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Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World

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Overview

From the critically acclaimed and bestselling author David Maraniss, a groundbreaking book that weaves sports, politics, and history into a tour de force about the 1960 Rome Olympics, eighteen days of theater, suspense, victory, and defeat

David Maraniss draws compelling portraits of the athletes competing in Rome, including some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at eighteen seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.

Along with these unforgettable characters and dramatic contests, there was a deeper meaning to those late-summer days at the dawn of the sixties. Change was apparent everywhere. The world as we know it was coming into view.

Rome saw the first doping scandal, the first commercially televised Summer Games, the first athlete paid for wearing a certain brand of shoes. Old-boy notions of Olympic amateurism were crumbling and could never be taken seriously again. In the heat of the cold war, the city teemed with spies and rumors of defections. Every move was judged for its propaganda value. East and West Germans competed as a unified team less than a year before the Berlin Wall. There was dispute over the two Chinas. An independence movement was sweeping sub-Saharan Africa, with fourteen nations in the process of being born. There was increasing pressure to provide equal rights for blacks and women as they emerged from generations of discrimination.

Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, Maraniss reveals the rich palate of character, competition, and meaning that gave Rome 1960 its singular essence.

Editorial Reviews

Overshadowed by more flamboyant or tragic Olympics, the 1960 Rome games were a sociopolitical watershed, argues journalist Maraniss (Clemente) in this colorful retrospective. The games showcased Cold War propaganda ploys as the Soviet Union surged past the U.S. in the medal tally. Steroids and amphetamines started seeping into Olympian bloodstreams. The code of genteel amateurism--one weight-lifter was forbidden to accept free cuts from a meat company--began crumbling in the face of lavish Communist athletic subsidies and under-the-table shoe endorsement deals. And civil rights and anticolonialism became conspicuous themes as charismatic black athletes--supercharged sprinter Wilma Rudolph, brash boxing phenom Cassius Clay, barefoot Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila--grabbed the limelight while the IOC sidestepped the apartheid issue. Still, we're talking about the Olympics, and Maraniss can't help wallowing in the classic tropes: personal rivalries, judging squabbles, come-from-behind victories and inspirational backstories of obstacles overcome (Rudolph wins the gold, having hurdled Jim Crow and childhood polio that left her in leg braces). As usual, these Olympic stories don't quite bear up under the mythic symbolism they're weighted with (with the exception perhaps of Abebe Bikila), but Maraniss provides an intelligent context for his evocative reportage. Photos. (July) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Author Information

Bio of David Maraniss

David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who chronicled the Clinton era during his time at the Washington Post. After leaving the Washington Post, Maraniss wrote "First in His Class," a book about Clinton that won the American Society of Newspaper Editors Jesse Laventhal Prize. He has also published "The Clinton Enigma," a book interpreting the Clinton scandal. 030

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Additional Info

Imprint

Simon & Schuster

Filesize

1.60 MB

Number of Pages

496

eBook ISBN

1439102678

Excerpt from: Rome 1960 by David Maraniss

2 All Roads to Rome Two weeks before the opening of the 1960 Rome Olympics, in the midst of one of the hottest summers of the cold war, a press counselor for the Italian embassy in Washington paid a courtesy call on his counterpart at the U.S. Department of State. With diplomatic politesse, Gabriele Paresce said that he was there to remind American officials that Italy, as the host country, hoped to keep the Rome Olympics "free from activity of a political or propaganda nature." After reaching into his briefcase, Paresce handed John G. Kormann a document known as an aide-memoire. It included part of a speech on the Olympic spirit delivered by Italian defense minister Giulio Andreotti, president of the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XVII Olympiad. Other Italian press attach�s were undertaking similar missions at capitals around the world, Paresce said. He wanted to assure the Americans that in their case the visit was a mere formality. The Italians expected no problems from them. On the other hand, they were "seriously concerned that the Iron Curtain countries should be admonished not to exploit contacts at the Games for propaganda purposes." When it came to the communists, according to Paresce, it would be a case of "No propaganda, or we throw you out!" Before leaving, he asked Kormann to relay his message to the United States Olympic Committee. Kormann explained that American Olympic officials were not controlled by the government and could not be told what to do, but he happened to be on friendly terms with the press director, Arthur Lentz, and would be happy to pass along the word. He said he was certain that both the State Department and the USOC "wanted to maintain the true spirit of the Games." After Paresce left, Kormann called Lentz in New York, where the U.S. team was assembling in preparation for Rome. Lentz promised him that the Americans would do all they could to respect the Italian request. The next morning, Saturday, August 13, David Sime, a sprinter on the U.S. team, was alone in his room at the Vanderbilt Hotel in Manhattan, weakened by the flu, when the telephone rang. "Is this David Sime?" a man asked. He said he was from the government and wanted to talk. "About what?" Sime wondered. He was not in a sociable mood. If he had felt better, he would have been at Van Cortlandt Stadium, in the Bronx, going through the training regimen with the rest of the track-and-field team. Instead, he remained at the delegation's hotel at Park Avenue and 34th Street, preserving his strength for his moment of truth. That would come eighteen days later inside Stadio Olimpico in Rome, when the red-haired Duke University medical student was scheduled to race in the 100-meter dash, one of the premier events of the Olympics. But this caller was insistent, and already knew enough to pronounce his name so that it rhymed withrim. Scottish. Forget theeon the end. Come on up, Sime said. Once inside the room, the federal agent told Sime that the United States of America could use his help. After analyzing intelligence from European contacts and carefully observing Soviet stars who had been in Philadelphia for the second US-USSR dual track meet in 1959, they had targeted an athlete who might be approachable in Rome, an interesting prospect for defection. Is this a hoax?Sime asked. As an amateur athlete, one could never tell what was real and what was a joke. Almost every week, some decision made by the brass at the Amateur Athletic Union seemed unreal. Who could believe it when they suspended the eligibility of his friend Lee Calhoun, the champion high hurdler from North Carolina College at Durham, for a year because Calhoun and his wife, Gwen, got married on theBride and Groomtelevision game show? That was a joke, or should have been, but it was not. Then there were the athletes themselves. Sime knew enough prankster teamm