Regrets? Former president Carter has one or two

In May 2002, former President Jimmy Carter was asked during a question-and-answer session at Stanford University how he viewed his decision to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. His answer:

“I really have mixed emotions about that; if there was one decision in my administration that I would reconsider, it might be that one. You’ll have to remember that at Christmastime of 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan with massive military forces. Ten thousand troops moved into Afghanistan, and I felt that effort by the Soviet Union was a direct threat to the security of my country — one of the rare times that happens. Had the Soviets been able to consolidate their hold on Afghanistan, they could easily then have moved either through Iran … or through Pakistan. Then they would have achieved a longtime Soviet ambition, to have access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

“So I announced that this was a direct threat to the security of our country, and that we would not permit the Soviet Union to be successful in Afghanistan. We surreptitiously — and this was very secret then — gave maximum support to the so-called freedom fighters in Afghanistan. We channeled assistance for those freedom fighters through Saudi Arabia, through Egypt and other places, and at the same time I imposed economic sanctions against the Soviet Union to try to force them to withdraw. But the debate about the Olympics is the one that was most memorable.

“Congress passed a resolution, with 330 votes in favor, that we boycott the Olympics. The U.S. Olympic Committee, which is an independent agency — I had nothing to do with appointing members or anything else — voted overwhelmingly against participating in the Olympics in Moscow. I supported both those decisions. And I met, by the way, with the entire Olympic team, and expressed my regrets. At that time, most of them thought that the reasons were justified … The Russians were then projecting participation in the Olympics as an imprimatur, or approval, not only of the Olympic Games, but also of the policies of the Soviet Union. I didn’t think it was proper to do that.”

– Cincinnati Enquirer