The CIA, the IOC, and Efforts to Establish a Refugee Olympic Team* By Toby C. Rider The Union of Free Eastern European Sportsmen (UFEES), which had its head- quarters in New York, demanded in a letter of 20th May 1952 the “participation of stateless athletes” in the Olympic Games in Helsinki. The initia- tor – with the support of the CIA – was the Hungarian Count Anthony (Antal) S zápáry (1905-1973), who in 1949 had married the great- granddaughter of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. In an address delivered to the United Nations General As far back as 1952, however, a different refugee team Assembly on 26th October 2015, the President of the was not given the same vote of approval. The Union of International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Free Eastern European Sportsmen (UFEES), a consortium Bach, explained that athletes of the highest calibre of stateless athletes that had fled from behind the ‘Iron were among the millions of refugees swept up in Curtain’ and sought to compete at the Helsinki Summer the unfolding humanitarian disaster across Europe, Games, roundly failed in its bid to receive official Africa, and the Middle East. “At present, none of these Olympic recognition. In many ways, the decision was athletes would have the chance to participate in the fully justified. After all, recent research has revealed Olympic Games even if qualified,” he said, “with their that the UFEES was connected to the Central Intelligence refugee status, they are left without a home country and Agency (CIA), the clearing house for the US government’s National Olympic Committee to represent.” early Cold War covert operations.3 These secret links, In response to this tragic set of circumstances, Bach forged as part of America’s strategy to defeat the Soviet announced that the IOC planned to allow a small number Union, gave the IOC’s Members a simple reason to deny of these men and women to participate at the 2016 Rio the Union’s application. Olympic Games. “[H]aving no national team to belong Recent research suggests that the IOC is an organisation to, having no flag to march behind, having no national that opposes the political interference of governments anthem to be played, these refugee athletes will be with the Olympics. Yet the available sources do not welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag suggest that Olympic authorities had any inkling of the and the Olympic anthem,” he told the assembly. “This involvement of America’s intelligence community in will be a symbol of hope for all the refugees in our world, the activities of the Union. They made a decision, and a and will make the world better aware of the magnitude decisive one at that, based upon the merits of the case. of this crisis.”1 In March the following year, the IOC Exploring the IOC’s approach to the Union therefore Executive Board established and recognised a Refugee reveals the organisation’s change of policy with respect Olympic Team (ROT) for the first time in the history of the to the participation of stateless athletes in the twenty modern Games.2 first century. 36 The Secret Behind the UFEES Latvian Jãnis Dikmanis (1882-1969) was the There existed, quite clearly, a fundamental difference Vice-Chairman of the between the Union and the newly coined Refugee UFEES and an IOC Olympic Team. One was organised by the IOC, the other member from 1926 to by a clandestine organ of state. Indeed, tracing the 1947. In the wake of origins of the Union reveals the evolution of America’s the Red Army invasion covert Cold War apparatus. The formation of the Union of 1944 he fled to was, in essence, inspired by the US government’s Germany and from strategy of “political warfare” to counter the threat of there to England and communist expansion in the early Cold War years. US to the USA. Far left: the officials argued that only through political warfare, the committee was also “employment of all means at a nation’s command, supported by the short of war, to achieve its national objectives,” could of the potential of the exiled community, the National B riton Tufton Beamish America effectively respond to the apparent success of Committee for a Free Europe was formed by the American (1917-1989), from 1945 Soviet propaganda following the defeat of Hitler.4 In intelligence community in 1949. The organisation’s first to 1974 conservative 1948, this realisation was quickly made policy when the press release stated that it would aid the exiles in their member of Parliament government created the machinery for secret operations “stand against communism” and, of course, made no and thereafter Baron and placed it under the umbrella of the Central mention of where its funding came from. To anyone Chelwood of Lewes in Intelligence Agency.5 in the public that might be interested, the committee East Sussex. Armed with a massive budget and a cast