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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 16 What the Games taught me about press freedom Henrikas Yushkiavitshus Former UNESCO Assistant Director General for Communication; organizer, Moscow Olympics, 1980 Even though the International Olympic Committee claims that the Olympic Games are not political events, they do usually have political connotations. My first Olympics were Mexico in 1968. Already, during the year leading up to them, I discovered that some broadcasters were more welcome to the Olympic venue than others. I was then the director of the Technical Center of the International Radio and Television Organization in Prague and needed to go to Mexico to sign an agreement with the Mexican organizing committee for Intervision, the international TV organization of the Warsaw Pact, on broadcasting the Games to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I was told at the Mexican Embassy in Prague that with a Soviet diplomatic passport, it would take six month to get a visa, and then only after giving my fingerprints. The signing ceremony together with Eurovision was scheduled for a week later, so I called Henry Haar, the Secretary General of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Geneva, asking him to sign the agreement on our behalf. To my astonishment, the next day, an employee of the Mexican embassy turned up at my office with my visa and no further reference to fingerprints. That was the result of a most impressive lesson in professional solidarity. I found out later that the president of the EBU, Sir Hugh Green, who was also Director General of the BBC, had telegrammed the Mexican organizing committee informing them that if within 24 hours Mr. Yushkiavitshus did not get his visa, the Eurovision delegation would not go to Mexico either, meaning that nobody in Europe would see the Games. Good cooperation between Eurovision and Intervision lasted for many years, despite the Cold War. In Mexico, things did not go so smoothly. A week before the Games, more than 200 demonstrators were killed by the police. Two American sportsmen were punished for giving the Black Power salute at an award ceremony. And the Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska, who won four gold and two silver medals, turned her back on the Soviet flag during the award ceremony in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. She was given a very difficult time after her return home. The tragedy of the Munich Olympic Games is well known. There were also political overtones before the Olympics. I was negotiating the license fee and technical facilities for Intervision. We had only $300,000 to pay for everything. Even though the dollar was then much stronger than today, it was still very little money, compared, for example to the $10 million that Eurovision was paying.
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 17 West German Chancellor Willy Brandt was promoting his policy of “Opening to the East,” and I told my German colleagues that if they wanted to change the image of Munich in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from that of Hitler in beer halls to that of an Olympic city, it was they who should be paying us to promote the change, not we who should be paying them. My German colleagues were convinced by the argument, and we settled on a price of $300,000. And the cooperation we got from the German side was excellent. 26 nations boycotted the Montreal Olympic Games after New Zealand, whose national rugby team had recently played in South Africa, was allowed to compete even though the apartheid regime of South Africa had been banned from the Olympics since 1964. Another small incident: a Soviet diver fell in love with an American girl and did not return to the Olympic village. Excited Soviet officials came to me and asked that I get the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to air an appeal from the diver's mother. We had very good cooperation with CBC and the appeal was broadcast, but the love-stricken diver returned to Russia only much later. I got my white hair from the Moscow Olympic Games of 1980. I was then Vice Chairman of the Soviet State Television and Radio Committee, and was given responsibility for the media coverage of the Games. I was made responsible for everything - the construction of a new Olympic television center, the development and production of color television and radio equipment (we could not buy it because of the embargo over Afghanistan), and reaching agreements with foreign companies on the world coverage of the Games. We could not use foreign producers and cameramen, but we tried to train our people and, to that end, we organized many meetings and seminars for our staff, inviting foreign television journalists and producers. It was not easy to persuade the Soviet authorities to issue the necessary visas without delays. Once I was told that an Israeli journalist, Alex Gilady was categorically denied a visa. I called the foreign office and they told me that it was not them but the KGB that was responsible. I called the KGB General Ivan Pavlovich Abramov, who was responsible for journalist visas. He told me that there was no question of giving a visa to Gilady because he was from Mossad, the Israeli secret service. I replied that if Gilady was indeed from Mossad, he should be their target and they, the KGB, should invite him to dinner and pour vodka into him. But if he was not, then it was our business. If Gilady was denied a visa, I said I would have to resign, and I told the KGB general my Mexican visa story. Gilady got his visa. Today, he is a member of the International Olympic Committee. The biggest headache was the boycott of the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was a disaster both for the sportsmen and for world television. We had prepared, for example, excellent technical facilities for the National Broadcasting Company. It had paid us $87 million but never got to use them. 60 teams boycotted the Moscow Games. Of the Western countries, only Britain, France, Italy and Sweden participated. When some American athletes challenged their president's decision, Jimmy Carter threatened to cancel the passports of any who went to the Games.
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