In the Free Press that day, Lyall Smith reported, “The only thing that can save Detroit is a driving finish to the wire under the impact of its 45-minute presentation Friday.” He quoted Fred Matthaei Sr. saying there was no way Detroit could win on the first ballot: “If we lose this time, this is the end. If we don’t get it now, I don’t think we would ever have another chance. It would be useless to continue the fight.”
One last burst of optimism came Thursday night, when the entire Detroit delegation gathered in the assembly hall for a dress rehearsal of the next morning’s official presentation. “Most were seeing it for the first time, and the effect was tremendous,” ad man Charles Adams recounted. “It was really a masterpiece. It was technically impressive. It told the story with great excitement and emotion. Matthaei, Cavanagh, and Romney, the three presenters, were superb. And as we prepared to leave the hall to rest up for the big day ahead, word came up from the press room that the betting was two to one for Detroit.”
• • •
At ten on Friday morning, delegations from the four finalist cities assembled before the IOC members in the Kurhaus. Presentations were made in alphabetical order: Buenos Aires, Detroit, Lyon, Mexico City. “With very little ceremony, Avery Brundage, IOC president, introduced Buenos Aires and told them they had forty-five minutes. What happened then was unsettling, to say the least,” Adams reported. “The presentation had not a single visual—and it consisted of three long speeches, each of which had then to be fully translated. It lasted an hour and a half. And it included such sentences as ‘A city characterized by a metropolitan character’—‘working together, the city has attained a functional homogeneity’—and finally—‘the sky is always pure blue.’ When it finally ended, the press boxes were half empty. About a third of the IOC delegates had actually left the room. Fully another third was reading the newspaper. One, discouragingly, was observed [reading] the comic section. And that was the atmosphere in which it was announced that Detroit would go on.”
Detroit requested five minutes for technical adjustments. It was Old Man Matthaei’s tactical move, enough time for him to hustle the wayward IOC delegates back into the room.
The city asks not what the Olympics can do for Detroit, but rather what can Detroit do to further the Olympic ideal. Such was the theme, inspired by President Kennedy’s inaugural phrase, a variation of which he first delivered in Detroit during the 1960 campaign. A challenge we fully understand and zealously accept. Matthaei opened the presentation: “Gentlemen, first, I wish to express the sincere pleasure and appreciation my colleagues and I feel at this opportunity to appear in behalf of our city—Detroit, USA. Detroit has presented its qualifications many times over the past twenty-four years. We are grateful and proud that many of you have urged us to return again to offer the facilities of our city and the warm hospitality of its people. In planning our presentation, we tried to look at Detroit through your eyes. We have tried particularly to answer the important question which I’m sure will guide you in your choice—what can Detroit do to further the Olympic ideal?”
Matthaei then turned it over to Cavanagh, who noted that the people of Detroit were so eager to land the Games that most members of the delegation came to Baden-Baden at their own expense. Then he introduced President Kennedy, who provided Detroit’s official invitation by film, calling the meeting “a matter of great international importance,” depicting Detroit as “a great sports community in the central United States,” and saying that he hoped the IOC delegates would “have the wisdom ascribed to the Olympic Gods in arriving at your very difficult decision.” Cavanagh and Romney then took turns boasting about Detroit and describing the facilities and proposed stadium. They spiced their commentary with a wide-screen color slide presentation showing the city and the filmed endorsement from Rafer Johnson, who was presented in close-up, sitting informally at a table. Johnson was not only a global star; he was an optimist who looked on the positive side of the civil rights movement. He said he hoped they would choose Detroit not only because of its facilities but “because Detroit has shown that it understands all that the Olympic Games are, and always have been, and always must be. Detroit’s understanding of the Olympic ideal is typical of the striving for international and interracial brotherhood that is apparent in so much that is taking place in the United States today.”
The presentation was interrupted by applause twelve times. Even some foreign journalists clapped with approval. Watching the scene from above, Adams noted, “When the lights came on, the view from the balcony where I sat was impressive. For a moment, you could hear a pin drop. The press loges were jammed. Every IOC member was in his seat—or should I say, almost literally, on the edge of it. And then a small thunder of applause hit the room.” Martin Hayden, working the audience, was told by the German Olympic leader that Detroit’s presentation was brilliant. A French delegate said the Americans deserved a gold medal in propaganda. Detroit hosted a luncheon immediately afterward, where Adams and his Motor City colleagues were instructed to do some last-minute selling. “I talked to a rajah, a member of the African contingent, a Norwegian count and the Colombian delegate,” Adams recalled. “I also spent ten minutes trying to win the vote of the most distinguished looking guest present—but who, unfortunately, turned out to be the man catering the party. The verdict was unanimous. The presentation had moved them. It was the best presentation they had ever seen. Optimism and friendliness filled the room. We were buoyant.”
