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But there probably are other reasons, and one in particular with ramifications far beyond the world of athletics. The Soviet boycott is of a piece with the Kremlin's walkout from the nuclear arms-control talks in Geneva, its rejection of a U.S. offer to conclude a new agreement banning chemical warfare, and its spurning of overtures even to establish new consulates in New York and Kiev. All dramatize Moscow's frequent insistence that it sees no hope of concluding agreements with the Reagan Administration in any way, shape or form. By pulling out of the Olympics, says one U.S. State Department official, "the Soviets are saying they are so angry they won't even play games with us any more." In a conversation with TIME, a highly placed Soviet official made essentially the same point with remarkable candor. Said he: "Now the whole world will understand the Soviet government will do what it says it will. The first signal we sent was when we left the Geneva talks last fall. This is the second."
That, to be sure, was not what Moscow said on the record. The official statement from the Soviet Olympic Committee, announced to the world on Tuesday morning by the news agency TASS, stressed the theme that Soviet athletes in Los Angeles would be going into a hostile environment and implied they might even be physically attacked. "Chauvinistic sentiments land anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up" in the U.S., said the "statement, "with direct connivance of the American authorities [who do] not intend to ensure the security of all sportsmen" (see box).
The statement was mostly nonsense. Soviet officials scouting Olympic preparations in Los Angeles last winter spurned at least one briefing offered by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates on the extensive measures the city and Federal Government are in fact taking to safeguard athletes and spectators at the Games. But the announcement by TASS did give a clue to at least a subsidiary motive for the Soviet boycott. "Security," in Krernlin terms, includes protection against embarrassment, and Moscow's leaders were concerned that anti-Soviet demonstrations in Los Angeles and even possible defections of athletes would be shown on worldwide TV.