In an editorial spread across the top of its editorial page, the Michigan Chronicle deplored the behavior of the protesters. “Great Negro leaders of the past, from Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have been militant yet maintained their honor and dignity in fighting for the honor and dignity of a completely free Negro. However, this fight is reduced to a lower level when our methods become dishonorable and undignified. Because the bigots, the racists, the ignorant and poor whites, the political demagogues resort to such odious, unprincipled behavior, this is no excuse for Negroes to crawl around in the mud with these fools.”
• • •
Most of the official Detroit party, minus Governor Romney and a few others who would arrive later, left Detroit for Baden-Baden on the Saturday afternoon of October 12, the day after the torch rally. Fred Matthaei Jr. and a vanguard of technicians were already in Germany with three and a half tons of equipment and display materials getting ready for Detroit’s presentation to the IOC. Mayor Cavanagh and his wife led the main delegation. At dawn over the Atlantic, they were greeted with news from the Pan Am cockpit that Frankfurt was fogged in and they had been diverted to London. After finding breakfast at the airport, they took off on the same plane but were told that Frankfurt was still closed in and they were flying toward Stuttgart first to get a better look at the weather.
More bad news came during the flight, according to Alfred Glancy, the onetime Empire State Building owner, who kept a journal during the trip: “Jerry Cavanagh mentioned that Dave Diles of WKYZ had announced on the air in Detroit by tape from Paris, where he was en route to Baden-Baden, that one of the Russian delegates had told Diles that Russia was going to vote for Lyon and gave a number of reasons.” Lyon, France, was one of the other world finalists, along with Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Cavanagh sought advice on this new problem from Walker Cisler, the Detroit Edison chairman who had been chief of public utilities for the Supreme Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II and had several Soviet contacts. Cavanagh said he would call the White House on Monday to ask for some direct help with the Soviets, and Cisler offered to work his sources as well. But the Soviets were not the only problem, Garland noted. “We also got a report that Doug Roby made the statement that there would only be two of the three American votes cast for Detroit. Garland of Los Angeles will not vote for Detroit. Although they were invited to participate at the send-off of the runners carrying the torch from Los Angeles to Detroit, no one from the L.A. Olympic committee turned up and none of the L.A. Papers carried a line about the run.” All of this led Glancy to confess to his journal, “I am getting more pessimistic about our chances.”
With the weather at Stuttgart breaking clear, the plane landed there and the delegation arranged to hire cars for the sixty-five-mile journey to Baden-Baden. Glancy rode in a Mercedes with Cisler and Martin Hayden, the News editor, who recalled that Stuttgart had been virtually flattened from Allied blockbuster bombs by the end of the war. “The drive to Baden-Baden was pretty . . . Baden-Baden being at the northwest corner of the Black Forest, which covers about 150 miles in this part of Germany running to the Swiss border. Our car, a Mercedes with a diesel engine, being driven by a thwarted race car driver. We did get there safely, although on arrival the driver had no idea where the Waldhotel Der Selighof was. After some delay we found it to be on the outskirts of town, up the side of a mountain, and adjacent to a fine golf course.”
Glancy ended up sharing a suite with Hayden that had two bedrooms but only one bath in the smaller bedroom, which he took. “Felt a lot better after the tub—although I was tempted to drop off as it was then 24 actual hours [since leaving Detroit].” Instead he and Hayden took a cab to town, first stopping at the Kurhaus, where the IOC meetings would take place. (“Martin told the cab driver whorehouse, which for a Midwestern German accent was bad enough . . . but made me take another quick look at my friend.”) Then they headed off to the hotel where the Soviets were staying because Hayden wanted to interview them; they left when they could not find an interpreter, and went to dinner with Jack Tompkins and his wife, Ginny. The dinner table conversation, mostly about how the Russians might vote, irritated the newsman, so he huffed off to bed, but Glancy stayed up with the Tompkinses, watching them play roulette at the Kurhaus, which doubled as a gambling casino. Ginny, he said, “left a modest amount as her contribution to the prosperity of Baden-Baden.”
