IOC Postgraduate Research Grant – Final Research Report

IOC Postgraduate Research Grant – Final Research Report Title: Paradoxes of Humanism. Human Rights Advocacy, the Olympic Movement, and the 1980 Olympic Boycott Author: Umberto Tulli, Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Naples, and Università di Bologna, Forlì Campus Abstract: This research investigates the controversy which developed in the mid-Seventies on the appropriateness of having the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, given the well-known repression of political dissident and its consequences both on bipolar détente and on Carter's campaign to implement the Olympic boycott to punish the Soviets for their invasion of Afghanistan. It emphasizes the strong continuity between the 1978 controversy and the 1980 boycott campaign by suggesting two main arguments. Firstly, Carter's boycott campaign found some valuable allies among human rights NGOs and activists. Secondly, to sell the boycott both domestically and internationally, the Carter administration frequently referred to human rights abuses in the Soviet Union and to the internal exile of Andrei Sakharov. In addition, the President demanded emigrated Soviet dissidents to explain the boycott decision to the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and to American athletes. Keywords: Moscow Olympics; boycott; human rights; détente; Soviet dissidents Paradoxes of Humanism. Human Rights Advocacy, the Olympic Movement, and the 1980 Olympic Boycott Introduction In the five-year period leading to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow – the first Games to take place in a communist Country – a growing controversy emerged in the United States and other Western Countries on the appropriateness of holding the Olympic events in the Soviet Union. Given the blatant violations of human rights in the USSR – many argued – Soviet policy was in opposition with both the Olympic Charter and détente. Consequently, according to them, the Soviets had lost the right to host the Games. Historians tend to dismiss this controversy. Nicholas E. Sarantakes recalled that the IOC's decision to award Moscow the Olympic Games produced some negative reactions among American conservative politicians. Similarly, according to David B. Kanin, this campaign was “a footnote” in the boycott effort which developed after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.1 This essay suggests that the campaign which developed in the Seventies against the Moscow Games deserves some specific attentions. Firstly, it is a perfect case study of the interaction between international policy and the Olympic Movement and an example of the clash between two sets of universal values: those promoted by the Olympic Charter and those recalled by human rights activists. Secondly, it offers a fresh insight into the growing opposition to bipolar détente and the ability of anti-détente forces to exploit the Olympic Games as a weapon to stop the bipolar dialogue. Thirdly, the controversy based on human rights shaped the debate on the American-led boycott, after the Soviets entered Afghanistan. In this sense, albeit motivated by the military aggression, Carter’s boycott effort could benefit from the contribution of human rights. *** This study is presented in the form of a historical narrative. It tries to intertwine diplomatic history, human rights history, the evolution of the American political debate and Olympic history. The tools and the analysis of diplomatic history permit to focus on the diplomatic interaction between the main actors of the boycott crisis: the United States government, the Soviet Union, the International Olympic Committee. Through the study of human rights history, this research aims at underlying 1 David B. Kanin, A Political History of the Olympic Games, Boulder, Westview Press, 1981; Nicholas E. Sarantakes, Dropping the Torch. Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott and the Cold War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011 the rise of human rights in the Seventies and the crucial role played by NGOs such as Amnesty International, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, Helsinki Watch. Olympic history permits to understand the IOC's response to the boycott issue and the political controversies which shaped the Olympic movement. Finally, the domestic debate within the United States offers an interesting perspective on the growing skepticism toward détente and any form of bipolar cooperation. *** The conclusions of this essay are informed and guided by a number of primary sources gathered from multiple archives. In the archives of the International Olympic Committee (Lausanne, Switzerland), I have consulted several relevant collection, such as the papers of Lord Killanin, and Juan Antonio Samaranch, the documents relating to the Moscow Olympic Games and to the boycott controversies; and those relating to the American and Soviet Olympic Committees. At the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (Atlanta, USA), I had the opportunity to consult the collection relating to the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, the National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the human rights policy and the Olympic task-force directed by Lloyd Cutler. I have also consulted the collection of the United States Olympic Committee related to the Moscow Olympic boycott (Colorado Springs, USA). In addition, I have studied the files related to the Moscow Olympic Games held at the British National Archives (London) and those of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. I also had the opportunity to study the primary sources held at the Columbia University Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research (New York), namely the papers of the American section of Amnesty International and the documents of Helsinki Watch. Finally, some gaps in the USOC documents have been filled out through the private collection of Dr. Karen Raj, who is currently working on a history of the Olympic movement in the United States. Where possible, I have preferred to cite these documents in notes through their call number instead of the traditional indexation (Archives, Box and Folder). *** A final note. Since the growing body of secondary literature on the 1980 Olympic boycott, this research will not present a detailed analysis of every single step which led to the final boycott. Rather, it will highlight some specific moments, when the human rights issue gained prominence and reinforced the support of the boycott solution. The Olympic Movement during the Cold War Political considerations have always played a role in Olympic history. Political decisions had led to Germany's exclusion in 1920 and 1924, as well as Russia's self-suspension during the '20s and ‘30s. More recently, after the failure of the international boycott against the 1936 Berlin Olympiads, international politics dictated two contemporaneous boycotts at the 1956 Olympic Games: Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands decided to hinder the Olympics to publicly condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary; while Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq protested against the Anglo-French seizure of Suez. A new boycott was carried out by black African States in 1976 to protest the presence of New Zealand at the Montreal Games. New Zealand, in fact, had intensified its sports ties with the racist government of South Africa, which was banned from the Olympiads since 1964.2 International politics played a major role during the “Cold War Olympic Games”. Since the end of War World II, the Olympic movement has provided the United States and the Soviet Union with an international forum to compete – literally and metaphorically – in the bipolar conflict. Since its beginning, the Cold War was fought on several fronts. Aware of the disruptive and catastrophic effects of a nuclear war, the two superpowers avoided direct military confrontations in favor of more subtle demonstrations of their own power. The American containment doctrine soon deviated from its original focus on political and military aspects to encompass every aspects of international life. Both the USSR and the USA developed two competing and holistic ideologies, which embraced culture and sport, using them as a weapon to show the world the superiority of each political model.3 Sports tensions emerged in connection with the 1948 London Games, when the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) suggested that the United States government should have fed all the Olympic athletes. The Soviet magazine Ogonyak denounced this provocative gesture, by calling it a “pork trick,” as it was made to create profits for American canned pork. The Soviet magazine accused the United States of trying to make an excuse in case they lost at the Olympics. According to the magazine the United States would claim that the food “had enhanced the physical power of European Athletes”.4 2 For example: Richard Espy, The Politics of the Olympic Games, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979; Allen Guttmann, The Olympics. A History of the Modern Games, Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 1994 3 On the inception of the Cold War, see for example: Federico Romero, Storia della Guerra Fredda, l'ultimo conflitto per l'Europa, Einaudi, 2009; Melvyn Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind. The United States, the Soviet Union and the Cold War, New York, Hill and Wang, 2008 4 Richard Espy, The Politics of the Olympics, p.79 Behind these polemics there was the issue of Soviet participation to the Olympic Movement. Since the 1917 Revolution, the Russians (then, the Soviets) had been critical of the IOC, denouncing it as a bourgeois and imperialist tool to divert workers’ attention from the class struggle. After the second World War,

Load more