Jimmy Carter calls for U.S. boycott of Moscow Olympics
On January 20, 1980, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter announced that U.S. athletes would not attend the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow unless Soviet forces... On January 20, 1980, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter announced that U.S. athletes would not attend the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow unless Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan by February 20. The arrival of the deadline coincided with the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, where events, such as the amateur U.S. hockey team's ''Miracle on Ice'' victory over the Soviet super-team, demonstrated the undeniable propaganda potential of the Olympics. On April 22, with the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan only increasing, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted 1,604 to 797 to support Carter and boycott the Moscow Games. The next day, a number of disappointed U.S. athletes and coaches filed a class action suit to block the boycott, but the suit was dismissed in mid-May. Forty-four other nations eventually joined the United States in refusing to send their athletes to the Moscow Games, which carried on without the presence of many of the world's greatest athletes.