U.S. Olympic Committee Chief Says U.S. Group Will Not Participate in 1980 Olympics if Israel is Excl

The chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), Robert J. Kane, has pledged that if Israel is excluded from the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 the American committee will not participate in them either.

Strongly denying such an attempt by the Soviet Union is underway, Kane has declared that if the exclusion of Israel takes place “I’m certain that the U.S. Olympic Committee–and it would hope, all the free nations in the world–would not take part, and that would be the end of the Olympic Games.”

Kane’s pledge is in a confidential letter he wrote Aug. 15 to Sen. Richard Stone (D. Fla.) who had written him that he had seen American media reports that the Soviets would exclude Israel.

Later, 80 members of the House of Representatives protested in a letter to the USOC that a Moscow-Third World alignment was aiming to oust Israel from the games by suspending or expelling Israel from international federations on technical grounds to a point where Israel would automatically lack the required number of international memberships to be in good standing for the games.

Responding to Rep. Jack F. Kemp (R. NY) who authored the Congressmen’s letter, Kane wrote that Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), on several occasions has reaffirmed pledges from Moscow for the 1980 Olympic Games to observe all principles and regulations of the IOC.

This Kane statement was in a USOC press release issued Sept. 25 that said “specifically, at an IOC executive board meeting with the national Olympic committees in March, Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet leader, reaffirmed the Moscow games would be conducted under all IOC regulations and principles.”

The press statement also said Kane in his letter to Kemp quoted Chaim Glovinsky, secretary general of the Israel Olympic Committee, that Israel is a member in good standing in all international sports federations concerned with the Olympic summer games.