The next day was all rumors and confusion. Glancy and Hayden went back to the Kurhaus and ran into Fred Matthaei Jr., who expressed displeasure at what he saw as the changing rules of the lobbying game. At first, Matthaei said, all four cities had agreed that they would hold one joint party for the IOC before the vote. “Today we learn that Buenos Aires is giving a cocktail party at noon tomorrow for the IOC and Lyon a big one on Wednesday for everyone but Detroit at noon. Lyon is shipping in its top chef to prepare French cuisine finger food, shipping in 500 bottles of top vintage wines (this may boomerang on them from the Germans who are already raising their eyebrows that ‘their food isn’t good enough for the G.D. French’). The arrangement committee here set up the times for these parties, there was no time set aside for Detroit in case it wanted to give a party. I have suggested we have a meeting at 6:30 tonight of our entire Delegation to go over these and other points. Jerry Cavanagh just called for the meeting.”
The Detroit Olympic Committee staff had taken on the mission of gathering intelligence on the IOC members who came to Baden-Baden. They studied the group by geography and politics. Europe had thirty-four members, of which twenty-seven were characterized as FW (Free World) and seven IC (Iron Curtain). There were also nine from Asia, five from Africa, eight from North and Central America, and three from Australia and New Zealand. Lobbying letters had been prepared for each of them in languages ranging from Icelandic to Hindustani. Their likes and dislikes were reported. (France’s Count de Beaumont, the Detroit intelligence gatherers noted, had been a journalist all his life, served as administrator of the Bank of Indo-China, was a member of the Jockey Club, the Explorers Club, and a club called Gentlemen Writers.) Some IOC members appeared susceptible to the high life—accepting gifts, drinks, and women. But the Detroit delegation had been instructed to play it straight. In a letter to Cavanagh a few weeks before they left, Fred Matthaei Sr. had praised the mayor for stating at a strategy meeting that Detroit should be cautious and prudent in its dealings in Baden-Baden. “It would be improper to present hula dances to members of the IOC,” Matthaei joked, then added, “It is an extremely critical path we are treading, and we must look at ourselves through their eyes rather than our own. Therefore, I am glad that you made a point of mentioning . . . that our behavior must be above criticism. One’s behavior in the church is entirely different than one’s behavior in a pub, and actually we will be in church during the week of our presentation. It is indeed nice to know that you will be there to guide the thinking and actions of the other members of the Committee, who in the very exuberance of their eagerness might say or do something which could cost us the Olympics.”
The IOC session opened at the Kurhaus on the Wednesday evening of October 16. A little Mozart, some ballet, and the quintessential Brundage speech on the vital importance of amateurism and sportsmanship. “The thing that is not understood is that amateurism is a philosophy of life, a consecration and devotion to the actual task at hand rather than to the payment or to the reward,” declared Brundage, a millionaire hotel magnate whose every need in Germany was met by the German hosts, as were his travels throughout his vast Olympic empire. “It is the same devotion that in scholars and scientists has led to the acquisition of knowledge and to the advancement of civilization. It is the same devotion that has actuated the great artists and musicians who have starved in garrets rather than commercialize their work. It is the same devotion that in the great patriotic leaders in all countries has produced all social progress. It is the same devotion that has actuated the unknown sculptors and architects who created the gre
at buildings and cathedrals of the world without even signing their work. It is the same devotion that guided Henry Ford and Thomas Edison to their achievements in the industrial world, which they would have accomplished even if they had never won a fortune.”
Ford. Henry Ford. The Detroit delegation perked up. Was this a subtle sign from the Olympic leader?
While others gambled in the casino after the banquet, several members of the Detroit delegation went to work in the exhibition hall. The elite group included Martin Hayden, though he was mostly taking notes for a story that appeared in the News the next day. By then he had worked out the kinks that had delayed his previous story. First the wire desk at the Kurhaus had held it up for several hours because he had failed to provide telephone numbers, then it was delayed in Frankfurt to determine whether he intended it to go to Detroit, Michigan, or some other Detroit. In his journal, Al Glancy had taken quiet delight in the fulminations of his roommate. But no such worries now; this dispatch made it on time. Detroit bigwigs pulling an all-nighter like fraternity boys finishing a homecoming float. “Detroit may not win the games but it has set a new world’s record for the highest paid construction crew in building trades history,” Hayden wrote.
