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The Triumvirate. For the selling job, Cushing called on two fellow Harvardmen for help: George Weller. globe-trotting reporter for the Chicago Daily News, and Marshall Haseltine, urbane expatriate who lived in Europe. Weller got a leave of absence to work with Cushing. He drove into Squaw Valley over the rutted dirt road from State Highway 89, took one horrified look and decided on the spot that the pitch had to be a return to Olympic ideals of togetherness and simplicity, in contrast to Europe's ornate resorts.
Applicants' brochures were customarily printed in English, French and German. Weller noted that "only two countries spoke German, and they both wanted the Olympics in their own area," ordered Spanish substituted for German to please Latin American delegates. Weller embarked on a four-month tour of South America to emphasize the advantages of an Olympics in the Western Hemisphere. His next trip was to Scandinavia, where he plugged the idea of a simple Olympics to thrifty Swedes and Norwegians. Cushing and Haseltine took on other European I.O.C. representatives. *The Soft Sell. By the time the crucial meeting convened in Paris, Cushing & Co. had made personal contact with 42 of the 62 delegates. The three Americans hung out unobtrusively in cocktail bars frequented by delegates, never pushed themselves, but were always available. Cushing had ordered a huge (7 ft. by 12 ft.) relief model of Squaw Valley at a cost of $2,800, had it shipped to Paris for $3,000. The monster proved so big it would not fit through the door of the I.O.C. exhibit room, but after lodging was found for it down the street, delegates went out of their way to go see it, thereby giving the Americans a chance to practice the soft sell away from competing exhibits.
Despite all the groundwork, the outlook was not bright for Squaw when the meeting opened. Huffed a German delegate to Cushing: "Don't think you are going to parlay one ski lift into an Olympic Game." Even a U.S. delegate sneered: "Who's going to vote for you? I'm not." Austria's Innsbruck was Squaw's chief competitor, and seemed a sure winner when one of the delegates charged that Squaw was totally unprepared to stage an Olympics, furthermore should be disqualified because it was not a town (it still is not). Summoned to the meeting room for an explanation, Cushing turned on the charm. There should be no fears about readying an Olympic plant at Squaw, he argued. After all, there were four years in which to build it, said he, and had not the governments of both California and the U.S. endorsed Squaw's bid? As for the town technicality, "We're all sportsmen here, not politicians." Squaw Valley won the bid, 32-30 over Innsbruck, on the second ballot.
Conflict of Interests. Triumphantly Cushing returned to the U.S., ran headlong into a stern warning from the I.O.C.'s crusty chairman, Avery Brundage: "Cushing, you're going to set back the Olympic movement 25 years." For a time, it appeared that Brundage had something. Cushing could count on the piddling $1,000,000 voted by the state, but even in his most poor-mouth moment, he never envisioned that the games could be staged for less than $2,000,000.