(6 of 10)
Communists who are on the outs with Moscow or who at least make a show of independence hastened to buck the Kremlin. Rumania was the only Warsaw Pact nation to pass word that its athletes would compete in the Olympics. China indicated it would participate too. The Chinese and Soviets currently are more annoyed with each other than usual. Moscow is miffed at the cordial reception Peking accorded Reagan on his recent tour. The Chinese are displeased because, at the very last minute, the Kremlin last week postponed a visit by Ivan Arkhipov, First Deputy Premier, who would have been the highest-ranking Soviet official received in Peking in 15 years. In the West, L 'Unità , official organ of the Italian Communist Party, called the Soviet pullout "arbitrary." More surprising, Georges Marchais, leader of the French Communist Party, which is usually meekly obedient to Moscow, termed the boycott a "grave error." he U.S. also took some lumps in world opinion, not because anyone outside the Soviet bloc believed Moscow's claim that athletes from the U.S.S.R. would be in danger from protesters in Los Angeles, but because some commentators blamed Washington for setting a bad example with its 1980 boycott. U.S. PAYS THE PRICE FOR POLITICIZING THE OLYMPICS proclaimed a banner headline in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald. The Reagan Administration and its other American allies replied that the "threat" of anti-Soviet demonstrations in Los Angeles cited by Moscow hardly compared in gravity with the invasion of Afghanistan that had triggered the U.S. action. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who vigorously supported the 1980 boycott (but could not persuade the British Olympic Association to go along), icily told left-wing members of Parliament that the situation then was "totally different from the conditions under which the Olympics are being held in Los Angeles."
This time around, the Soviets had no grievance even remotely approaching the magnitude of the Afghanistan invasion. As recently as late April, they seemed more ambivalent than distressed, alternating loud complaints about Olympic arrangements with expressions of hope that their athletes could attend. TASS went so far as to call an April 24 meeting of Soviet, American and international Olympic authorities in Lausanne, Switzerland, "a great step forward" in allaying Soviet concerns about visa requirements, customs inspections and the like. But TASS also noted that "problems" remained to be solved. Whether this was a calculated act to intensify suspense or a ploy to gain time while the decision was being debated in Moscow probably is known only to the Politburo. American officials, who admit they were surprised, incline to the latter view. Says one State Department official flatly: "We know the decision was taken only very recently."