of Second simply appeared to be a private philanthropic group led Photos: Volker Kluge Archive World War intelligence veterans, the US soon embarked by prominent American citizens. In reality, however, it upon a wide scope of covert operations in a global received millions of CIA dollars to fund Soviet bloc émigrés assault on communism. Moreover, this worldwide in an astounding breadth of activities. The most famous crusade was further driven and galvanized by the co- branch of the organisation’s propaganda machine, option of private actors to the cause. US policymakers Radio Free Europe, started to broadcast in 1950, but the determined that foreign audiences would be far more committee also poured money into research centers, responsive to the message of American propaganda if it publications, “freedom” rallies, a Free Europe University appeared that the message had not come from official in Exile, and a plethora of other exiled groups and government sources. As a result, they launched an individuals living in the West.7 unprecedented peace time commitment to support US One such benefactor, crucial to the story of the Union, foreign policy objectives by working with and through was the Hungarian National Sports Federation (HNSF). private groups or, in more extreme examples, creating Formed in December 1949, the Federation sought to “deal “private” organisations from scratch.6 the greatest possible blows whenever and wherever The National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) fit possible to the communists in the field of sports.”8 Led into the latter category of this “state-private network.” by a Hungarian exile named Count Anthony Szápáry, the This émigré group provided a voice for Eastern European group endeavored to help athletes to defect from Eastern refugees who had fled either the Nazi invasion or the Europe and aided those that had defected to start a new subsequent Soviet presence in their respective countries. life on “free soil.” As many of these refugees desired to Covert operators in Washington recognised that the continue competing in sporting competitions, the HNSF exiles possessed the necessary lines of contact to breach expelled a considerable amount of energy attempting to Stalin’s ‘Iron Curtain’, and spread propaganda that might persuade international sports bodies such as the IOC to disrupt and encourage revolt against Soviet communist allow stateless athletes to enter their events. One of the ideology. More still, the State Department reasoned that HNSF’s first major attempts to press this agenda resulted if they controlled the refugees in an unofficial capacity, in the creation of the Union of Free Eastern European the US government could not be held accountable. Sportsmen.9 And so in response to Soviet foreign policy and in light The scheme developed throughout the middle portion of 1951. Realizing that many athletes from Soviet bloc countries were among the people in flight from the ‘Iron Toby C. Rider | *1978. Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the California State University, Curtain’, the HNSF and NCFE concocted a plan to create Fullerton. His work includes Cold War Games: Propaganda, a refugee Olympic team for the 1952 Summer Games the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Urbana: The University 10 of Illinois Press, 2016; “Political Warfare in Helsinki: American in Helsinki. It coincided, rather aptly, with another Covert Strategy and the Union of Free Eastern European significant event. While the creators of the UFEES plotted Sportsmen”, in: International Journal of the History of Sport, about how to get Olympic recognition, the Soviet Union Vol. 30, No.13 (2013), pp. 1493-1507. got it. At Helsinki, the Soviet Union’s athletes competed JOH 2 | 2016 • The CIA, the IOC, and Efforts to Establish a Refugee Olympic Team 37 Count Szápáry spoke in particular Hungarian athletes living in exile In 1949 Kornél Pajor, became the only Hungarian to win a World Championship in speed-skating. He settled in Sweden after the 1951 World Championships. Adjacent: the fencer Imre Rajczy, who had won Olympic gold in 1936 with the Hungarian sabre team and had emigrated to Argentina after the Second World War. for the first time in Olympic history, further drawing the An Appeal to Olympic Principles Movement into the global ideological struggle for the “hearts and minds” of the world.11 For this reason, too, In 2016, the IOC reacted to a human crisis of immense the timing of the Union’s operation was perfect. Stalin proportions. For this reason, no doubt, the creation of may have had expectations that Soviet athletes would the Refugee Olympic Team has been warmly greeted by promote communism on an international platform by the public and media. Yet the refugee situation in the dominating in Finland, but a group of exiles competing post-World War Two years was also catastrophic.