DIPLOMACY: Game Playing in Montreal

As Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the ceremonies and the gas-fired torch flared into life at trackside in Montreal's ribbed, concrete Olympic Stadium last week, the XXI Olympiad had already produced one record. For the first time since the modern Games began in 1896, a host country had imposed its own foreign policy on the event. The result was some indecorous sports brinkmanship that forced the angry withdrawal of a clearly ill-treated team from the island Republic of China, further strained U.S.-Canadian relations and left much of the remaining world bothered about what a West German newspaper called "a...

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