Word: boycotts
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...Administration gradually increased the pressure for a boycott in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, alarmed officials of the U.S. Olympic Committee tried in vain to stop the campaign, pleading that sports should not be used to promote political ends. But Carter, appearing on Meet the Press at the beginning of the week, put his full prestige behind the policy. Said he: "Regardless of what other nations might do, I would not favor sending an American Olympic team to Moscow while the Soviet invasion troops are in Afghanistan" (see box). He set a Feb. 20 deadline for Soviet...
Congress, moreover, quickly took up the crusade against the Games. Without White House prompting, four resolutions endorsing a Moscow boycott were introduced on the Hill. By the time the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on one such resolution, the Olympic committee was thoroughly on the defensive. The president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Robert J. Kane, a former sprinter at Cornell and longtime athletic director at the university, found little support as he testified against the ban. "We do have a problem to face if we're out there alone, swaying in the wind," he argued...
Among U.S. athletes, the dominant sentiment seemed to be against a boycott, but the debate was spirited. Protested Steve Lundquist, 19, a swimmer from Southern Methodist University: "You look forward to this all your life. Suddenly they just pull it out from under you." At first Al Oerter, 43, a four-time gold medal winner in the discus, complained that U.S. withdrawal from the Games was "passive, isolationist, weak." But like many other athletes he had changed his mind by last week. Said he: "I feel we should stop bellyaching and get behind the President. It is time...
...member Athletes' Advisory Council, which serves the U.S. Olympic Committee, conducted its own poll on the boycott. Of the 42 athletes who expressed an opinion, 30 opposed a ban. The findings were given to the 82-member executive board of the U.S.O.C., which was meeting in Colorado Springs...
After closed-door deliberations in the Broadmoor hotel, the Olympic elders indicated on Saturday that they would go along with the President's call for a boycott. The board passed a resolution proposing that the Summer Games be transferred away from Moscow or canceled...