Lyon took the stage after lunch. The presentation was entirely in French, the first language of the Olympic movement. Adams could not understand much of it, but it seemed to him that “there was much material that seemed extraneous. At one point it showed a Papal procession with about fifty Cardinals filing up an aisle in full raiment. This prompted Judge McCree, who was sitting next to me, to lean over and say, ‘I know this is an Olympic film, but I don’t recognize the event.’ ” In the interlude between Lyon and Mexico City, word spread through the room about the letters urging IOC delegates to reject Detroit because of its lack of “fair play” in housing. Cavanagh and the delegation leadership had known about the anti-Detroit campaign for days, but now everyone seemed to know. Adams took it as “discouraging news—and it alloyed our enthusiasm completely.”
Then came Mexico City. And more concern, according to Adams. “Without any visuals, but using four well-prepared, obviously competent speakers, they set forth the Mexico City case. One spoke of the city, its history, its abilities and facilities. Another referred to a $2.80 per diem, thereby undercutting Detroit by 20 cents. [Detroit had said it could stage the Olympics at a cost of only $3 per day per athlete.] Then a noted Mexican physician, Dr. Eduardo Hay, presented evidence on Mexico’s principal drawback—its altitude. He cited figures to show that Mexico City was below the 3,000 meter level, at which altitude, he stated, physical performance is altered. And then he concluded with this dazzling sentence which I did not write down, but which I cannot forget—‘If historians cannot agree on the past, and journalists cannot agree on the present, and scientists cannot agree on the future—how can men of medicine be expected to agree on this small question?’ The IOC seemed impressed. The final speaker eloquently reviewed Mexico’s history—recounted its place in American and World Civilization—and reminded the delegates that Mexico City represented Latin America, which had never hosted the Olympics. He stated that the selection of Mexico City would best serve the ecumenical purpose of the Olympic movement.”
The room was cleared of press for IOC members to ask a few sensitive questions of each city. The Americans were questioned about visas for nations like East Germany and North Korea and about costs per athlete. “Word came out of this the attitude toward Detroit had been friendly and gracious,” Adams reported. “Mr. Matthaei seemed filled with confidence. We waited downstairs where one European reporter assured me we were all but in and that he had his Detroit story half written.”
There were fifty-eight IOC members present
to vote. They deliberated for an hour, and then the chamber doors opened and the results were announced.
Mexico City 30. Detroit 14. Lyon 12. Buenos Aires 2.
Detroit’s dream destroyed. Mexico City had won in the first round. One fewer vote and they would have had to go to a second round, where Detroit was expecting to pick up more votes. But the entire Soviet bloc went to Mexico City, and so did a few European nations who had had their fill of Charles de Gaulle. And Detroit got only two of the three U.S. votes. John Jewett Garland was no friend in the end. “The decision hit us like a fist,” Adams recounted. “Several Detroiters told me that momentarily they had actually felt physically ill. When I relayed this information to one group in another part of the hall a few minutes later they wouldn’t believe me. We were first of all stunned, then confused, then bitter, and finally resigned. A few years earlier, in its bid to win the 1964 Games that went to Tokyo, Detroit spent $20,000 and finished third with nine votes. This time Detroit spent $200,000 and finished second with fourteen votes. All that work, and a net gain of only five votes.”
What happened? Some Detroiters believed their city was a victim of its own success. “I really thought we had it,” said Doug Roby. “But I am convinced now the members simply do not think the Games should come to the United States even though we haven’t had them here since 1932. They think the United States has everything. We are a ‘have’ nation. This is the era of the ‘have nots.’ ”
Richard Cross, the American Motors executive who had written that solicitous letter to Brundage before his visit to Detroit in September, offered a similar appraisal: “Several IOC committeemen told me that the committee was full of admiration for Detroit and thought our presentation was magnificent. But they also felt that we were such a big, successful city that we did not need the Olympics. Their idea seemed to be that it would be better to send the Games to Mexico City, which has never had a chance in the international spotlight.”
In his “Press Box” column in the Detroit News, Pete Waldmeir offered another take. He vividly recalled his encounter with a Mexican during that IOC affair in Brazil, the same one where Richard Cross had shared those pleasant meals at the Jaragua with Brundage: “A large Mexican with beady eyes, puffy sockets . . . if you want to know what he looked like ask your nine year old to draw you a picture of Pancho Villa. His name was Gen. Jose deJesus Clark Flores. He had a few comments to make that still hold water on why Mexico City and not Detroit won the Olympics. Where are your facilities? Gen. Clark asked wryly then. Where is your stadium? Do you have a velodrome? Could you hold the Games in your country tomorrow afternoon? We could.” Waldmeir said the conversation made him uncomfortable. Clark had all the answers. “I could only say, ‘We have plans.’ ”
Those were not the only reasons Detroit lost. There was also the allure of Mexico City, a cosmopolitan world capital. And in the political sphere, Mexico City, while aligned with the United States, was less beholden to cold war gamesmanship. Some delegates worried that East Germany and North Korea would not be able to get visas, despite Robert Kennedy’s assurances. Adams found his way into the meeting room after the vote and was shown papers where “members had actually underscored the phrase in the Attorney General’s letter that gave the U.S. an ‘out’ in issuing the visas.”
