A Symbol of Pride and Concern

By J.D. Reed

For the past six years, South Korea has labored to make the 1988 Summer Olympic Games -- the 24th of the modern Olympiad -- into a statement of the country's arrival as a sophisticated and confident middle power. But amid last week's tear gas and flaming Molotov cocktails, the linked rings of the Olympic flag had become not only a symbol of national aspirations but also an emblem of international worry. Around the world, a growing number of sports and political figures were voicing concern about whether South Korea would be able to stage the Games free from boycotts or violence, or indeed whether it should hold them at all. The South Koreans insisted that the Games would go on, and splendidly at that.

So far as the International Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is concerned, there is no going back on the 1981 decision to give the Games to South Korea. Said I.O.C. Spokeswoman Michele Verdier last week: "The Games have been awarded to Seoul, and there is absolutely no change in our position." Only an "act of war," she said, might change the committee's view. Verdier has solid precedent on her side: the quadrennial Summer Games have been suspended only three times -- in 1916, 1940 and 1944 -- and in each case because of a world conflict.

But even though the Olympics do not begin until Sept. 17, 1988, I.O.C. member nations, including the U.S., are watching the current turmoil in South Korea carefully. Says George Miller, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee, who is worried about the future safety of his athletes: "We're not yet at the hand-wringing stage. But anytime there are disruptions in a country, naturally there are levels of concern." Willi Daume, a West German I.O.C. member who presided over the 1972 Munich Games, thinks that removing the Olympics from Seoul at this stage could even heat up the deteriorating situation in South Korea. On the other hand, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley last week offered his city, site of the 1984 Games, as an alternative to Seoul.

On the American political front, at least one presidential hopeful has focused on the Games. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in the full flight of his still undeclared candidacy, last week told Kim Kyung-Won, South Korea's Ambassador to Washington, that he might urge a U.S. boycott of the Games. Jackson demanded that the political situation in Seoul be stabilized and that the regime improve its human-rights record. But a ranking White House official last week declared that the Reagan Administration would never threaten a boycott like the one the U.S. organized against Moscow in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In fact, there is still a faint but perceptible chance that Moscow might try something similar this time around. Even though the Soviets have announced unconditional plans to send a full team of athletes to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, they have not yet given such a commitment for Seoul. Soviet Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov last week referred to a Jan. 17 deadline by which countries must accept the Olympic invitation. "When we approach that deadline," said Gerasimov, "our sportsmen will give their answer." If the Soviets should decide to stay home, other Communist countries might decide to do the same. Despite Moscow's suspenseful attitude, however, ! the Soviets are expected to show up in Seoul.

For all the clouds on the horizon, the Seoul Olympics still promise to be perhaps the best-organized and best-equipped event ever. Over the past decade, South Korea has spent some $3 billion on preparations for the Games. Moreover, it finished the work well ahead of schedule, whereas at Montreal in 1976 the readiness of the facilities was in doubt right down to the wire. The graceful, 100,000-seat Olympic Stadium on the bank of the Han River, site of opening and closing ceremonies as well as track-and-field events, was finished in 1984. Eight miles south of the city center, the 135-acre Seoul Sports Complex (completed in 1986) includes a boxing arena, swimming hall and 50,000-seat baseball stadium. Some two miles away to the east, the 750-acre Olympic Park will be the site for gymnastics, fencing and cycling. Many of the facilities have already received a shakedown, having been used for last September's tenth Asian Games. Participants in that extravaganza were lavish in their praise.

Where urban infrastructure is concerned, the government has taken great pains to make attending the Olympics a pleasant experience. Seoul's subway system was revamped in anticipation of some 340,000 foreign spectators; it will whisk visitors comfortably from their downtown hotels to event sites. Restaurants and hotels around the capital have been refurbished. About 100,000 Korean volunteers have signed up to serve as guides, translators and stadium workers. As this week's disturbances have painfully illustrated, the government is anxious about security. That concern will be heavily on display at the Games. Uniformed policemen and military counterterrorist squads will be deployed at Olympic sites.

Such worries are justified, and not merely because of the scale of the ongoing South Korean civil disturbances. In the past two decades, unexpected violence and the fear of it have become an ugly Olympic specter. In 1968 more than 400 protesters were killed in rioting just days before the Mexico City Games. And in 1972 Palestinian terrorists forever ended complacence when they abducted and murdered eleven members of the Israeli team in Munich. The U.S. and some 60 other nations boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow, and four years later the Soviet Union and 16 other Communist countries retaliated by staying away from Los Angeles because, they claimed, security was lax.

At Seoul there will be another thorny consideration: North Korea. The $ Communist government in Pyongyang has insisted that it should be host to fully half the 1988 Olympic events on its soil -- and keep 50% of any profits from the Games. Its failure to get anywhere with such demands has caused Pyongyang to hint frequently that it will boycott the Games, perhaps pulling the Soviet Union and other East bloc countries along in sympathy. The I.O.C. position is that the Olympics are awarded to a city, not a nation, and that the athletic events cannot therefore be shared. When Munich was host to the 1972 Games, the I.O.C. points out, it did not share events with East Germany.

That position is not fixed, however. I.O.C. President Juan Antonio Samaranch, with a nod from Seoul organizers, has tendered Pyongyang a small piece of the Olympics action with an offer to have North Korea act as host to table-tennis and soccer competitions (both popular sports in Asia), as well as archery events and the 50-km bicycle race. In return Samaranch has demanded that North Korea open its heavily militarized border to the "Olympic family," including some 7,000 members of the press who are expected to attend the Games. So far, the North has refused the offer, but discussions are expected to continue at an I.O.C. meeting next month.

South Korea fears a Pyongyang boycott because it would increase the chances for violent incidents at the Olympics. Shortly before the start of last year's Asian Games, which North Korea refused to attend, a bomb that authorities believe was the work of North Korean agents exploded at Seoul's Kimpo Airport, killing five people and injuring more than 30. The hope is that if the Soviets and other Communist nations attend the Seoul Games, Pyongyang will avoid causing similar bloody disruptions.

Right now, the most obvious potential for bloodshed involves South Koreans battling South Koreans. But most of the citizenry in that agonized country, from student radicals to conservative businessmen, still believe that South Korea's internal struggles should be suspended for the Games. Precedent gives reason for optimism: although there was serious rioting weeks before the Asian Games began last fall, the few demonstrations planned during the event fizzled, and Koreans united in the effort to produce a spectacular show. Says one antigovernment businessman: "The national honor demands that we fulfill our commitment to the Games. If we do not, our credit will be lost forever." That credit is still far from exhausted. The Games may be tarnished by the ongoing violence, but they are still expected to shine brightly in 1988.

With reporting by David Beckwith/Washington, with other bureaus