ABSTRACT
Introduction In early December 1951, Richard B. Walsh, a U.S. State Department analyst, gave a talk at the national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) convention in Florida. Earlier that spring, the Soviet Union had been admitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), paving the way for U.S.S.R. participation in the Games. Walsh was suspicious. “Reports from our embassies . . . afford positive proof that the Kremlin has mounted a gigantic cultural offensive,” he told members. “It is designed to prove the Soviet line of supremacy in the arts as well as on the athletic field.” Winning, it seemed, was all the U.S.S.R. cared about. A defiant Walsh remarked:
We do not deny the prowess of the Soviet athlete. We are not boasting of American supremacy. . . . [B]ut we do not have to swallow the lie that the Soviet athlete is superior because he is a product of the Soviet regime.
