The Nazi who hated Jim Thorpe

Jealous of Jim? Oh God YES!

What did Avery Brundage (SLAVERY AVERY) do for the Olympics?

He competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics, where he participated in the pentathlon and decathlon, but did not win any medals; both events were won by teammate Jim Thorpe. He won national championships in track three times between 1914 and 1918 and founded his own construction business.

***

NAZI retirement, moved to Germany, I heard in an interview about Nazi filmmaker

What happened to Avery Brundage?

GARMISCH ‐ PARTENKIRCHEN, West Germany, May 8—Avery Brundage, the American multimillionaire who for 20 years as president of the International Olympic Committee fought for what he considered purity in sports and amateurism in world athletic competition, died today in this Bavarian village. He was 87 years old. May 9, 1975

Racist MOTHER FUCKER👇

6/25/2020

Racist IOC President Avery Brundage Loses His Place of Honor

The decision to remove his bust from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum was long overdue.

By Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff June 25, 2020

LINK: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/avery-brundage/

Avery Brundage in Chicago, Ill., in March of 1968. (Bettmann / Getty)

As part of the national uprising against police violence and for black lives, monuments to white supremacy are coming down all over. Some activists have taken matters into their own hands, yanking down statues of slaveholders and colonizers. At other times, institutions have decided that the time is right to face their own history and remove problematic memorials.

Recently, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco announced that it would remove its own bust of Avery Brundage—whose massive collection is displayed in the museum—from its prominent location and place it in storage to collect dust. Brundage was the ironfisted president of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972.

In Olympic circles, Brundage is infamous for his racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. Time and again, he took positions that placed him on the wrong side of history. The removal of Brundage’s bust is long overdue. His toxic concoction of -isms and his perma-frown belong in the dustbin of history.

We received comment from Dr. Jay Xu, director and CEO at the Asian Art Museum. He said that the museum had planned to remove the bust in the spring, but then the pandemic hit. Even though we are still immersed in that public health nightmare, museum officials believed that the recent protests for black lives showed it was time to act. “Examining the record, asking hard questions, and rewriting the story are what a museum does,” Dr. Xu told us. “It’s why we all feel motivated by this moment.”

Brundage clung to the belief that politics and the Olympics should never mix, famously proclaiming, “We actively combat the introduction of politics into the Olympic movement and are adamant against the use of the Olympic Games as a tool or as a weapon by any organization.” His legacy remains in IOC policy. Earlier this year, the committee explicitly prohibited “gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling.”

In the late 1960s, Brundage was known as “Slavery Avery” for his anti-black racism. When athletes and their allies formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967, they listed a series of demands, among them the restoration of Muhammad Ali’s boxing title and the exclusion from US athletic events of all-white sports squads from South Africa and Rhodesia. They also singled out “Slavery Avery,” calling for the “removal of the anti-Semitic and anti-black personality Avery Brundage from his post as Chairman of the International Olympic Committee.”

Brundage did not take kindly to John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s iconic act of political dissent on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, when they thrust their black-gloved fists into the Mexico City sky to promote black freedom and human rights. Brundage played a key role in getting the athletes booted from the Olympic Village. Weeks later, in response to people who wrote him letters chastising Carlos and Smith, Brundage offered a range of castigations from “The boys were sent home, but they should not have been there in the first place” to “As a matter of fact, people of that kind should not have been on the Olympic team at all. This was not a schoolboy prank, as some seem to think…. it left international repercussions very harmful to our country.”

When it came to women and sports, Brundage was a reactionary. Another nickname, “Avery Umbrage,” captured his feelings about the participation of women athletes at the Olympics. In 1957, setting the tone as president of the International Olympic Committee, Brundage wrote in a letter to fellow members of the IOC, “Many still believe that events for women should be eliminated from the Games, but this group is now a minority. There is still, however, a well grounded protest against events which are not truly feminine, like putting a shot, or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex, such as distance runs.” At the time, around 20 percent of Olympic athletes were women.

Brundage was also anti-Semitic. In the early 1930s, as momentum built to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics because of Hitler’s increasingly alarming attacks on Jewish people, Brundage came to the Germans’ defense. As head of the American Olympic Committee, Brundage traveled to Germany to investigate anti-Jewish discrimination for himself and concluded that everything was fine and dandy. He told The New York Times,

The fact that no Jews have been named so far to compete for Germany doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been discriminated against on that score. In forty years of Olympic history, I doubt if the number of Jewish athletes competing from all nations totaled 1 per cent of all those in the games.

(This number, pulled from the dark recesses of Brundage’s mind, wasn’t close to being accurate.)

In private, Brundage stripped away the varnish. In one letter to IOC power broker Sigfrid Edström, he complained, “The New York newspapers which are largely controlled by Jews, devote a very considerable percentage of their news columns to the situation in Germany. The articles are 99% anti-Nazi.” He reasoned,

As a result, probably 90% of the populace is anti-Nazi. The Jews have been clever enough to realize the publicity value of sport and are making every effort to involve the American Olympic Committee. Boycotts have been started by the Jews which have aroused the citizens of German extraction to reprisals. Jews with communistic and socialistic antecedents have been particularly active, and the result is that the same sort of class hatred which exists in Germany and which every sane man deplores, is being aroused in the United States.

After Hitler’s Olympics, Brundage poured on the praise, revealing his alarmingly retrograde politics. “We can learn much from Germany,” he wrote. “We, too, if we wish to preserve our institutions, must stamp out communism. We, too, must take steps to arrest the decline of patriotism.” In his personal notes, he even concluded, “An intelligent, beneficent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government. Observe what happened in Germany for six or seven years in the 1930’s.”

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum is doing the right thing. To be sure, the museum has become far less dependent on Brundage’s original collection, making his largesse far less essential to the museum’s mission. Dr. Xu says, “In more recent years, especially in the context of our 50th anniversary in 2016, our research yielded new insights into Brundage’s views, as well as the perspective that Brundage was in fact only part of the museum’s origin story: The people of San Francisco played a much larger role in raising the funds necessary to bring his collection ‘home’ than is typically known.”

Avery Brundage consistently threaded together some of the most virulent strains of right-wing hate. The removal of his bust from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum is a righteous decision. There is much to learn from Brundage. He should be studied. His “contributions” to Olympic history need to be understood. But he has long forfeited a place of honor and respect.

https://blog.tracehentz.com/

THE EMBATTLED WORLD of AVERY BRUNDAGE

Robert Creamer 1/30/1956

Original Issue

January 30, 1956

Author:

Robert Creamer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ORIGINAL LAYOUT

In the event that you are trying to pinpoint in your mind the things you should remember about Avery Brundage, the strong-faced gentleman pictured on the opposite page, he is the black villain who, in his 24-year reign as president of the U.S. Olympic Association, threw Swimmer Eleanor Holm off the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in midocean for sipping champagne, who cold-heartedly took a new automobile away from the pretty Canadian figure skater, Barbara Ann Scott, who ruthlessly declared Jesse Owens a professional, who peremptorily suspended Babe Didrikson, who publicly chastised Charley Paddock, who refused to allow European countries to reimburse their athletes for the regular salaries they lost when they were away from their jobs competing at the Olympic Games. You may have heard him described as Slavery Avery, a man with a discus where his heart should be, or as a man who looks comfortable in a high, stiff collar, or as a man wearing a slightly stuffed shirt.

Whatever you've heard or read over the years about Avery Brundage, the chances are excellent that your present opinion of him is not one of unabashed adoration and that your emotional reaction to the sight of his picture or the sound of his name does not, by a goodly margin, come up to the level of even mild affection. In short, Avery Brundage is not very, very popular.

"I am aware of this," Brundage said recently in Chicago, "but I am not greatly disturbed by it."

The implacable Mr. Brundage, who is now the most powerful man in sport, in 1952 became president of the International Olympic Committee, a position which actually has no counterpart in the world but would be roughly analagous to that of president of the United Nations, if there were such a powerful office in the U.N., and if the U.N. exercised absolute power over world affairs.

He was sitting sideways to his desk, looking out the window of his 18th floor office in the La Salle Hotel, his hands comfortably clasped over his abdomen, his thumbs tapping noiselessly together.

Abruptly, he spun his brown-leather swivel chair back to his broad, leather-inlaid desk and looked up truculently, his lips pursed.

"Why should I be?" he demanded. "A newspaperman wakes up in the morning with a headache—" He paused, lowered his head slightly and looked out over the top of his glasses, his lips relaxing into a small, amused smile. "Or a hangover." He paused again, to let that sink in, and then went on: "and he has a story to write. What's easier to write than a story about something that so-and-so Avery Brundage has done?"

He turned again to the window, but as he did he waved his immense hand at a stack of scrapbooks piled haphazardly on his desk and at others on a nearby table and still others in disarray on the floor.

"All those things are there. But there are other things, too. Things that mean something to a man. The opinions of people whose opinions he respects. Here."

He arose and came around the desk, a big man, big through the chest, big through the shoulders, a big head, a big jaw, big hands, big fingers. And yet he moved lightly and gracefully, like an athlete, not at all the way a man of 68 is supposed to move.

