get from home to work you had to make your way past vicious dogs, going diagonally first left, then right. Granted, the dogs are chained and can't get to you if you follow carefully the indicated path. But your need to do this signifies ...