For the past six years, South Korea has labored to make the 1988 Summer Olympic Games -- the 24th of the modern Olympiad -- into a statement of the country's arrival as a sophisticated and confident middle power. But amid last week's tear gas and flaming Molotov cocktails, the linked rings of the Olympic flag had become not only a symbol of national aspirations but also an emblem of international worry. Around the world, a growing number of sports and political figures were voicing concern about whether South Korea would be able to stage the Games free from boycotts or violence, or indeed whether it should hold them at all. The South Koreans insisted that the Games would go on, and splendidly at that.
So far as the International Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is concerned, there is no going back on the 1981 decision to give the Games to South Korea. Said I.O.C. Spokeswoman Michele Verdier last week: "The Games have been awarded to Seoul, and there is absolutely no change in our position." Only an "act of war," she said, might change the committee's view. Verdier has solid precedent on her side: the quadrennial Summer Games have been suspended only three times -- in 1916, 1940 and 1944 -- and in each case because of a world conflict.
But even though the Olympics do not begin until Sept. 17, 1988, I.O.C. member nations, including the U.S., are watching the current turmoil in South Korea carefully. Says George Miller, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee, who is worried about the future safety of his athletes: "We're not yet at the hand-wringing stage. But anytime there are disruptions in a country, naturally there are levels of concern." Willi Daume, a West German I.O.C. member who presided over the 1972 Munich Games, thinks that removing the Olympics from Seoul at this stage could even heat up the deteriorating situation in South Korea. On the other hand, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley last week offered his city, site of the 1984 Games, as an alternative to Seoul.
On the American political front, at least one presidential hopeful has focused on the Games. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in the full flight of his still undeclared candidacy, last week told Kim Kyung-Won, South Korea's Ambassador to Washington, that he might urge a U.S. boycott of the Games. Jackson demanded that the political situation in Seoul be stabilized and that the regime improve its human-rights record. But a ranking White House official last week declared that the Reagan Administration would never threaten a boycott like the one the U.S. organized against Moscow in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In fact, there is still a faint but perceptible chance that Moscow might try something similar this time around. Even though the Soviets have announced unconditional plans to send a full team of athletes to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, they have not yet given such a commitment for Seoul. Soviet Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov last week referred to a Jan. 17 deadline by which countries must accept the Olympic invitation. "When we approach that deadline," said Gerasimov, "our sportsmen will give their answer." If the Soviets should decide to stay home, other Communist countries might decide to do the same. Despite Moscow's suspenseful attitude, however, ! the Soviets are expected to show up in Seoul.