"Here," he said, opening a scrap-book. He peered at the book, turning the pages slowly. "Here." His heavy fingers thudded on a letter of praise from an Olympic Committeeman. "Here." They thudded again on a citation from the city of Santa Barbara, California—where Brundage has a home—for "outstanding civic contribution," and again on an award from Northwestern University for "a lifetime of distinguished service."

There were newspaper clippings, too. His fingers tapped one from the Chicago Sun headed: BRUNDAGE TAKES IT—FOR NOTHING, TOO! CHIEF ABUSED BUT SELDOM WRONG, and another, a column by the veteran Detroit News sportswriter, H. G. Salsinger, praising Brundage, and another, by the Scripps-Howard sports editor, Joe Williams, headed: WHAT'S THIS? A KIND WORD FOR BRUNDAGE!

He continued to flip slowly through the scrapbooks, glancing briefly over each page. The clippings in the scrap-book were by no means unanimous in praise of Brundage. Many were harshly critical. One, for instance, described him as "a sanctimonious snob with a long record of asinineantics." Brundage chuckled.

"That's pretty good," he said. "Oh, I don't blame the newspaper men for writing what they do. It doesn't bother me. If your conscience is clear you don't have to worry about what people say about you."

He sat down again, folded his hands and looked out the window.

"This Eleanor Holm thing, for instance. That's usually the first thing people want to know. Why did I throw the girl off the Olympic team?"

He turned halfway around toward the desk, his arms resting on the arms of the chair, his body erect but leaning a little forward, away from the back of the chair. He gestured abruptly with his left hand.

"In the first place, I didn't throw her off the Olympic team. I didn't have the authority to. The Olympic Committee threw her off. There were 20 men on the committee, and they voted unanimously to do it. I was the chairman of the committee, and it was my duty to announce its action, which—let me make this clearly understood—I approved of 100%.

"Well. I announced the committee's decision, and the headlines shouted: 'Brundage throws Eleanor Holm off the Olympic team!' "

He stared out the window at the wintry sky over Chicago, thinking back to that heated summer 20 years earlier.

"Then they said I declared Jesse Owens a professional. Jesse is a fine man. I have the utmost respect for him. His accomplishments in the '36 Games were remarkable. But—" He spun his chair and faced the desk. "Certain tours had been arranged to take place after the Games. Groups of competitors were to travel to different countries and compete in special meets. No one had to go, though most, of course, wanted to. Jesse had agreed to go with a group that was to visit Sweden. Well. Some smart fellow in New York had a bright idea on how to make a quick bundle of money and he sent Jesse a telegram offering him $40,000 to turn professional.

"Anyone who's been around track and field for a while knows there simply isn't that much money in professional running. Jesse was advised to wait a bit and think about it. But $40,000 is a great deal of money, and Jesse was just a young fellow, so he announced that he was going to accept the offer. And he didn't go to Sweden, as he had promised. All right. He was suspended. What did the headlines say? The headlines said: 'Brundage declares Jesse Owens a professional!' "

His face was truculent again and his voice rose slightly in intensity.

"Brundage had nothing to do with it! Jesse Owens declared Jesse Owens a professional. I think it was a shame. He was a great athlete, a gentleman, a fine person. He still is. But where did he end up with that professional contract? Down in Cuba running against a racehorse!"

Brundage all but snorted as he said this, as if the idea of a great runner appearing in such a garish spectacle were almost too much to bear.

"Then the Barbara Ann Scott thing. She won the world figure-skating championship, and the people in Ottawa wanted to give her an automobile. I was in California at the time and I read the story there. I clipped it out and sent it to Europe to a friend of mine, an Olympic official. This was when 'broken time' was a very big issue, and this automobile thing tied in with my arguments about the growing tendency for amateur athletes to receive material gain for athletic success, which is against the rules. Well. He called it to the attention of the Canadian Olympic Committee and they pointed out to Miss Scott that if she accepted the automobile she'd be leaving herself wide open to charges of professionalism—which meant, of course, that she'd be ineligible for the 1948 Winter Olympics. So she returned the automobile. What happened?" Brundage lifted one arm in a gesture of resignation. " 'Brundage takes car away from Barbara Ann Scott.' "

He grinned.

A MATTER OF STATE

"Oh, they gave it to me that time. They even discussed it in the Canadian Parliament. But here!" He sat up straight and tapped his fingers on the desk in front of him. "Barbara Ann Scott went on to win the Olympic title for Canada the next winter. And she and her mother came over to me—there at the Games in St. Moritz—and they thanked me for helping to save her amateur standing.

"Things like that mean a good deal to a man." He jabbed a powerful arm straight out, pointing at the scrap-books. "They certainly mean more than those headlines."

The telephone rang, and Brundage, watching the flight of his argument like an archer following the flight of his arrow, ignored it for a moment. Then he sat back, turned in his chair and picked it up.

"Um?" he said.

"I did," he said.

"I did," he said again.

He put the phone down on its cradle and turned back to the desk. As he did, Miss Frances Blakely, a slender, elderly, sweet-faced woman who has been Brundage's secretary and, in effect, executive assistant for more years than she cares to specify, entered the office and put a sheaf of papers on his desk. She said mildly, "You said you wanted to see these before you left tonight."

"Um," Brundage said. He didn't seem happy about the idea.

Miss Blakely paused at the door on her way out.

"Did you make that call?" she asked.

Brundage frowned at the papers.

"I did," he said shortly, without looking up.

Miss Blakely smiled and left.

Brundage studied the papers for a few minutes and then placed them to one side on the desk, which was already piled high with notes and correspondence. He runs his business enterprises from this office, as well as the affairs of the International Olympic Committee, though in recent months, right up to his departure last week for the Winter Games in Italy, his Olympic duties almost certainly took up more of his time than business did.

Brundage is a genuine, original, 14-carat Self-made Millionaire. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1909 with a degree in civil engineering, started his own construction company a few years later and was amazingly successful, partly because of a nicely timed combination of Brundage zeal and energy with post-World War I building boom. He constructed dozens of important buildings in Chicago and elsewhere. Today, he has interests in various business enterprises, including the Montecito Country Club in Santa Barbara and a number of hotels, including the La Salle. (When Brundage was asked if he owned the La Salle, he replied slowly, "No. A corporation owns it." Then he added cheerfully, "But I own the corporation.")

His three-room office is a jumble of apparently unrelated objects that have as their common denominator his interest in them. There are, throughout the three rooms but particularly in Brundage's own office—on the floor, on tables, on shelves and in cabinets—myriad objects of Oriental art: jades and ancient Chinese bronzes, statues of many-armed Indian gods and goddesses, examples of fine lacquer work, large urns and vases of delicately painted china. Brundage has always been fascinated by Greek and Oriental philosophy and religion, and he extended his interest to Oriental art at about the time of his marriage, in 1927. He is said now to possess one of the finest private collections in the world. Two rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, of which Brundage is a trustee, contain part of his collection.

BRUNDAGE THE ATHLETE

There are also Olympic posters throughout the office and books on the Olympic Games, pamphlets and booklets on amateur sports, a color photograph of Emil Zatopek leading the field into the home stretch of the 1952 Olympic 5,000-meter run, one of the most memorable races of all time, and medals, plaques, trophies and other souvenirs of his own career in athletics, both as official and competitor. Brundage was a superb athlete in his youth and three times won the U.S. National Ail-Around championship, a competition that is a sort of older, stronger brother to the more popular decathlon. It comprises 10 separate events, like the decathlon, but the 10 events are run off one after the other on the same day, rather than being sensibly scheduled over two successive days, as in the decathlon. Moreover, the list of events is slightly different and considerably more demanding; instead of tossing the discus and the javelin, All-Around competitors wrestle with the 56-pound weight and the 16-pound hammer. In place of the 400-meter sprint, the All-Around has the grueling 880-yard heel-and-toe walk. Brundage with bitter pride once described the latter event as "the closest a man can come to experiencing the pangs of childbirth."

Although his forte was his strength and his almost inhuman endurance—he could take the physical punishment of the All-Around then almost as well as he takes the verbal punishment of his critics now—Brundage was also a beautifully coordinated athlete. A scrapbook in his office yielded a striking testament to this in a yellowed clipping in which Daniel J. Ferris, secretary-treasurer of the Amateur Athletic Union, discussed the great athletes of his experience. Ferris grouped Brundage with Martin Sheridan, the hero of the famed Irish-American A.C., and the legendary Jim Thorpe, which is compliment enough, but then added the comment that, all things considered, he had to say that Avery Brundage was the greatest athlete he had ever seen.

When this clipping was pointed out to Brundage, he read it, smiled and said, "Umm. Good for Dan."

Then he beamed and looked through a few more pages of the old book.

"I've forgotten about these scrap-books. I haven't looked into most of them in years. The only reason they're out now is that we're trying to reorganize things. We've been digging things out of closets and trying to find new places to put them in."

He looked around his office in some distaste.