Until dawn today auto and advertising company heads, a real estate tycoon, utility, public relations and film company executives—were climbing ladders, hanging lights and sawing wood as they raced time to assemble the exhibit supporting their city’s bid. A British scribe: “Utterly unbelievable, so totally American.” He saw Alfred R. Glancy, onetime half-owner of the Empire State Building . . . on his knees sawing the legs of an exhibit table. His carpenter assistant was Frank Buchanan, Michigan Bell public relations man. Halfway up a wall was Thomas B. Adams, adman, and below him steadying the ladder was Richard Cross, chair of American Motors. Also on duty were Fred Matthaei, retired American Metals Co. president, and his son Fred Jr., known in Detroit less as a furniture mover and more as American Metals vice president. In role reversal they were commanded by four technicians. The four who weeks ago first assembled the Detroit display and then babied it across the ocean to Germany. Lyon used military personnel, Mexico City flew in a team of workmen. At the center of the exhibit, flanked by dramatic photos of Michigan and Detroit athletes in action, is a 12-foot long model of a redesigned Michigan State Fairgrounds with a 110,000 seat stadium. Two normally competitive Detroit architects, Louis Rossetti and Oscar Stonorov, worked together on it.
They finished the installation at six in the morning, and hours later IOC members and the world press began wandering through the hall to examine the displays of the four finalists. Detroit delegates, including Mayor Cavanagh and Jack Tompkins, took turns manning their exhibit, but the first host was Judge Wade H. McCree, one of two African Americans in the Michigan group along with Councilman Patrick. McCree, an alumnus of Fisk University and Harvard Law School, where he graduated twelfth in his class, had been appointed to the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan by President Kennedy in 1961. He was a sophisticated jurist, always courteous but never bullied, who spoke Latin and Greek and was known to recite the Aeneid with his law clerks in chambers. Among the leading black figures in Detroit then, McCree stood apart from the political posturing and elbowing, respected by all. He supported the Olympics effort but understood the racial dynamics that took him to Baden-Baden. Cavanagh and Romney and their crew needed him.
The geopolitics of the IOC were changing, slowly but inevitably. Europe remained dominant, with its collection of Olympic barons and lords, but now voters also came from parts of the world that had been shut out for decades and might have questions about the civil rights struggle in the United States and the American commitment to equality. In addition, more athletes of color were participating than ever before. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, a gold medal had been awarded for the first time to an athlete from sub-Saharan Africa, Abebe Bikila, the great marathoner from Ethiopia. As early as July 1, Governor Romney’s legal adviser, Richard C. Van Dusen, acting at the suggestion of Ed Hodges of the Fair Employment Practices Commission, had sent a letter to Fred Matthaei Sr. urging him to take all of this into account. “In putting together your delegation to attend the IOC meeting . . . it might be wise for you to consider Negro representation,” Van Dusen wrote. “Certainly one of the serious problems that any United States city will face in the light of the current racial tensions in this country is to explain that Negro athletes will be welcomed in our country. No one can do that better on behalf of Detroit than a qualified Negro member of your delegation. I recognize this may entail financial problems [underwriting the travel expenses] but I think the idea is worthy of serious consideration.”
Matthaei had written back saying that they had tried to get Ralph Bunche, the noted United Nations diplomat, who had spent his early years in Detroit, to narrate a film presentation for them, but that he had to back out because of his UN duties. But they were able to persuade Rafer Johnson, the 1960 decathlon gold medalist, to make a filmed endorsement instead. “In addition to the above, we plan to have at least one Negro in our delegation . . . and the thinking at the present time is that Judge Wade McCree will accompany the mayor.” In the end, Patrick came along too, able to separate this task from his disappointment over the defeat of his open-housing bill.
Not long after he arrived in Baden-Baden, Mayor Cavanagh was told by an IOC delegate from the Middle East that he had received a mailing from Detroit undercutting the city’s effort. The name on the return address was Lloyd E. Dolby, a Detroit bus driver who had taken to heart the statement by local NAACP leaders that blacks in Detroit should “demonstrate as never before” after the disappointing defeat of the open-housing bill. The envelope he sent to IOC delegates included the “Fair play has not become a living part of Detroit” leaflet, along with a cover letter that read, “This country is not capable of accepting the many colored people from all parts of the world because it has not settled the difference towards the Negro who is struggling to gain freedom. He has been deprived of these rights for over ten decades. Let it be known that on October 8, 1963 the city of Detroit Common Council shamefully defeated an open occupancy ordinance by a 7–2 vote.” The message, it turned out, was drafted during a meeting of the NAACP housing committee, which met two days after the council vote and had organized a letter-writing campaign that involved about fifty supporters.
