Secretariat. Planning response to “hostile” campaign against participation in the Summer 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Includes 27 January 1980 recommendations from Central Committee Departments, 2-3 pp. [R 29 January 1980, St 195/3] Total 3 pp (excerpt).

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[page one of three]

Workers of all Lands, Unite!

COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION. CENTRAL COMMITTEE

[Text along left-hand margin]
Return to the CPSU Central Committee
(General Department, sector 1) within 15 days of receipt
(Central Committee Resolution of 17 June 1976, St 12/4)

Top Secret

No St 195/3, 29 January 1980

Excerpt from Minutes No. 241 of the Central Committee Secretariat, item 3

About the hostile campaign against
the 1980 summer Olympic Games in Moscow

1. Agree to the views presented in the Memorandum (attached) from the Central Committee Departments.

2. Entrust the Central Committee Propaganda and Foreign Policy Propaganda  Departments, together with the organisational committee Olympics-1980, to prepare instructions for the Soviet delegation to the International Olympic Committee.

3. Accept the proposal of the Olympics-1980 committee that Comrades M.V. Gramov and V.I. Ignatenko be sent on a business trip to Lake Placid (USA) in February 1980. Note that the costs of this trip will be covered by the Olympics-1980 committee.

SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

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Secret

Attachment
to item 3 of No 195 Minutes

To the CPSU Central Committee

Concerning the hostile campaign against
the Summer 1980 Olympics in Moscow

US President Carter, using Soviet aid to Afghanistan as a pretext, has demanded a boycott of the summer Olympic Games in Moscow. The US Congress has adopted a resolution on this subject. The hostile act of the US administration has found the support of nine governments (Great Britain, Canada, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and the Netherlands). Direct pressure by Carter on the US National Olympic Committee has forced it to adopt a resolution requesting the International Olympic Committee to transfer the summer 1980 Olympic Games to another location, or to postpone or cancel them altogether.

The Carter administration is also trying to induce other countries to support the idea of a boycott. The US President has sent personal messages of this nature to the heads of more than one hundred countries.

The only organisation within the Olympic movement which can take a decision about cancelling the Games or moving them somewhere else is the International Olympic Committee. Up to the present not one of its 89 members has voiced support for Carter’s proposal. The majority of them, including the IOC President Killanin, see no grounds for cancelling the Games or moving them from Moscow.

The IOC, the leaders of 21 international sporting federations, and the national Olympic committees of the overwhelming majority of countries, including those whose governments have publicly announced their support for Carter’s idea, have resolutely condemned the present hostile campaign by the US administration. The government and national Olympic committee of France were the first to resolutely speak out in favour of taking part in the Moscow Games. The governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan and several other countries are waiting to see what happens. It has been suggested that the issue of a boycott should be discussed within NATO and the EEC.

In the past it was always the principled position of the IOC to prevent the Olympic Games being affected by political events. That was the case during the rampant anti-Sovietism

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connected to the events in Hungary in 1956 (Olympic Games in Melbourne) and the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Olympic Games in Mexico).

[…]

We request authorisation

Propaganda Department of the CPSU Central Committee

Foreign Policy Propaganda Department of the CPSU Central Committee

28 January 1980

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NOTES

General

1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been added
to a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation, John Crowfoot