A Look Back at the 1980 Summer Olympic Games Part I

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

In the Fall of 2021, Afghanistan loomed large. Whether you agree or not with the war waged there by the USA and its coalition forces over a period of twenty years, there is little doubt that for one country Afghanistan has cast a significant shadow over the history of the world. What is little realized is that it has done so for a lot longer than the last 20 years, during which the coalition forces kept the Taliban at bay. The country has its own troubled history, which goes a lot deeper than this century or even the previous one. Here though it is Afghanistan’s, although oblique, relevance to sport, which serves as a background to the greatest tragedy to have ever affected a US amateur boxing team; it is one which should never be forgotten. I am going to try to take you back to 1980. By doing so I hope to explain how an appalling plane crash in Poland gave the US their greatest sporting tragedy; How it fitted within a worldwide context of the time; And how the US President of the time by leading a boycott of the Olympic Games of that self-same year, denied many athletes, some of whom were lost on that plane, of an opportunity to win an ultimate prize – an Olympic Gold Medal. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the promise lost in that crash, of the legacies left behind by the people who lost their lives and of the politics that saw Afghanistan dominate world politics, long before it hid the Taliban. Finally, it’s all about who missed the fateful flight and what happened after the accident.

And so, we begin with, the context, a beginning and where it began.

“Regardless of what other nations might do, I would not favor the sending of an American Olympic team to Moscow while the Soviet invasion troops are in Afghanistan.” President Jimmy Carter
“For all my experience of anti-Soviet campaigns in the United States. I had never encountered anything like the intensity and scale of this one. What particularly caught my attention was the president’s personal obsession with Afghanistan.” Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s longtime ambassador to Washington.

Afghanistan; a context, a beginning…

Afghanistan is a country with a history of foreign invasion, but a country, nonetheless. Like all countries it sees itself as one nation with borders to define its geography and a culture to define its people. Proud people inhabit their cities and their hinterlands with a sense of what being an Afghani means.

To the outside world, however, it has always been a source of conflict.

Under the heel of British rule in the 19th century including when the British had repelled a Russian invasion in the 1870’s, it had been declared an independent state in only 1929. Once supposedly free of British and foreign rule, this country of rebelliousness and passion, of one God and many pathways and of a need to modernize but with a frequent desire to retreat to a mediaeval style Caliphate was left to unite and prosper; in short, a melting pot of confusion and subservience over which other powers sought to exert influence was left to their own devices.
At least up to a point.

In modern times there came the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet forces on the 24th of December 1979. An invasion by the Russians, Afghanistan in the 70’s which followed their Czech invasion of the 1960’s and the putting down of the uprising in Hungary in the 1950’s was once again front-page news in the west. The world wondered if the Soviet Government thought that they could, get away with soiling someone else’s sovereign soil – again.

The world in which we find ourselves now has its own forms of crisis, arguments and international incidents. To think back not just one decade but four is, for many, a decade or two, too far. It’s history and for those who believe it irrelevant, a country to which we ought not return.

The world of the late 1970’s was one of major battle grounds, none more so than Afghanistan that bear examination, However and that has resonated down the decades. Indeed, the very same country that has been at the heart of the formulation and planning of our most terrible atrocities and battles was as much of a concern and battle ground 40 years ago as it is now.

In many ways, the world of the 1970’s appeared so much simpler. The foes, standing at either side of an “Iron Curtain drawn across the center of Europe” were easy to spot. On one side, the West was the free world. Headed by America, it drew in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Commonwealth of Nations that were previously colonies under British rule and West Germany. There were others. There were many others who stood shoulder to shoulder against the red menace, headed by the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) commonly referred to as, Russia. On the other side of this international divide was the USSR who had satellites states around them like Poland, Romania, Hungary and East Germany. There were others, a few others but the Communist Bloc tended to think, act and vote in one direction; decided in Moscow and implemented from there. Allies included countries such as China, North Korea, Cuba and Albania but they were, at that time, more influenced than directed by the Soviets, however, they were in their own ways, equally as dangerous and deadly.

The Soviet invasion brought a very sharp focus to the Cold War. This was perhaps the international communist’s final hurrah. In just over a decade, communism was going to fade as the people in Russia and those directly controlled satellite states rebelled and tore down that Iron Curtain. But for now, they had embarked upon on one last push, a final opportunity to show their mettle, their resolve and their ability to smite anyone out of their way. As the tanks rolled into Afghanistan, the world held its breath awaiting a response from the Free World: at its helm, peanut farmer President, Jimmy Carter.

As a President, Jimmy Carter faced some of the gravest international crisis of modern times on behalf of the United States. Perhaps unfairly, Carter was not seen as the most forthright or most resolute. But this was surely an easy choice to make. The side to take was always against the Soviet Union, the Red Menace, so there was little scope for doubt. The world was watching and as the tanks hit the streets of Kabul, the minds and hearts of those who believed in the role of democracy in the free world were awaiting strong and decisive action.

As the war progressed, and once the initial posturing was over, the free world and those who supported its right to campaign to export democracy, began to support the insurgents who were, bravely, fighting technology with heart and shield. Hollywood was to capture the covert support for this group in Charley’s War as the Mujahadeen were provided with weaponry and technical assistance: the Afghani Mujahadeen were later to be usurped by the more radical and backward Taliban.

Carter delivered a deadline for withdrawal – 20th February 1980. He demanded that the Soviets retreat to their pre-existing borders and leave Afghanistan. Nobody believed the Russians were going to comply. And they didn’t. so, what next. Decisive action was called for.

That was delivered on the 21st of March 1980, when Carter announced that the United States of America, would boycott the Olympic Games, due to be held in Moscow.

It was hardly the Bay of Pigs.

There had already been various international figures expressing outrage at the actions of the Soviet Government. Like now, the world looked upon the United States as some form of leader in democratic moral outrage, a defender of the free and an exporter of liberty. Carter, however, to us, seemed more like a curmudgeonly uncle than a world leader but here his mettle was tested and to be fair to him, he was not found wanting.

Carter had clearly hoped that his lead would bring about an international boycott of the Games and he got Canada, West Germany and Japan to join in. Whilst he was not going to launch American troops, unlike predecessors, into the sweltering melting pot of Afghanistan, he was taking a form of decisive action that would show how diplomacy and international outrage could be used as a weapon. There were key allies, however, who were unconvinced, amongst them, France, Australia and Great Britain.

Carter also imposed trade sanctions on grain and IT. Soviet fishing was restricted in US controlled waters and Carter asked the UN to step in to support Afghani neighbors like Iran and Pakistan who were vulnerable to encroachment by the Soviets.

At the time, the Soviet Union was not just a leader in Communist immorality, but also a defender of authoritarianism and an exporter of tyranny and terror. It was easy to portray this as a battle ultimately between global good and global evil.

The lines had been drawn between the West and the East since the Second World War and we were well used to the two sides flirting dangerously with each other but for now, the world was concerned that a nuclear confrontation was on the horizon. Carter, though many would see his actions as weak, was carefully managing to dance through these dangerous times with some deftness and skill. The steely eyed Soviet Premier, Leonid Brezhnev looked less than concerned. He should have been. The Soviet invasion was to lead to a war that lasted almost 10 years and saw his troops have to withdraw with their tails firmly between their legs and adding their name to the pantheon of colonizing foreign governments who had failed to tame the Afghani beast.

For now, however, sport was to be the battle ground.

AND NEXT TIME…

And so, the lines were drawn but what did the sporting world and that of US sport itself, feel at being drawn into center stage in this epitome of the freezing very cold war?

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