217. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State1
5689. Subject: Moscow’s Olympic Boycott—A Morning After Analysis.
1. (C—Entire text)
2. Three main factors lay behind Moscow’s decision to boycott the Los Angeles games.2 The proximate cause of yesterday’s announcement, however, was probably a new development neither side could have foreseen in advance.
3. Soviet misgivings about participation in the Games have been evident for some time and have their roots in the following:
—A lingering desire to pay us back for “spoiling” the 1980 Moscow competition;3
[Page 783]—Traditional concerns over defections of athletes;
—The growing incompatibility of participation with Moscow’s efforts to portray U.S.-Soviet relations as in a state of crisis due to Reagan administration policies.
4. Of these, the first must be considered a constant which, while it set the emotional backdrop for the May 8 decision, would not have been sufficiently compelling in its own right to precipitate it. The last factor has taken on increasing importance as Moscow’s calculated sulk has deepened, and was probably a major factor in deciding to stay home. The defection problem has in all likelihood assumed greater prominence over the course of recent months, as Soviet plans for dealing with the problem (their “Olympic attaché”) have been upset and they may have begun to believe their own scare stories about concerted FBI efforts to encourage defections and anti-Soviet demonstrations. We reported last week a dissident-based report that Ustinov and the KGB were lobbying hard against going.
5. It seems likely that these three sets of concerns came together last month (presumably when the leadership, its party/government house in order after Andropov’s death, had time to focus on the issue) to produce the first hint that the Soviets would stay away—their April 10 call for an emergency IOC meeting. In the wake of the Lausanne meeting two weeks later, however, Soviet Olympic officials were upbeat in assessing prospects for attendance, specifically denying Moscow would participate in a “boycott.” Soviet media criticism of preparations subsequently adopted a less hostile tone, and even began featuring coverage of athletes preparing for the Games. We had word from Soviet contacts in a position to know that training was continuing through last week, and that athletes were planning on being in Los Angeles. All of this suggests that, as recently as a week ago, there was strong internal support for participating in the Olympics, and that those favoring staying home had not yet carried the day.
6. What probably tipped the balance in their favor and precipitated yesterday’s announcement was the early May failure of a Soviet exchange professor, Kozlov, to board a plane for the USSR after confused signals that he might wish to seek asylum in the U.S. The incident quickly got into the public domain, leading the Soviets to make public diplomatic protests of the USG’s handling of the incident.
7. It seems likely that the continuing Kozlov incident coincided with the final stage of Moscow’s consideration of whether or not to attend the Olympics—a decision which would have had to be made no earlier than June 2. The impact may well have been to demonstrate that even a carefully selected, mature individual with a family in the USSR could not be relied upon not to become a media event. The potential for similar embarrassment of turning loose an entire team of [Page 784] young, world-class athletes amid the temptations of Los Angeles may thus have taken on an immediacy for Soviet policymakers it did not have before Kozlov’s refusal to embark. In the context of the generally tough line on the U.S. currently prevailing in leadership circles here, it would have taken a strong, confident voice to have argued against a boycott. As we have seen too often of late, there is no evidence such a voice exists in the current leadership.
8. As to timing, it seems to us most likely that those opposing participation (and we have no reason to believe there were divisions within the Politburo itself on this point) wanted the decision announced quickly to cut off further internal lobbying on the issue. It is possible, however, that, knowing how difficult the move would be to explain domestically, the leadership calculated that an announcement on the eve of the Victory Day holiday—when patriotic fervor could be counted upon to be at a yearly high—might quell any doubts.
9. Comment: The impact of yesterday’s announcement, of course, will fall most heavily on Soviet interests. Moscow’s justification of its boycott is unconvincing, and the efforts the Soviets will presumably make to keep their allies and clients home seem likely to strain ties with those states. Coming on top of their action last week against Elena Bonner and Sakharov4—to say nothing of their handling of the KAL episode last fall—the move will reinforce perceptions of Soviet callousness with respect to world opinion, as well as of Soviet negativeness and of defensiveness on East-West issues. Without any help from us, in short, the Soviets have shot themselves squarely in the foot.
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D840301–0204. Confidential; Immediate. Sent for information to the Consulate in Leningrad, USIA, USUN, Ankara, Athens, the Mission in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Oslo, Paris, Reykjavik, Rome, USNATO, Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm, Vienna, Bern, Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Munich, Prague, Sofia, Warsaw, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, and the Mission in Geneva.↩
On May 8, the Soviet National Olympic Committee announced that they were “compelled to declare that the participation of the Soviet athletes in the 23rd Olympic Games in the city of Los Angeles is impossible. To act differently would be tantamount to approving the anti-Olympic actions of the American authorities and the Games’ organizers.
“In adopting this decision, we do not have the slightest wish to cast aspersions on the American public or to cloud the good feelings that link our countries’ athletes.” The full text of the Soviet statement was printed in the New York Times, May 9, 1984, p. A16.
↩- In his memoir, Shultz wrote: “We knew the Soviets, with their sense of reciprocity, would have the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow on their minds. Nevertheless, we proceeded on the assumption that the Soviets would attend. After an April 24 meeting of the Olympic Committee in Lausanne, the head of the Soviet National Olympic Committee announced, ‘There will be no boycott. That is our principal position. The Soviet Union never intended nor intends at the present to take a political decision of a boycott.’ But on May 8, the Soviets reversed themselves, issuing a statement in Tass saying that the United States was conniving with ‘extremist organizations’ that aimed to create ‘unbearable conditions’ for their delegation and athletes, an apparent reference to their fear that anti-Soviet demonstrations by human rights activists would embarrass them in Los Angeles. We had, in fact, bent over backward to meet all the Soviet concerns and had developed a plan for 17,000 people to be involved in Olympic security.” The Soviets claimed ‘inadequate security for their athletes’ and announced ‘they would not attend the Olympics,’ We denounced their action as unjustified and a ‘blatant political action.’ We knew that security was not the problem: the Soviet action was their way of retaliating against Jimmy Carter’s decision to boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet statement implied that Moscow hoped to heighten tensions and hurt President Reagan’s chances for reelection. That didn’t pan out for Moscow.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 474–475)↩
- The Washington Post reported that Bonner had been “placed under investigation for defaming the Soviet state” and barred from leaving Gorky. (Dusko Doder, “Sakharov Reported Fasting to Win Travel Permit for Ailing Wife,” Washington Post, May 9, 1984, p. A28)↩