Detroit’s best defense was the testimony of Patrick and McCree, who were informed of the letters and prepared to respond. “Wade and I were all over the place,” Patrick said later. “We kept a ready ear for any racial overtones.” Cavanagh also wrangled a resolution of support from Edward Turner and Arthur Johnson, the local NAACP leaders, who disassociated themselves from the letter-writing campaign and dispatched a telegram to Baden-Baden stating, “Whereas our city fathers and business leaders are in West Germany to present our case, and whereas we recognize the immense benefits to our city if their efforts are successful, now therefore be it resolved that the Detroit branch of the NAACP go on record as applauding their efforts.”
In a detailed report of the Baden-Baden adventure that he prepared later, Charles F. Adams, an ad man who helped shape the Detroit presentation, described the competition: “Lyon had a somewhat wandering maze of large blow-ups of the city and facilities. There were some scale models. Buenos Aires had a smaller show with an interesting multiple screen slide presentation. When we saw the finished Mexico City exhibit, however, I believe some of us realized, for the first time, the seriousness with which they were taking their own bid. It was by far the largest and most elaborate. You entered it through a replica of an Aztec ruin. The walls were a network of large color photos of their city and their facilities. And where we were showing scale models of our projected facilities, they were showing actual photographs of their own stadia etc. as they now exist. They had imported their own massive native furniture as a centerpiece so that they might chat comfortably with delegates. And while they might have had fewer people on hand than
Detroit, they were all dressed in identical coats, which gave them great vitality.”
Yet Detroit came off well, Adams thought. “Our display was excellent. Governor Romney’s arrival that afternoon was an electric event and his presence—along with Mayor Cavanagh—gave real stature to our effort. Voting members of the IOC visited throughout the day. Our people performed excellently. They knew our story and told it effectively. Councilman Bill Patrick and Judge Wade McCree represented both their offices and their city with great dignity and effectiveness.”
Adams’s concerns about Mexico City echoed the feelings of reporters covering the event. A dispatch that morning from Lyall Smith, sports editor of the Free Press, said that “Mexico City was scoring heavily” in the discussions among journalists and delegates in Baden-Baden. He quoted Douglas Roby, who told him, “Detroit is definitely not a shoo in. In meetings today I have heard much support for Mexico City. I feel they are our No. 1 threat.” Roby told Smith that it might take two or three ballots before the winner was decided. The winner needed thirty votes. Detroit, Roby said, might have about twenty lined up, but that included the wishful thinking that the Soviet Union and other Iron Curtain countries would go Detroit’s way. “Rumors making the rounds here . . . put the Russian votes in the corner of virtually every bidding city,” Smith reported. A weight-lifting official from Detroit insisted that the Soviets would side with them, but the Mexicans were claiming they had the Russians.
Martin Hayden also sensed Mexico City’s rise on the day before the vote, though by his assessment there must have been something unscrupulous about it. He said only a few days earlier Detroit delegates were afraid that by promising competing nations the lowest cost per athlete they might be accused of trying to buy the Games. But now, Hayden wrote, “they woke to the possibility that Mexico City had already made the purchase.” Political dopesters, he said, had changed the odds in the four-city race to make it a Mexico City versus Detroit contest. The other contenders were awakening to “the subtleties of the year-long and individualized wooing of fellow IOC delegates by General Jose deJesus Clark, the grand satrap of Mexican athletic affairs. It started last fall when Mexico City staged its Olympic pentathlon and offered free roundtrip tickets to any IOC delegate. Now the word is out that the urbane Gen. Clark, with a key to the Mexico City treasury, stands ready to better the offer—if Mexico City wins, the Games’ trips and expenses reportedly will be on the house for each IOC member and any member of his family. Detroit’s managers decided not to follow suit. The Mexicans might get away with it, said one. If we try we’ll be accused of being rich and ugly Americans trying to buy our way in.”
Once in a Great City Page 28
