Word: boycotts
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...that things were not quite what they had been meant to be at the 1980 Olympic Games. The reason, of course, was the fact that more than 30 nations, including the U.S., West Germany, Japan and Canada, stayed at home to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in a boycott promulgated by Washington. Sixteen other nations registered their disapproval by displaying the Olympic flag rather than their national colors during the opening ceremonies, which were presided over by Communist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev and Lord Killanin of Ireland, who retires after the games as president of the International Olympic Committee...
...hosts were chastened, they were not letting on. Indeed, most ordinary Soviets hardly connected the boycott with Afghanistan; it was easier to blame it on anti-Soviet hysteria in the capitalist camp. "I wonder if Carter watched the opening ceremony," said one elderly housewife. "If he did, he must have been sorry not to be able to see it all. The poor Americans." Angered that Britain had only one marcher in the opening parade, a Soviet television announcer told viewers: "There is the clumsy plot... against the traditions of the Olympic movement...
Originally, 300,000 foreign tourists were expected. The Soviets have scaled down this estimate to 210,000, and diplomatic sources put the actual number closer to 150,000. Only 3,000 of the 18,500 Americans expected before the boycott are coming, and some of those only because they would not be able to get a full refund on their trips. The fall-off in tourism could cost the Soviets as much as $150 million in hard currency, according to one Western projection...
...boxer who now prefers to swing at golf balls, Samaranch, 60, will resign this fall as his country's Ambassador to the Soviet Union to devote full time to the nonpaying position. Like most of his I.O.C. colleagues, the diplomat takes a dun view of the American-led boycott, but insists that he is "totally committed" to having the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. For his part, Killanin was a good deal more acerbic about President Carter's campaign to trip up the Moscow Games. Also foolish. He maintained that if the program had included football and baseball...
...which plans only a few minutes of coverage a day instead of its original 152 ½hours, is sending 50 employees, down from 650 before the boycott. Fifty other accredited U.S. journalists will be there...