Green Cloth Covers Grace New Passports

WASHINGTON — The nation’s passports turned green Monday.

And they now come with new security features designed to deter terrorists, drug smugglers and others who have managed to successfully counterfeit the old blue-covered versions.

Photographs in the new passports will be embossed with a hologram-like device that shows the letters USA and two profiles of Benjamin Franklin, depending on how the passport is held. Franklin was selected because he helped create the U.S. consular service, which runs the State Department’s passport service.

Holograms are difficult to duplicate, fooling the new color copiers that many currency counterfeiters have used. In addition, inks and papers used in the new passports have been improved to deter counterfeiters. Seals of the 50 states now appear on the pages used for entry and exit stamps in place of a single eagle.

The green covers on the new passports, produced by the Government Printing Office, are made from cloth instead of the blue-coated paper that has been used for the last 17 years. U.S. passports were green from 1941 until 1976, when the cover was changed to blue as part of the United States’ bicentennial celebration.

Officials liked the blue so much that it remained the cover long after the end of the celebration, a spokesman said.

The long lines at passport offices may continue this year because it is the first year that the 10-year passports the State Department began issuing in 1983 expire.