"This room is a mess," he apologized. "Most of this stuff—" he indicated the urns, vases and statuary on the floor, "belongs to dealers who brought it in to see if I'd be interested in buying any of it. There's a dealer coming in tomorrow, as a matter of fact. I haven't had a chance to examine it all yet. I haven't had the time. I have my business to take care of. I have the Olympics. I'm dictating letters every day to all parts of the world on questions and problems relating to the Olympics. Takes a temendous amount of time."

He picked up a paper from his desk.

"Here's a letter from Mexico. I sent out a circular letter a short time ago asking the Olympic Committees in the various countries to try to arouse interest among their artists in developing athletic trophies, to see if we could come up with something new and different and get away from this junk we have nowadays. Terrible junk, most of it."

He frowned, as if the thought of Bakelite and gilded plastic tasted bad. Then his eyebrows went up.

"Now. This ties in with the fine arts competition in the Olympics. Some people don't realize that, that the fine arts are on the Olympic program. Well, they are: literature, music, architecture, painting, sculpture. We used to have actual competition in these for gold and silver and bronze medals, just as we do in the athletic events. But we found it's almost impossible to limit entries to amateurs in these fields so now we have exhibitions, instead of competitions.

"Some people wonder why fine arts should be in the Olympics. Why shouldn't they be? The Greeks had them. And sport itself is a fine art. Yes, a fine art! That race over there—"

The big arm shot out and the powerful finger pointed across the room at the photograph of the Olympic 5,000-meter run.

"That was fine art if it ever existed. A magnificent thing. And the hammer throw. The hammer throw is an event that approaches artistry. A demanding event but a thoroughly satisfying one. If I had the time I'd still be throwing the hammer. Just for the pleasure and satisfaction to be derived from it."

He stopped and gestured.

"Now. This is important. We come to the meaning of the word amateur."

He brought his broad hand down flat and heavy on the table.

"If there is one thing that annoys me, it is the misuse of the word amateur as a synonym for beginner, for someone who is not well equipped or fully trained. The word doesn't mean that! Go to etymology. Go back to the origin of the word. What does it mean? It means one who loves, one who has a devotion to. An amateur athlete is one who loves sport."

He poked a finger down on the desk.

"All right. You say, can't a professional athlete love sport? Certainly. I'm sure that Babe Ruth was an amateur at heart. He would have played baseball if he had never made a dime from it. Certainly. He loved the game. I think Henry Ford was an amateur. I think Thomas Edison was an amateur. They loved what they were doing. They were amateurs."

He frowned and said, almost to himself, "Of course, under our rules they'd be considered professionals."

He waved his arm and went on.

"But you take most professional athletes. They keep themselves in excellent shape and they work at their jobs. Why? They have to!"

He paused for dramatic effect.

"Well, now. An amateur doesn't have to, but he does anyway. Why? Why should he punish himself and make the sacrifices every great athlete has to make? Because he loves to play. He wants to win and he plays to win because it's fun to win, but if he loses he congratulates the winner and tries harder the next time. And even when he loses he's gained something valuable from the experience. But the professional? The professional plays to win because he's got to win! He can't afford to lose. If he loses it hurts his income."

In triumph Brundage lifted both hands high, like a man conducting a symphony.

"And there's the difference! Right there. As soon as you take money for playing a sport, it isn't a sport, it's work. Sport is fun, recreation, a pastime, an amusement. As soon as there is pay connected with it, it's work. It's a job. I suspect that if a professional baseball player discovered one day that he could make more money by going back home and laying bricks for a living, he'd go back home and lay bricks.

"I've got nothing against professional sport. It has a legitimate place in our social and economic structure. It's fun to watch. But I think it's significant that the professionals know that it's good business to keep the amateur spirit in their sports. Oh, I know about the Black Sox scandal and all that. But that's nothing. Bankers abscond occasionally, but that doesn't mean you should abolish banking. No, I have nothing against professional sport. Except that I want it clearly understood for what it is: a business, not a sport.

"That's what has happened to college football. They've ruined a fine sport by turning it into a business. Think of all the schools who have had to drop football because they couldn't afford it. It's a business."

He glared across his desk.

"A wonderful sport, but it's been turned into a chess game played by coaches. If I had my way I'd send all the coaches to Timbuktu on the day of the game. Let the boys play on their own. That's what sport is all about."

Brundage's face was gloomy.

"That is one of the saddest chapters in the history of sport, this misuse of sport for commercial purposes in the United States. The fault lies with the schools; the educators. In the early days educators were brought up in a cloistered, old-fashioned, medieval, semi-religious atmosphere in which physical activity was considered frivolous. Well, when sport caught the imagination of the student, the educators naturally frowned on it. Most of them still do."

He spun back and forth in his chair, restless and angry.

"Robert Hutchins, when he was president of the University of Chicago, said that whenever he felt the urge to exercise he lay down until it went away. Well, there you are. That's an illustration of the contempt for sports felt in certain highbrow circles."

He whipped the chair back to the desk and poked his finger out.

"Now. When sport had become so popular with students that the educators were obliged to accept it, what did they do? They relegated it to a minor role, and left it in the hands of the students and outsiders. And by outsiders I mean people who are not considered educators.

"Well. That was a tragedy, that this potent force wasn't harnessed for education purposes. I say that at certain times in life physical education is as important as—if not more important than—mental education. But. What happens? The athletic department is left to shift for itself. Why? It isn't considered important."

BETTER THAN A CLASSROOM

Brundage stabbed the fingers of his right hand into the palm of his left hand to emphasize his argument.

"The educators ignore the social...educational...aesthetic...moral...artistic...and spiritual aspects of sport. And yet here is an opportunity to develop a man's inner worth, a man's character, that cannot be equaled in any classroom."

Abruptly he sat back, spun the chair and looked out at the darkening sky over Chicago. When he spoke again, it was in a quiet voice.

"I think," he said, looking out the window, "that every educational institution should give a course in amateurism along with its athletic program. Teach the principles of fair play and sportsmanship. Show how they can be applied in business, in politics, in government, in everyday living."

He turned his gaze from the window and looked across the room to the Olympic poster on the far wall.

"Think," he said, almost in wonder, "of the beneficial effect it could have on the world."

PHOTO

ARTHUR SIEGEL

BRUNDAGE IS PHOTOGRAPHED WITH OLYMPIC POSTER AND MEDALS HE WON AS ATHLETE AND OFFICIAL

TWO PHOTOS

THE OLYMPIC PRESIDENT WAS A FAMOUS ATHLETE IN HIS YOUTH

BRUNDAGE PUT GRIM-JAWED EFFORT INTO HALF-MILE WALK, SHOTPUT, EIGHT OTHER EVENTS TO WIN U.S. ALL-AROUND TITLE THREE TIMES

ILLUSTRATION

"Well, this doesn't seem so difficult."

Collection of Avery Brundage '09 (1887-75), including correspondence, minutes, reports, photographs, clippings, scrapbooks, artifacts, certificates, awards, honors, publications concerning Brundage's service as president of the International Olympic Committee (1952-72), United States Olympic Committee (1929-52) and Amateur Athletic Union (1928-36); national Olympic committees; international sports federations; Olympic games in Australia (1956), England (1948), Finland (1952), Germany (1936, 1972), Italy (1960), Japan (1964) and Mexico (1968); winter Olympic games in Austria (1964), France (1968), Italy (1956), Japan (1972), Norway (1952), Switzerland (1948) and the United States (1960); controversies over the participation of teams from China (1959-66), Germany (1953-65), Korea (1953-68) and South Africa (1963-73); bids for Olympic games (1938-73); international athletic competition; National Collegiate Athletic Association (1952-74); colleges and universities and amateurism. Sports federation and subject files cover basketball, boxing, equestrian sports, fencing, gymnastics, hockey, rowing, sailing, skating, skiing, soccer, swimming, track and field, and wrestling. Correspondence includes J. Lyman Bingham, Asa S. Bushnell, J. Sigfrid Edstrom, Daniel J. Ferris, William M. Garland, Gustavus T. Kirby, Otto Mayer, Frederic W. Rubien, Heinz Schobel and James Simms

On-line Images / Records

Detailed Description
Series 1: Amateur Athletic Union
Series 2: Amateurism
Series 3: Colleges and Universities
Series 4: Individuals
Series 5: IOC Presidents and Secretariat
Series 6: IOC Members
Series 7: Bulletin Officiel du Comite International Olympique
Series 8: IOC Newsletter
Series 9: Circular Letters
Series 10: Duplicate Circular Letters
Series 11: Circular Letter Responses
Series 12: IOC Meetings
Series 13: IOC Minutes
Series 14: IOC Commissions and Committees
Series 15: IOC Subject File
Series 16: National Olympic Committees
Series 17: Olympic Games
Series 18: Olympic Games Bids
Series 19: Regional Games
Series 20: Sports Federations
Series 21: Sports Organizations
Series 22: Sports Publications
Series 23: United States Olympic Association and Committee
Series 24: Personal Materials
Series 25: Articles and Speeches
Series 26: Publications
Series 27: Clippings
Series 28: Photographs
Series 29: Olympic Games Programs
Series 30: Programs for Regional Games
Series 31: Sports Programs
Series 32: Subject File
Series 33: Travel
Series 34: Book Notes and Sources
Series 35: Important Letters
Series 36: Microfilm
Series 37: Daguerreotypes and Ambrotypes
Series 38: Scrapbooks
Series 39: Films and Tapes
Series 40: Photo Albums
Series 41: Certificates and Awards
Series 42: Oversize File
[information restricted]

Download Box / Folder List (pdf)

BOX 42:

Folder 14: Thorpe, Jim (Committee for Returning of Medals), 1949-69
Folder 15: Thorpe, Jim (Committee for Returning of Medals), 1970-73

Avery Brundage Collection

In 1959, Chicago industrialist Avery Brundage agreed to donate his vast collection of Asian art to San Francisco on the condition that the city build a new museum to house it. In total, Avery Brundage donated more than 7,700 Asian art objects to the City of San Francisco—all housed at the Asian Art Museum.

