Dropping the Torch

Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War offers a diplomatic history of the 1980 Olympic boycott. Broad in its focus, it looks at events in Washington, D.C., as well as the opposition to the boycott and how this attempted embargo affected the athletic contests in Moscow. Jimmy Carter based his foreign policy on assumptions that had fundamental flaws and reflected a superficial familiarity with the Olympic movement. These basic mistakes led to a campaign that failed to meet its basic mission objectives but did manage to insult the Soviets just enough to destroy détente and restart the Cold War. The book also includes a military history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which provoked the boycott, and an examination of the boycott’s impact four years later at the Los Angeles Olympics, where the Soviet Union retaliated with its own boycott.

Author Biography

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, a historian specializing in the World War II and Cold War eras, is an associate professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. He has published a number of articles that have appeared in academic journals such as the English Historical Review and the Journal of Military History, military publications like Joint Forces Quarterly and the Royal United Services Institute Journal, and journalistic publications like Texas Alcalde magazine and ESPN.com. Professor Sarantakes is also the chair of the Paul Birdsall Prize in European Military and Strategic History book prize committee for the American Historical Association and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.