American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics

The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott was one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, which hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics, and other countries would later boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 spurred US President Jimmy Carter to issue an ultimatum on January 20, 1980: If Soviet troops did not withdraw from Afghanistan within one month, the United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics in summer 1980. After its April 24 meeting, the head of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Robert Kane told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the USOC would be willing to send a team to Moscow if there were a "spectacular change in the international situation". On January 26, 1980, Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark announced that like the US, Canada would boycott the Olympics if the Soviets didn't leave Afghanistan by February 20, 1980.

Lord Killanin, then president of the IOC, arranged to meet and discuss the boycott with Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, before the 24 May deadline in an attempt to save the Games. Lord Killanin insisted that the Games should continue as scheduled, and Carter reaffirmed the US position to boycott unless the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan.

Several interventions at the late April 1980 Bilderberg meeting in Aachen included discussion of the implications of the boycott. It was forcefully argued the world would perceive a boycott as little more than a sentimental protest, and not a strategic act. An African representative at the Bilderberg meeting voiced a different view: whether there was additional support outside the US or not, he believed, a boycott would be an effective symbolic protest and be dramatically visible to those within the Soviet Union. The Carter administration brought considerable pressure to bear on other NATO member-States to support the boycott. Their support was not universal.

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