Today, the museum’s collection stands at more than eighteen thousand objects, making it the largest museum in the United States devoted exclusively to the arts of Asia.

http://onlinecollection.asianart.org/view/objects/asimages/19422

Early life and athletic career

Avery Brundage was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 28, 1887, the son of Charles and Minnie (Lloyd) Brundage. Charles Brundage was a stonecutter. The Brundages moved to Chicago when Avery was five, and Charles soon thereafter abandoned his family. Avery and his younger brother, Chester, were raised mostly by aunts and uncles.^[1] At age 13 in 1901, Brundage finished first in an essay competition, winning a trip to President William McKinley's second inauguration. Avery attended Sherwood Public School and then R. T. Crane Manual Training School, both in Chicago. Crane Tech was a journey of 7 miles (11 km) by public transportation, which he undertook only after completing a newspaper delivery route.^[2] Even though the school had no athletic facilities, Brundage made his own equipment (including a shot and a hammer to throw) in the school's workshop and by his final year was written of in the newspapers as a schoolboy track star.^[3] According to sportswriter William Oscar Johnson in a 1980 article in Sports Illustrated, Brundage was "the kind of man whom Horatio Alger had canonized—the American urchin, tattered and deprived, who rose to thrive in the company of kings and millionaires".^[4]

After he graduated from Crane Tech in 1905, Brundage enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he undertook an arduous schedule of civil engineering courses. He received an honors degree in 1909.^[5] He wrote for various campus publications and continued his involvement in sports. Brundage played basketball and ran track for Illinois, and also participated in several intramural sports. In his senior year, he was a major contributor to Illinois' Western Conference championship track team, which defeated the University of Chicago (coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg).^[6]

Brundage en route to victory in the 1916 all-around championship in Newark, New Jersey

After graduation, Brundage began work as a construction superintendent for the leading architectural firm of Holabird & Roche. In the three years he worked for the firm, he supervised the construction of $7.5 million in buildings—3 percent of the total built in Chicago in that time-frame.^[7] He disliked the corruption of the Chicago building trades. Brundage's biographer, Allen Guttmann, points out that the young engineer was in a position to benefit from influence if he had wanted to, as his uncle, Edward J. Brundage, was by then Republican leader of Chicago's North Side and would become Attorney General of Illinois. Brundage had been successful in a number of track and field events while at Illinois. In 1910, as a member of the Chicago Athletic Association (CAA), he finished third in the national all-around championships (an American predecessor of the decathlon), sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and continued training, aiming at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.^[8]

At Stockholm, Brundage finished sixth in the pentathlon and 16th in the decathlon.^[9] Far behind on points, after eight events he dropped out of the decathlon, which he always regretted. He later moved up one spot in the standings in each event when his fellow American, Jim Thorpe, who had won both events, was disqualified after it was shown that he had played semi-professional baseball: this meant Thorpe was considered a professional, not an amateur as was required for Olympic participation. Throughout his tenure as president, Brundage refused to ask the IOC to restore Thorpe's medals despite advocacy by Thorpe supporters. The committee eventually did so in 1982, after the deaths of both men. Brundage's refusal led to charges that he held a grudge for being beaten in Stockholm.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Upon his return to Chicago, Brundage accepted a position as construction superintendent for John Griffith and Sons Contractors. Among the structures he worked on for Griffith were the Cook County Hospital, the Morrison Hotel, the Monroe Building, and the National Biscuit Company warehouse. In 1915, he struck out on his own in construction, founding the Avery Brundage Company, of which his uncle Edward was a director.^[13] Brundage continued his athletic career as well. He was US all-around champion in 1914, 1916, and 1918. Once he had ceased to be a track star, he took up handball. As a young man, he was ranked in the top ten in the country and even in 1934, at the age of 46, he won one game out of two against Angelo Trulio, who had recently been the US national champion.^[14]

He was a NAZI!

Brundage (left) and other Olympic officials on board and with the captain of the SS Bremen, en route to the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Nazi Germany

In her 1982 journal article on his role in the US participation in the 1936 Summer Games, Carolyn Marvin explained Brundage's political outlook:

The foundation of Brundage's political world view was the proposition that Communism was an evil before which all other evils were insignificant. A collection of lesser themes basked in the reflected glory of the major one. These included Brundage's admiration for Hitler's apparent restoration of prosperity and order to Germany, his conception that those who did not work for a living in the United States were an anarchic human tide, and a suspicious anti-Semitism which feared the dissolution of Anglo-Protestant culture in a sea of ethnic aspirations.^[27]

Nazi pledges of non-discrimination in sports proved inconsistent with their actions, such as the expulsion of Jews from sports clubs, and in September 1934, Brundage sailed for Germany to see for himself. He met with government officials and others, although he was not allowed to meet with Jewish sports leaders alone. When he returned, he reported, "I was given positive assurance in writing ... that there will be no discrimination against Jews. You can't ask more than that and I think the guarantee will be fulfilled."^[28] Brundage's trip only increased the controversy over the question of US participation, with New York Congressman Emanuel Celler stating that Brundage "had prejudged the situation before he sailed from America."^[29] The AOC heard a report from Brundage on conditions in Germany and announced its decision. On September 26, 1934, the Committee voted to send the United States team to Berlin.^[30]

Brundage took the position that as the Germans had reported non-discrimination to the IOC, and the IOC had accepted that report, US Olympic authorities were bound by that determination.^[31] Nevertheless, it became increasingly apparent that Nazi actions would prohibit any Jew from securing a place on the German team.^[32] On this issue, Brundage stated that only 12 Jews had ever represented Germany in the Olympics, and it would hardly be surprising if none did in 1936.^[c]^[33]

Those who had advocated a boycott were foiled by the AOC, and they turned to the Amateur Athletic Union, hoping that the organization, though also led by Brundage, would refuse to certify American athletes for the 1936 Olympics. Although no vote took place on a boycott at the AAU's December 1934 meeting, Brundage did not seek re-election, and delegates elected Judge Jeremiah T. Mahoney as the new president, to take office in 1935. Although pro-boycott activities briefly fell into a lull, renewed Nazi brutality against the Jews in June 1935 sparked a resurgence, and converted Mahoney to the pro-boycott cause.^[34] In October, Baillet-Latour wrote to the three American IOC members—William May Garland, Charles Sherrill, and Ernest Lee Jahncke—asking them to do all they could to ensure a US team was sent to Germany. Garland and Sherrill agreed; Jahncke, however, refused, stating that he would be supporting the boycott.^[35] Brundage, at Baillet-Latour's request, took the lead in the anti-boycott campaign.^[36] Matters came to a head at the AAU convention in December 1935. Brundage's forces won the key votes, and the AAU approved sending a team to Berlin, specifying that this did not mean it supported the Nazis. Brundage was not magnanimous in victory, demanding the resignation of opponents. Although not all quit, Mahoney did.^[37]

Brundage believed that the boycott controversy could be used effectively for fundraising, writing, "the fact that the Jews are against us will arouse interest among thousands of people who have never subscribed before, if they are properly approached."^[38] In March 1936, he wrote to advertising mogul Albert Lasker, a Jew, complaining that "a large number of misguided Jews still persist in attempting to hamper the activities of the American Olympic Committee. The result, of course, is increased support from the one hundred and twenty million non-Jews in the United States, for this is a patriotic enterprise."^[38] In a letter which David Large, in his book on the 1936 Games, terms "heavy-handed," Brundage suggested that by helping to finance American participation in the Olympic Games, Jews could decrease anti-Semitism in the US.^[39] However, "Lasker, to his credit, refused to be blackmailed,"^[39] writing to Brundage that "You gratuitously insult not only Jews but the millions of patriotic Christians in America, for whom you venture to speak without warrant, and whom you so tragically misrepresent in your letter."^[38]

Berlin

Julius Lippert, Avery Brundage and Theodor Lewald, organizer of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin

Brundage led the contingent of American athletes and officials who embarked for Hamburg on the S.S. Manhattan at New York Harbor on July 15, 1936.^[40] Immediately upon arrival in Germany, Brundage became headline news when he and the AOC dismissed swimmer Eleanor Holm, who was a gold medalist in 1932 and expected to repeat, for getting drunk at late-night parties and missing her curfew. There were various rumors and accounts of the married swimmer's pursuits while on board the ship; the gossip included statements that she was at an "all-night party" with playwright Charles MacArthur, who was traveling without his wife, actress Helen Hayes.^[41]^[42] Brundage discussed the matter with fellow AOC members, then met with Holm.^[41] Although the AOC attempted to send her home, Holm pleaded in vain for reinstatement; "to the AOC's horror," she remained in Berlin as a journalist.^[41] In later years, Holm claimed that Brundage had kicked her off the team because he had propositioned her, and she had turned him down.^[43] According to Guttmann, "Brundage has appeared, ever since [1936], in the guise of a killjoy."^[44] Butterfield noted that through the efforts of sportswriters who supported Holm, "Brundage became celebrated as a tyrant, snob, hypocrite, dictator and stuffed shirt, as well as just about the meanest man in the whole world of sports."^[45]

On July 30, 1936, six days after the American arrival in Germany, the IOC met in Berlin and unanimously expelled Jahncke. Two places for the United States were vacant, as Sherrill had died in June, but the minutes specifically note that Brundage was elected to the IOC in Jahncke's place.^[46]^[47]

One of the sensations of the Games was black American track star Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals. According to some American press stories, Hitler left the stadium rather than shake hands with him. This was not the case; IOC president Baillet-Latour had told Hitler not to shake hands with the winners unless he was prepared to shake hands with all gold medalists, which he was not. This, however, was not publicized.^[48] According to Butterfield, in later years, retellings of what Brundage termed "a fairy tale" roused the American to "acute fury."^[49] Hitler was, however, asked by his youth leader, Baldur von Schirach, to meet Owens, and he refused, saying, "Do you really think that I'd allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?"^[50]

Olympic administration; challenges to leadership

The Maison de Mon-Repos, in the Parc de Mon-Repos, was the home of the IOC between 1922 and 1967.

Unpaid as IOC president, even for his expenses, Brundage sometimes spent $50,000 per year to finance his role.^[115] In 1960, the IOC had almost no funds. Brundage and the IOC had considered the potential of television revenue as early as the Melbourne Games of 1956, but had been slow to address the issue, with the result that television rights for the 1960 Games were in the hands of the Rome organizing committee; the IOC received only 5% of the $60,000 rights fee. Accounts submitted by the Rome organizers showed they lost money on the Olympics; the IOC would have received a portion of the profits, and had no money to offer the sports federations who wanted a percentage of the proceeds.^[116] In future years, the sale of television rights became a major source of revenue for the IOC, rising to $10 million by the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and $1.2 billion, long after Brundage's death, at Athens in 2004.^[117] Brundage was concerned about the increasing revenue, warning IOC members in 1967, "The moment we handle money, even if we only distribute it, there will be trouble ..."^[118]

NOC representatives had met with Brundage and the IOC executive board from time to time, but many NOC representatives felt that Brundage was taking no action in response to concerns expressed by the NOC attendees. In the early 1960s, many NOCs, led by Italian IOC member Giulio Onesti, sought to bypass Brundage and the IOC by forming a Permanent General Assembly of National Olympic Committees (PGA-NOC), which Brundage strongly opposed and the IOC refused to recognize. The PGA-NOC from 1965 demanded a share of television revenue; it also desired that the ISFs, not the IOC, set policy on amateurism.^[119]

Brundage (left) examines the facilities at Squaw Valley, 1960 Winter Olympics.

Brundage had been initially elected in 1952 for an eight-year term;^[120] he was re-elected unanimously in 1960 for an additional four years. Despite talk that he would be opposed by Exeter, Brundage's 1952 rival nominated him for the new term.^[121] Brundage was re-elected in 1964 by an announced unanimous vote, though Guttmann records that Brundage actually only narrowly turned back a challenge by Exeter.^[122] As Brundage's term as president neared its end in 1968, some IOC members, who saw him as hidebound, or just too old at 81 to effectively lead the organization, sought his ouster. Nevertheless, he was easily re-elected at the IOC session in Mexico City that year, though he pledged not to seek another four-year term, but to retire in 1972. Ireland's Lord Killanin was elected first vice-president. Killanin, seen (correctly) as Brundage's likely successor, was more sympathetic to the concerns of the NOCs, and attended PGA-NOC meetings. Brundage did not recognize the PGA-NOC, but did establish joint IOC-NOC committees to address NOC concerns. Although the PGA-NOC did not gain Olympic recognition, it remained a significant outside organization through Brundage's presidency, and according to Guttmann, "Brundage won a less than total victory and Onesti suffered a far from complete defeat. The I.O.C. had become far more attractive to the national Olympic committees and to their interests, and that is what Onesti called for in the first place."^[123]

With Brundage in Chicago or at his California home, day to day IOC operations were overseen at "Mon Repos", the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, by Otto Meyer, the IOC's chancellor. Brundage came to consider Meyer too impetuous, and dismissed him in 1964, abolishing the office. Eventually, Brundage promoted Monique Berlioux to be IOC director in the last years of his tenure, and apparently found her services satisfactory.

LUXURY

Mon Repos, the former home of the founder of the Modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proved too cramped for the IOC, which had to share space with de Coubertin's widow, who lived to be 101. In 1968, the IOC moved to new quarters at Lausanne's Château de Vidy.^[124]

Munich 1972

Main articles: 1972 Summer Olympics and Munich massacre

At the same IOC session in August 1972 in Munich at which the Rhodesians were excluded, the IOC elected Killanin as Brundage's successor, to take office after the Games. Brundage cast a blank ballot in the vote which selected the Irishman, considering him an intellectual lightweight without the force of character needed to hold the Olympic movement together.^[131]

Munich Olympic Stadium, where Brundage gave his speech on September 6, 1972

Brundage hoped that the Munich Games would take the sting out of his defeat over the Rhodesian issue. Munich was one of his favorite cities (in 1975, the Brundageplatz there would be named after him^[132]), and the heitere Spiele ('cheerful Games') were designed to efface memories of 1936 and Berlin in the eyes of the world. They initially seemed to be doing so, as athletic feats, like those of gymnast Olga Korbut and swimmer Mark Spitz captivated viewers. In the early morning of September 5, 1972, Palestinian terrorists from the organization Black September entered the Olympic Village and took 11 Israelis hostage, demanding freedom for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli custody. Brundage, once informed, rushed to the Olympic Village, where he conferred with German and Bavarian state officials through the day, playing what Guttmann describes as a modest role in the discussions. German officials moved the hostages and their captors to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, where German police and troops tried a rescue late that evening. The attempt was bungled; the nine remaining hostages (two had been murdered earlier) and three of their captors were killed.^[133]

Even before the ill-fated rescue attempt, IOC officials began conferring. Killanin and other officials were in Kiel for the yacht racing; they hurried back to Munich. Just before 4 pm, Brundage called off the remainder of the day's events, and announced a memorial service honoring those who had already died for the following morning. Many Olympic leaders were critical of Brundage for his participation in the discussions with the government, feeling that this should have been left for the authorities and the local organizing committee, but all supported the memorial service, which was held the following day in the Olympic Stadium. There, before the audience in the stadium and the millions watching on television, Brundage offered what Guttmann called "the credo of his life":

Every civilized person recoils in horror at the barbarous criminal intrusion of terrorists into the peaceful Olympic precincts. We mourn our Israeli friends, victims of this brutal assault. The Olympic flag and the flags of all the world fly at half mast. Sadly, in this imperfect world, the greater and more important the Olympic Games become, the more they are open to commercial, political and now criminal pressure. The Games of the 20th Olympiad have been subjected to two savage attacks. We lost the Rhodesian battle against naked political blackmail. We have only the strength of a great ideal. I am sure the public will agree that we cannot allow a handful of terrorists to destroy this nucleus of international cooperation and goodwill we have in the Olympic movement. The Games must go on and we must continue our efforts to keep them clear, pure and honest and try to extend sportsmanship of the athletic field to other areas. We declare today a day of mourning and will continue all the events one day later than scheduled.^[133]

The crowd in the stadium responded to Brundage's statement with loud applause; according to Stars & Stripes, "Brundage's statement that 'the games must go on' took much of the heavy gloom away which has permeated Munich since early Tuesday [September 5, the day of the attack]."^[134] Killanin, after his own retirement as IOC president, stated that "I believe Brundage was right to continue and that his stubborn determination saved the Olympic Movement one more time" but that Brundage's mention of the Rhodesian question was, while not inappropriate, at least better left for another time.^[135] According to future IOC vice president Dick Pound, the insertion of the Rhodesian issue into the speech "was universally condemned, and Brundage left office under a cloud of criticism that effectively undermined a lifetime of well-intentioned work in the Olympic movement".^[114] Brundage subsequently issued a statement that he did not mean to imply the decision to exclude the Rhodesians, which he stated was "purely a matter of sport", was comparable to the murder of the Israelis.^[136] According to Alfred Senn in his history of the Olympics, the decision to continue the games "sat poorly with many observers";^[137] sportswriter Red Smith of The New York Times was among the critics:

This time surely, some thought, they would cover the sandbox and put the blocks aside. But, no. "The Games must go on," said Avery Brundage, and 80,000 listeners burst into applause. The occasion was yesterday's memorial service for eleven members of Israel's Olympic delegation murdered by Palestinian terrorists. It was more like a pep rally.^[138]

Retirement and death

Brundage (left) with University of Illinois president John Corbally, 1974, announcing the Avery Brundage Scholarships

Brundage retired as IOC president after the 1972 Summer Games. There were differing accounts of Brundage's state of mind during his retirement. IOC director Berlioux stated that Brundage would come to the Château de Vidy and take telephone calls or look at correspondence while he waited for Lord Killanin to turn to him for help. According to Berlioux, Brundage sometimes called her from Geneva and asked her to go there. The two would spend hours wandering the streets, saying little. Brundage's longtime factotum, Frederick Ruegsegger, described a different, tranquil, Brundage, whom he compared to an abdicated Japanese emperor.^[139]

His wife of nearly half a century, Elizabeth, to whom he had not been faithful, died in 1971. Brundage had once jested that his ambition was to wed a German princess. In June 1973, this came to pass when he married Princess Mariann Charlotte Katharina Stefanie von Reuss (1936–2003), daughter of Heinrich XXXVII, Prince of Reuss-Köstritz. Von Reuss had worked as an interpreter during the Munich Games; she stated that she had met Brundage in 1955, when she was 19. When Brundage was asked by reporters about the 48-year difference in their ages, Brundage responded that he was young for his age and she mature for hers, and instead of 85 years to 37, it should be thought of as more like 55 to 46. Ruegsegger refused to be best man and stated after Brundage's death that the couple had dissipated much of Brundage's fortune through free spending, though Guttmann notes that some of those purchases were of real estate, which could be deemed investments.^[140]

Brundage's grave at Rosehill Cemetery

In January 1974, Brundage underwent surgery for cataracts and glaucoma. The necessary arrangements had initially been made by Brundage's protégé, Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch, who would become IOC president in 1980. At the last moment, Brundage cancelled the plans, choosing to have the surgery in Munich, near the home he had purchased in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, site of the 1936 Winter Olympics. After a month and a half, Brundage was discharged from the hospital, though whether the surgery had improved his vision was disputed, with Mariann Brundage stating that it did and Ruegsegger stating the contrary. Now frail, at age 87 he went with his wife on a final tour of the Far East. Despite the efforts of Olympic officials on his behalf, he was not given an invitation to mainland China, source of much of the art he loved. In April 1975, Brundage entered the hospital at Garmisch-Partenkirchen with flu and a severe cough. He died there on May 8, 1975, of heart failure, and was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.^[141]

In his will, Brundage provided for his wife and for Ruegsegger, as well as making several charitable bequests.^[4]^[142] He left his papers and memorabilia to the University of Illinois;^[4] he had already given it $350,000 to fund scholarships for students interested in competing in sports who do not receive an athletic scholarship.^[143]

Relationships

In 1927, at the age of 40, Brundage married his first wife, Elizabeth Dunlap, who was the daughter of a Chicago banker. She was a trained soprano, which was a talent that she exhibited to people who visited the Brundage home. She had a strong interest in classical music. This interest might not have been fully shared by her husband, who said that a performance of Wagner's Die Walküre "started at 7 o'clock, at 10:00 pm I looked at my watch and it registered exactly 8 o'clock".^[144] Elizabeth died at age 81 in 1971.^[145]

In 1973, Brundage married Princess Mariann Charlotte Katharina Stefanie von Reusshad. He had no children with either of his two wives.^[4] During his first marriage, however, Brundage fathered two sons out of wedlock with his Finnish mistress, Lilian Dresden. His affair with Dresden was one of many. The children were born in 1951 and 1952, at precisely the time that Brundage was being considered for the presidency of the IOC. Though he privately acknowledged paternity, Brundage took great pains to conceal the existence of these children; he was concerned that the truth about his extra-marital relationships might damage his chances of election. He requested that his name be kept off the birth certificates. Brundage visited his two sons periodically in the 1950s, visits that tailed off to telephone calls in the 1960s and nothing in his final years. He did establish a trust fund for the boys' education and start in life, but after his death, unnamed in his will, they sued and won a small settlement of $62,500 each out of his $19 million estate.^[4]

Legacy

In May 2012, The Independent dubbed him "The ancient IOC emperor, anti-Semite and Nazi sympathiser bent on insulating the Games from the meddlesome tentacles of the real world."^[129] The Orange County Register stated that Brundage's "racism and anti-Semitism are well documented",^[167] and the New York Daily News averred that Brundage "admired Hitler and infamously replaced two Jewish sprinters on the 4-by-100 relay team because it could have further embarrassed Hitler if they won".^[168] In 2021, San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum removed a bust of Brundage, which had been dedicated to him for donating his sizable collection. A museum representative declared that after reviewing his views and the history, that the people of San Francisco had played a much greater role in establishing the museum.

Writing for The Nation, Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff criticized him for his controversial policies and statements, concluding, "Brundage’s 'contributions' to Olympic history need to be understood. But he has long forfeited a place of honor and respect".^[169]

Brundage left a mixed legacy. Guttmann notes that in the 1960s, Brundage may have been better-known as an art collector than for his sports activities, and "there are those who maintain that he will be remembered not for his career in sports but for his jades and bronzes."^[170] Andrew Leigh, a Member of the Australian House of Representatives, criticizes Brundage for expelling the two athletes in Mexico City, calling him "a man who'd had no difficulty with the Nazi salute being used in the 1936 Olympics".^[171] Dick Pound believes Brundage to have been one of the IOC's great presidents, along with de Coubertin and Samaranch, but concedes that by the end of his term, Brundage was out of touch with the world of sports. While Pound credits Brundage with holding the Olympic movement together in a period when it was beset by many challenges, he notes that this might not be fully appreciated by those who remember Brundage for the final years of his term, and for Munich.^[172]

Alfred Senn suggests that Brundage remained too long as IOC president:

After Munich, Brundage departed the Games, which had grown beyond his comprehension and his capacity to adjust. The NOCs and the [ISFs] were revolting against his arbitrary administration; violence had invaded his holy mountain and was giving every indication of returning; despite all his efforts to reach out to the world through athletics, he stood accused of bigotry and both race and class prejudice, not to mention the denunciations proclaiming him politically naive ... Few mourned his departure from the Olympic scene, and the International Olympic Committee turned to his successor, who, its members hoped, would be better suited to handle the new items on its agenda.^[173]

Notes

· Today, the United States Olympic Committee.

· · At the time, the Olympic Charter allowed the country hosting the Summer Games to elect to also host the Winter Olympics (until 1992, both Games were held in the same year); the Germans exercised that right, and the Winter Games were held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Hilton, p. 9; Pound, p. 81.

· The Germans allowed Rudi Ball, an ice hockey player, and Helene Mayer, a fencer, to compete on the German teams. Each had one Jewish parent, and as what the Nazis termed mischlinge, retained German citizenship under the Nuremberg Laws. Ball scored the winning goal in one game, but was subsequently injured and the Germans did not receive a medal; Mayer, who did not consider herself Jewish, won a silver medal and gave a Nazi salute upon receiving it. Large, pp. 86–87, 128–129, 255–256. The Nazis toned down the antisemitism during the Olympic games of 1936, taking down anti-Jewish signs temporarily.^[20]

Works cited

Books

Espy, Richard (1981). The Politics of the Olympic Games. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-04395-4.
Guttmann, Allen (1984). The Games Must Go On: Avery Brundage and the Olympic Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-05444-7.
Hilton, Christopher (2008). Hitler's Olympics: The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games (revised ed.). Stroud, U.K.: Sutton Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-0-7509-4293-5.
Large, David Clay (2007). Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05884-0.
Maraniss, David (2008). Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-3407-5.
Miller, David (2003). Athens to Athens: the Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC, 1894–2004. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84018-587-4.
Pound, Dick (2004). Inside the Olympics. Mississauga, Ont.: John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited. ISBN 978-0-470-83454-1.
Senn, Alfred (1999). Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics. ISBN 978-0-88011-958-0.

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"Martin honoured with MacArthur Award". Southampton, U.K.: International Sailing Federation (ISAF). Retrieved May 24, 2012.
"South Africa's long Olympic wait is over". Moscow-Pullman Daily News. July 23, 1992. Retrieved May 19, 2012.
"Brundage re-elected unanimously". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. August 14, 1960. Retrieved May 19, 2012.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Avery Brundage.

