DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04511
title: CBS News Olympic Bombing/Terrorism Poll, July 1996
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, fielded July 29, 1996, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill Clinton and his handling of the bombing at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and the crash of TWA flight 800. They were also queried on whether they thought that these two events would affect their travel plans or attendance to public events. A number of questions dealt with issues pertaining to terrorism. Respondents were asked if they thought there would be more terrorist attacks in the coming year or if the Olympic bombing was a random act. They were also asked whether they thought it would be okay for the federal government to have more authority and plant undercover agents in possible terrorist groups. They were also asked they thought it would be okay for the government to use wiretaps to fight terrorism. A few questions dealt with security checkpoints at public events and buildings. Respondents were asked if they would favor more security checkpoints with guards and metal detectors at public events even if it would increase the cost of going to the event. They were also asked if they favored the increase in security at public events even if it increased the time waiting in line. They were also asked whether they would be willing to go through metal detectors at local malls and have their car inspected in order to park in a public garage. Respondents were queried on how much confidence they had that their own community was safe from terrorism along with how safe they thought the upcoming Republican and Democratic political conventions were from terrorism. They were also queried on whether they thought that it was possible to make the United States completely safe from terrorist bombings. Demographic variable include sex, age, race, education level, household income, religious affiliation, political ideology, party affiliation, children in household, and whether respondents had a child enter the ninth grade starting in the fall
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: telephone interview 
(1) Additional information about sampling, interviewing, and sampling error may be found in the codebook. (2) The variable AREACODE was recoded for confidentiality. The previously blanked variables EXCHANGE and LASTFOUR, were also recoded to appropriate 9 series. (3) The variables EXTRA1, EXTRA2, EXTRA3, EXTRA4, EXTRA5, EXTRA6, EXTRA7, EXTRA8, EXTRA9, and EXTRA10 were removed from the dataset because no data or explanation for these variables was available. (4) The original data file contained three records per case and was reformatted into a data file with one record per case.
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the interview.