Book Review: Cold War Games
Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy by Toby C. Rider discusses the development of cultural diplomacy and foreign policy in sports, and the idea of using sports as a platform for politics, propaganda, and psychological warfare. Rider shares in great detail, of the progression of different political components in the sporting world, specifically the Olympics and how different nations such as the United States and the Soviet Union capitalized on this to advance themselves, particularly in time of conflict and war.
Throughout eight chapters Rider shares the chronological history of the development of these themes and ideas and discusses their political significance. As the world of sports begin to grow in popularity and infrastructure across the world so does their international significance and potential, specifically politically. With the popularization of the Olympics and other international sporting events, these platforms became a great place for nations to show off their athletes. A countries athletic performance could be interpreted as a signifier of the countries economic and social life. This idea then also brought into question what form of government was superior. Because of these ideas, this was one of the main reasons that the Soviet Union decided to increase their interest in international sport, eventually going so far as to sponsor athletes with their government in order to help strengthen and commend the idea of communism and attempt to assert it as a superior way of government as well as spread it. Originally the United States had recognized this potential and once the Soviet Union increased their interest in international sports, they followed as well in an attempt to stay superior, for example, in medal count in the Olympics.
Chapter one, “The Cold War, Propaganda, and the State-Private network”, discusses the revamp of American propaganda by President Harry S. Truman. This meant that the United States, and other nations that followed, began to take a much greater interest in the idea of using international sport as a platform for its propaganda in order to shape public opinion on different ideas, specifically communism. In order to do this, organizations and private groups were formed and previously established organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency took on new responsibilities.
Chapter two, “The U.S., the Soviet Union, and the Olympic Experience”, gave an overview of the history of the Olympics. Rider describes how the countries looked at the Olympics as an opportunity to increase their international standings and were competing in order to be the best, rather than using the Olympics as a platform for peaceful and friendly international sport. The most prestigious international athletes stood as symbols of their nations. As the focus and importance of these ideas increased other countries began to take an increased interest in their athletes and their performance in the Olympics. One nation in particular, the Soviet Union, took these ideas very seriously due to political potential and for propaganda purposes as they attempted to popularize their communist movement. The Soviets first competed in the 1952 Olympic summer games, held in Helsinki, Finland. This started the tension that continued to grow over the course of the cold war, of the debate between politically free Olympics, an idea supported by the United States, and Government sponsored athletes, which the Soviet Union had started.
Chapter three, “A Campaign of Truth”, focuses on President Truman’s Campaign of Truth. In this campaign President Truman addressed the importance the role of propaganda has and created an offensive plan to penetrate the Iron Curtain with our ideas and counter all soviet lies about the United States. As a result, the United States’ efforts increased taking its message and propaganda, both offensive and defensive, to all of the media platforms such as television, radio, films, and written news. They also began to share the stories of individual athletes throughout media outlets in order for people to better connect with the athletes representing our country and also to highlight the wide diversity the United States has.
Chapter four, “The Union of Free Eastern European Sportsmen”, and chapter five, “A new Olympic Challenge” explore whom can compete in events like the Olympics and the impacts that they have. Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president was a strong believer that the Olympics were not political. This however contradicted the beliefs and actions of many other nations and put him slightly at odds with the U.S. Government. Because of this believe he continued the Olympic policy of requiring athletes to compete for their home nation. This idea came into conflict predominately when refugees of other nations requested to compete for their new country. An early example was thee Hungarian National Sports Federation, a group that looked to aid Hungarians that had fled from behind the iron curtain and now lived on free soil. They had requested to allow their athletes to compete for the United States however this was forbidden. Later on, Rider goes on and describes the threat that the Soviets now held against the United States. Although the United States had beat out the Soviets in medals the first time that they competed, the soviets and increased the caliber of their athletes and now posed an imminent threat at beating the United States in the upcoming Olympic Games. This was a problem for the United States because they feared for what would happen politically if the Soviets won, beating out the United States for the title of the best nation sports wise, but what this meant politically towards United States and Soviet citizens and the rest of the world was dangerous. This led to increased sponsorship to United States athletes through private channels by the CIA and other organizations. It also sparked a wave of propaganda that the Soviets were violating the amateur ideals of the Olympics since their government was subsidizing their training and other ventures.
Chapter six, “Sports Illustrated and the Melbourne Defection”, and chapter seven, “Symbols of Freedom” discussed a relatively small event that the United States capitalized on politically and propaganda wise and had turned into a powerful symbol of freedom. Sports Illustrated and the HNSF helped a group of predominately Hungarian athletes’ defect from behind the iron curtain of their home country to the United States. During this process they helped accommodate these people to their new way of life and find work. The United States widely publicized this event to take a jab at communism and to show that people disliked their current living so much that they defected to the United States. This carried great power and was a major win at the time in the propaganda war between the United States and the Soviet Union. After this event the debate was then sparked concerning whether or not defected athletes could compete for their new nation. The IOC’s response was that it was not allowed but still the concept of a geological shifts still came in to play and idea of WW2 and other conflicts shifting people around the world was powerful.
The final chapter, “Operation Rome”, reflects and summarizes sports diplomacy specifically of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his second term in office. It discusses the efforts that went into the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California and the Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, both in 1960. The United States and other nations continued to professionalize sports for these events and the Olympics continued to be an international political platform. Riders main idea was that these 1960 Olympics helped to set the tone for the remainder of the Cold War.
“set the stage for the remainder of the Cold War. The superpower rivalry continued to elevate the political significance of athletic exchanges, track meets, and a range of other competitions and interactions between sportsmen and sportswomen from the East and the West” (p. 168).
Throughout the book Rider does a very an excellent job describing the journey of the Olympics and International sport and their use and significance as political platforms. He goes into great depth when appropriate and effectively connects various events, organizations, and ideas to this concept of sports diplomacy. He recognizes and addresses various themes throughout the book such as that the Olympics is a nationalistic event and therefore it is impossible to keep politics out of it, no matter how much Avery Brundage may disagree. However, there are times when he goes too far in depth into a topic that does not come into play again throughout the book. This can most easily be seen with various organizations that he describes and then do not come up again and are not relevant to the rest of the book. Overall, the book is very fascinating, and Rider does a superb job in telling the story, it is evident that he is very well versed in this topic and has done extensive research into it.
In conclusion, Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy by Toby C. Rider gives a large summary of the role and significance the Olympics and international sport played in international politics, foreign policy and cultural diplomacy. Rider effectively relates various events across the world to this idea and makes connections from these events to various themes and concepts of the Olympics being a significant political platform and helping to set the tone for the Cold War.
Bibliography
Rider, Toby C. Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy. University of Illinois Press, 2016.