AMATEUR

Robert Shaplen

2 minutes

The New Yorker, July 23, 1960 P. 28

PROFILE of Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee, tells about the Berlin Olympic of 1936. In '33, when the Nazis came to power, Brundage & the U. S Olympic Comm. warned them that Berlin might be deprived of the Olympics if they persisted in discriminating against Jewish athletes. Brundage received a German pledge that Jewish nationals would be allowed to compete for positions on Germany's Olympic team (only one, Helene Mayer, a fencer, made it), & was assured that no discrimination would be shown against American Jewish athletes. Of Naxi anti-Semitism, Mr. B. held that USOc had not business to meddle in that question, as a sports group. In '34, the USOC, accepted Brundage recommendation, voted to send a team to Berlin. Next year there was a bitter fight at the A.A.U. Convention over whether its athletes should attend the games. Tells about an editorial. Mr. B. wrote in a USOC pamphlet, "Certain Jews must now understand that they cannot use the Games as a weapon in their boycott against the Nazis." Tells something about the Berlin games, about the four Negro stars, Jesse Owens, Cornelius Johnson, Archie Williams, and John Woodruff, who won in track and field. The Nazi propaganda machine sneered at what it it called the "Black Auxiliary Force" of the U. S. & there was talk that Hitler had snubbed Owens. This was later denied both by Ownes himself and by Brundage.

43. Race (2016) Cinematic Underdogs Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2021 91:47

As an old-fashioned sports biopic, Race (2016) is serviceable. IT is exactly what one might expect of such a film: a sepia-toned, self-congratulatory, anti-fascist/racist flick about Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens, however, is sadly overshadowed by familiar beats and 'sophisticated' cliches in this Focus Features slog. An incredible/preternatural athlete and seemingly charismatic individual, Owens is bogged down by white savior narratives and a syrupy bromance with Ted Lasso himself (Sudeikis, before he made a name for himself on the pitch) as the Ohio St. track-and-field coach Larry Snyder. The film also stars Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage (the sometimes virtuous/sometimes mercenary head of the Olympic committee), Carice van Houten as Leni Riefenstahl (the famous/infamous director & Nazi propagandist who is given a sugar-coated hagiographic treatment), and Barnaby Metschurat as Joseph Goebbels (perfectly insidious and awful in every way). With so many talented actors and powerful historical source material, Race is not bad by any stretch of the imagination. It is just exceptionally mediocre and ethically dubious at times when it is most trying to virtue signal and coddle modern audiences with bromides and platitudes.

Episode 208 - Harry Blutstein on Mexico City 1968 Keep the Flame Alive Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2021 72:48

We welcome back TKFLASTANI author Harry Blutstein to talk about his latest book Games of Discontent: Protests, Boycotts, and Politics at the 196 Mexico Olympics. We discuss a few of the protests during these Games - the infamous Tommie Smith/John Carlos podium protest, of course, but also protests by Czechoslovakian gymnast Věra Čáslavská. And yes, there's Avery Brundage talk! Learn more about Harry at his website, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook. *** Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/flamealivepod

http://flamealivepod.com

VM/Text: (208) FLAME-IT / (208) 352-6348 **

Tearing down San Francisco's Asian Art Museum for being too white.

The San Francisco Experience Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2020 24:45

As the statue removal movement sweeps across America and England, it has hit the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Artists, academics and art historians are demanding that a bust of its' founder, Avery Brundage be removed from the Museum's foyer. He bequeathed his 8000 piece Asian Art Collection to the people of San Francisco and it is the cornerstone of the18,000 piece Asian collection. He served as President of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972. He died in 1975. Yet he is accused of being anti-semitic and racist. He was always controversial and unpopular throughout his career. Further, the provenance of some of the artifacts is uncertain. Should Museum leadership yield to demands to shun Brundage's bust ? Where does the truth lay ? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/james-herlihy/message

america president england san francisco asian museum artists tearing down international olympic committee asian art museum brundage avery brundage

Episode 127: The Evolution of Olympic Commercialism

Keep the Flame Alive Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2020 60:32

On to today's show: The Olympics used to be a showcase for amateurism, but over time they've grown more and more commercialized. Authors Stephen R. Wenn and Robert K. Barney join us to talk about their new book The Gold in the Rings: The People and Events that Transformed the Games and the key people throughout Olympic history who made an impact on its trajectory. Yep, that includes some Avery Brundage talk! Stephen is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at Wilfrid Laurier University. Robert is a professor emeritus and founding director emeritus of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the School of Kinesiology at Western University. They have also written with Scott Martyn the book Tarnished Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Salt Lake City Bid Scandal. You can learn more about their book from University of Illinois Press. We've got lots of TOFU from our bobsledders, divers and gymnasts – and big news for the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant. It's been a couple of weeks, so we have a ton of Tokyo 2020 news: Most importantly, as of right now, the Games will not be suspended or cancelled due to coronavirus. Please stop asking the IOC about it. Japan's podium uniforms have been released The Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage is going to have the first Olympic agora at a Games, opening April 24 through August 16.

Jenifer Parks, “The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape” (Lexington Books, 2016)

New Books Network Play Episode Listen Later Oct 26, 2018 58:30

Today we are joined by Jenifer Parks, Associate Professor of History at Rocky Mountain College. Parks is the author of The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape (Lexington Books, 2016), which asks how Soviet bureaucrats maneuvered the USSR into the Olympic movement and used the discourses of Olympism to promote athletic democratization, anti-colonialism, and socialism in the context of the Cold War. In The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War, Parks assesses the growth of Soviet Olympism from the Second World War until the 1980 Moscow Games. Her first chapters highlights the difficulties Soviet sports bureaucrats faced in their efforts to join the international Olympic movement. These bureaucrats needed to convince the IOC of the Soviet Union’s worthiness, in the face of persistent anti-communism from IOC president Avery Brundage. They also needed to win over Soviet politician who feared that any Olympic failure would embarrass the state in front of an international audience. In spite of these early misgivings and misstarts, the Soviet Union largely succeeded in their first Olympics, the 1952 Helsinki Games. The next three decades were an almost uninterrupted era of Soviet athletic dominance. In the 1970s, confident Soviet sports bureaucrats sought to bring the Olympics to Moscow. After losing the 1976 Games to Montreal, Moscow won the right to host the 1980s Olympics. A herculean effort ensued to make Moscow hospitable for the expected tens of thousands of athletes, international journalists, and one million tourists. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, which set off an international boycott of the Games, marred their extensive achievements which included the biggest Games to date, the largest number of female Olympians, and dozens of new World Records. Through a close reading of the archives of the Soviet Union’s main sporting agencies, including the State Committee for Sports and Physical Education, and an analysis of the key figures in the Soviet sports bureaucracy, Parks also reshapes our understanding of Soviet bureaucracy. The historiography of the USSR emphasizes stagnation in post-Brezhnev Soviet government agencies as a way to explain the state’s inability to deal with the challenges of the 1970s. However, the men of the Sports Committee were not just staid functionaries, but a cadre of professional, effective, pragmatic men driven to use Olympism to promote socialism abroad and at home. The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War will interest scholars broadly concerned with the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and the international Olympic movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jules Boykoff, “Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics” (Verso, 2016)

New Books Network Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2016 61:41

Since the birth of the modern Olympics movement in the late nineteenth century, its leaders have attempted to maintain a strict separation of athletics and politics. Former International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage once stated, “We actively combat the introduction of politics into the Olympic movement.” But this attempt to keep politics out of the Olympics has been a bit disingenuous. After all, athletes will march into the stadium for this years Rio Games behind their national flags, and medalists will take the stand while listening to their national anthems. And many times, IOC claims to be apolitical have been outright hypocritical. Brundage was especially guilty in this department. In 1936, he praised Nazi Germany for offering a model of how to “stamp out communism and arrest the decline of patriotism.” Even as late as the 1950s, he wrote of the benefits of an “intelligent” dictatorship. “To say the Olympics transcend politics is to conjure fantasy.” So writes Jules Boykoff at the start of his book Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics (Verso, 2016). A former international athlete and now political scientist, Jules gives a well-researched account of the cost overruns, national boycotts, and athlete protests that have been present in the games from their very beginning. He finishes with an in-depth look at the crony corruption at the heart of the present-day Olympics, based on his findings as a Fulbright scholar in Rio. A lively read, full of scenes that are familiar and plenty that are new, Jules book is an up-close and personal look at the halls of Olympic power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Argument: The Long and Infuriating History of Bad Olympic Bosses

Argument

An expert's point of view on a current event.

The Long and Infuriating History of Bad Olympic Bosses

Thomas Bach has joined a long line of IOC chiefs who have been hated by everyone associated with the Games.

By David Clay Large, a senior fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach waves the Olympic flag during the Closing Ceremony of Nanjing 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre on August 28, 2014 in Nanjing, China.

July 23, 2021, 7:20 AM

As the one-year-delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic festival finally gets underway this week, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach is not a popular man in Japan. This might seem odd given that Bach had a major role in bringing this big event to the Japanese capital.

But that’s precisely the problem: a majority of Japanese citizens believe that the Olympic spectacle, even without fans in the stands, should not be proceeding amid a pandemic that resists adequate containment. They argue that Bach’s IOC puts revenues from TV broadcasts and corporate sponsorships above the safety of athletes and the general public. Even Toyota, Japan’s premier Olympic sponsor, has decided not to run Olympic-themed advertisements during the Games: Who wants to be associated with a plague? Bach himself did nothing to improve his image with locals by mistakenly referring to the Japanese people as “Chinese” at a news conference.