Did the hometown letter-writing campaign have anything to do with the vote? Members of the delegation insisted that it did not. “The Negroes who think that they had something to do with keeping the Olympics from Detroit are in error and those whites who attribute Detroit’s failure to get the Olympics to the letters are also in error,” said Judge McCree. “As far as I know, race was never a factor.” Councilman Patrick said no one was more upset than he about the failure of the open-housing bill he had sponsored, but the attack on the Olympics seemed misguided. “I guess people have the wrong notions about things,” he said. “They are caught in a strategy of chaos. They really feel the way to accomplish things is by creating anarchy. . . . Wade and I were an integral part of everything done over there. We had a very good group of people. All of us worked very well together. If all segments of Detroit could work as well as this group of 50 to 100 persons, I would be very heartened by the prospects of this city.”
Counterfactual history deals in speculation and fantasy, and the question it relies on—What if?—is forever unanswerable, but there are times nonetheless when it seems worth asking the What if? questions. What if Detroit had been chosen to host the 1968 Olympics? Would it have made any difference in the health of the city? In terms of physical and financial health, the experience of other Olympic cities suggests the answer is probably not in the long run. Some stadia remain, but for the most part Olympic sites turn into eerie athletic ghost villages or disappear altogether in a matter of years or a few decades. The best that can be said of the Olympic Stadium proposed for the Michigan State Fairgrounds is that it might have kept the Lions in Detroit for a time, perhaps preventing the later temporary move to the Pontiac Silverdome in 1975, before Ford Field was built downtown in 2002.
Yet it is within the realm of possibility that the political and corporate team that went to Baden-Baden would have felt a stronger commitment to the city in the sixties with the whole world watching. The expectations would have been greater, with untold ramifications. With the Olympics only a year away, would the riots of 1967 have happened, or happened in the same way, or would the Cavanagh administration have reacted more effectively to prevent or control them? Unanswerable, but worth pondering. And then consider 1968, with the racial dynamics of that year, and the call for a black athlete boycott that almost rocked the Games, and the historic gloved-fist black power salute of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the medal stand, and how all of that would have played out had the Olympics not been in Mexico City but in Detroit, a city at the center of the long and complicated story of race in America.
• • •
Cavanagh’s office had prepared a victory statement that was held for release on October 19 in Detroit. In it he said the Olympics would “place the name Detroit on the lips of every man, woman, and child on this globe.” Now, instead, the mayor had to release a statement of loss: “Naturally, we are disappointed at the decision. However, we knew it was a difficult one for the IOC. Detroit accepts this vote in the true sporting tradition and Olympic spirit. We congratulate the committee from Mexico City and their countrymen and want them to know that we will cooperate with them in order that the 1968 Olympic Games will be the best ever staged. The proficient and magnificent effort that went into the Detroit presentation will now be applied to forward other projects which Detroit may be called upon to handle in the future.” The mayor sounded a bit less gracious when he arrived in Rome that Sunday night, where he and Mary Helen were looking forward to an audience with Pope Paul. He told the press there that it was obvious that most IOC members had made up their minds even before Baden-Baden and that Detroit was treated unfairly because of anti-American sentiment.
Romney arrived in Detroit that same day. Four hundred people came to the airport to greet the governor and his defeated delegation, Richard Cross and Al Glancy, Martin Hayden, and the Matthaeis and the rest, as they stepped off the Pan Am jet. The Cody High School Band stood below, in what was described as “a dismal drizzle,” and played the University of Michigan fight song—“The Victors.”
Chapter 17
* * *
SMOKE RINGS
THE PROSE POEM was titled “Smoke Rings” and appeared below a sketch of curling cigarette smoke forming the familiar interlocking rings of the Olympic Games. It ran in the October 28, 1963, issue of Illustrated News, the Detroit paper affiliated with Reverend Cleage.
We don’t want everything “they” want.
But we weren’t any more interested in the Olympics than they were in Cynthia Scott.
They’re trying to act all upset because Negroes mentioned Detroit Race Bias to the Olympic Committee.
We didn’t know they were ashamed
of it.
After all, we didn’t shoot Cynthia Scott, they did!
Cleage had made his break from C. L. Franklin by then, moving farther away from his mainstream roots and identifying more as a black revolutionary. Born into the black upper middle class as the son of one of Detroit’s first African American doctors, trained with a degree from the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College, mentored as a young pastor by Reverend Hood and other moderate Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the fifty-two-year-old Cleage was now on his way to changing his name and denomination; within a few years he would be Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, founder and first holy patriarch of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, founded on the belief that Jesus was black. The Walk to Freedom was the last time he would participate in an event that included white liberals. He did not want to do it even then, bending only reluctantly at the request of Franklin, but now their alliance was finished, as was his sympathy with any integrationist notions. The dreamy language of Martin Luther King did not suit him, even in its most unflinching denunciations of racism. He stood now with Malcolm X, who was coming to Detroit on November 10 to be the closing speaker at Cleage’s Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference.
Once in a Great City Page 29