Beyond his problems in Japan relating to the ill-starred Tokyo Games, Bach, a German national who has served as IOC chief since 2013, has been widely criticized for turning a blind eye to Russian state-sponsored Olympic doping scandals and showing similar insouciance in the face of systematic human rights violations by China, whose capital, Beijing, was awarded the 2022 Winter Games on his watch. Nor has he seemed all that bothered by financial scandals within the IOC itself and bumper stickers reading “Make Corruption an Olympic Sport!”

While it may be no consolation to the beleaguered Bach, his current status as poster boy for IOC imperiousness is anything but unprecedented in modern Olympic history. He is merely the latest in a procession of IOC chiefs who have been responsible for crucial missteps in everything from the Games’ organizational procedures and host-city selection to protecting the 125-year-old athletic movement from commercial exploitation, political instrumentalization, and drug use by athletes. Such problematic actions, and failures to act, on the part of IOC presidents like Bach have undeniably helped shape the Olympic enterprise as it exists today, for better and worse.

Revealingly, Bach’s problematic pedigree in Olympic mismanagement can be traced back all the way to the modern Games’ “father,” French Baron Pierre de Coubertin. An avid student of the ancient Olympic Games, Coubertin hoped to “revive” central aspects of the classical festivals, including their focus on individual athletic accomplishment, independent of city or city-state allegiance. Coubertin, however, immediately undermined this individualistic focus by decreeing that athletes could compete in his modern Games only as members of national teams whose Olympic committees were recognized by the recently established IOC. Even at that moment, before any competitions had gotten underway, critics of Coubertin’s scheme argued that the team-membership requirement would likely foster nationalism at the expense of individual recognition. But Coubertin’s plan stood, and we know that his critics’ fears proved justified.

Another part of the founder’s program that quickly fell under criticism involved a wholesale departure from the ancient practice of holding the quadrennial festivals in a single, permanent location (Olympia); instead, the modern Games would move from city to city and even from nation to nation in the manner of a traveling international circus. Critics of this idea, above all Greeks and assorted European and American Hellenists, proposed that the revived Olympics be held exclusively at the site selected for the inaugural modern festival, namely Athens (ancient Olympia itself was in ruins).

But Coubertin insisted that the success of his new venture depended on giving it “as great a variety of aspect as possible.” Here, too, he won the day, and the second “Olympiad of the Modern Era” transpired in Paris, the baron’s hometown. Henceforth, questions of venue selection remained highly contentious—St. Louis in 1904 was unpopular with many Europeans but championed by Coubertin as a means of bringing the United States fully into the Olympic fold. This venue issue acrimoniously hit home for the baron when, his own fierce French nationalism notwithstanding, he promoted Berlin as host city for the 1916 Games. For Frenchmen with bitter memories of their humiliating defeat at the hands of the hated Boche in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the idea of allowing the German capital to host a festival dedicated to international peace and goodwill was an abomination. Yet Coubertin’s insistence that Germany’s full participation in the fledgling Olympic project was vital to its survival won out—and Berlin duly began constructing an appropriate site for the Five-Ring Circus’ arrival in 1916.

The arrival two years before that date of a much bloodier and costlier international competition put the viability of a 1916 Berlin Olympiad in serious question. In 1915, a British Olympic official announced that a British “team” might indeed be heading for Berlin, but it would be carrying military kit rather than sporting gear. Coubertin, on the other hand, held fast to the IOC’s original venue decision until Germany’s use of poison gas on the Western Front in the spring of 1915 made this plan untenable. The baron had to assent to canceling Berlin’s Olympic party, though to protect an illusion of Olympic continuity, he insisted on counting the non-Games of 1916 as an official Olympiad.

The Belgian aristocrat Henri de Baillet-Latour, who became the third president of the IOC in 1925, was, like Coubertin, much revered within the Olympic movement. As the head of Belgian’s national Olympic committee during World War I, he secured the 1920 Summer Games for Antwerp and managed to pull off a successful festival in the shadow of a terrible pandemic that killed far more people than the war. Baillet-Latour’s crotchety insistence on amateurism as a sine qua non for Olympic competitors harmonized fully with the views of Coubertin and the gentlemanly IOC establishment of his day. But toward the end of his tenure as IOC president, Baillet-Latour’s handling of an unprecedented challenge to the integrity of the Games—his wheeling and dealing with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis over the Berlin Olympics of 1936—revealed a willingness to prioritize IOC realpolitik over supposedly unchallengeable Olympic principles.

To simplify a very complicated matter, Baillet-Latour guided an IOC decision to hold fast to the committee’s 1931 award of the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin even after Hitler assumed the German chancellorship in 1933. True, the IOC chief secured some token concessions from Hitler and the German organizers, but these agreements hardly amounted to a triumph of Olympic ideals. Moreover, they ended up allowing German organizers to overcome a serious boycott threat from the United States and ultimately to host an Olympic festival that helped solidify Hitler’s hold on power.

Instrumental as Baillet-Latour was in making the 1936 Berlin Games a “success” for Hitler, he proved to be less crucial to that enterprise than did America’s Avery Brundage, who served as president of the American Olympic Committee (AOC) during the Nazi Games before becoming president of the IOC in 1952.

Although not (as sometimes alleged) a fan of all things Nazi, Brundage certainly shared some of that movement’s ideological baggage, along with an abiding conviction that the Olympic movement must remain “above politics”—itself a form of politics. Like Baillet-Latour, Brundage believed that the 1936 Summer Games should stay in Berlin and, as AOC chief, insisted that the United States be fully represented at that festival. To achieve this latter goal, he almost single-handedly overcame the aforementioned U.S boycott threat. To facilitate a very close vote in favor of participating in Berlin, Brundage made a personal “fact finding” trip to Germany, where he found no evidence of racism, instead discovering nothing but eagerness on the part of German officials to abide by Olympic principles. “You can’t ask for more than that,” he stated.

But many Americans (and others) believed that you could ask for more than that, and the AOC chief’s determination to take a U.S. team to Berlin despite the Hitler regime’s obvious and ongoing violations of human rights made him, in the eyes of his detractors, an avatar of Olympism’s obliviousness to its own stated ideals of racial equality, openness, and fair play.

Controversial as Brundage’s career as AOC head undeniably was, it was his 20-year tenure as IOC president (1952-1972) that made his name a byword for “Olympian” insensitivity to various real-world struggles and iniquities that he insisted must have no impact on or place within his beloved Games. Two prominent examples of this mindset will have to suffice here.

At the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics, during the famous Black Power protest by African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Brundage showcased an obdurate blindness to long-simmering frustrations among America’s Black Olympians. Apoplectic with rage over the incident, Brundage ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and expelled from the Olympic Village. The IOC chief’s harsh measures in this instance helped earn him the moniker “Slavery Avery.”

Four years later, in his last hurrah as IOC president at the ill-fated 1972 Munich Olympics, Brundage uttered the phrase that will forever be associated with his legacy: “The Games Must Go On.” The occasion was a hastily organized memorial service for 11 Israeli Olympians murdered by Palestinian guerrillas at the Olympic Village and an airfield outside the city. Determined that this horrific tragedy not lead to a significant suspension of the competitions, let alone their cancellation (as some were demanding), Brundage and the IOC decreed that the program go on just one day later than originally scheduled. To this decree he added an astoundingly tone-deaf equation of the Palestinian attack to an earlier instance of “political blackmail” whereby the Rhodesian team, over his objections, had been expelled from the Munich Games to avert a wholesale withdrawal by Black African states. “It was like dancing at Dachau,” said one Brundage critic as the Olympic party in Munich got right back on track.

Cluelessness of another order attended the eight-year (1972-1980) tenure of Brundage’s successor as IOC president, Lord Killanin, a jovial Irish grandee who paved the way for the IOC’s mode of operations today more by what he failed to do than by what he did. Insisting on a “hands-off” approach to political matters outside the Olympic arena, Killanin stood idle as the 1976 Montreal Olympics were boycotted by Black African states over issues arising from South African apartheid. He remained unengaged as well when U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered an American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics in retaliation for the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Characteristically, he also did nothing to rein in rampant corruption and galloping construction costs at Montreal ’76 that left the host city bankrupt and in debt for years. In fact, Killanin proved so inept that even fellow IOC members took notice. One of them, America’s William E. Simon, said of the Irishman: “Explaining something sensible to Lord Killanin is akin to explaining something to a cauliflower. The advantage of the cauliflower is that if all else fails, you can cover it with melted cheese and eat it.”

Explaining troubling matters to Thomas Bach might be easier, though not necessarily more fruitful. Responding to calls for cancellation of the 2020/21 Tokyo Games, he said this was never even an option because “the IOC does not abandon its athletes.” He said nothing about losing TV-generated IOC revenue streams.

David Clay Large is a senior fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among his many books are Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936; Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games; and, most recently, The Grand Spas of Central Europe: A History of Intrigue, Politics, Art, and Healing.

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