Cold War Games

Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy

By: Toby C Rider

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Paperback | 26 April 2016 | Edition Number 1

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256 Pages

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23.0 x 15.3 x 2.0

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It is the early Cold War. The Soviet Union appears to be in irresistible ascendance and moves to exploit the Olympic Games as a vehicle for promoting international communism. In response, the United States conceives a subtle, far-reaching psychological warfare campaign to blunt the Soviet advance.

Drawing on newly declassified materials and archives, Toby C. Rider chronicles how the U.S. government used the Olympics to promote democracy and its own policy aims during the tense early phase of the Cold War. Rider shows how the government, though constrained by traditions against interference in the Games, eluded detection by cooperating with private groups, including secretly funded émigré organizations bent on liberating their home countries from Soviet control. At the same time, the United States utilized Olympic host cities as launching pads for hyping the American economic and political system. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the government attempted clandestine manipulation of the International Olympic Committee. Rider also details the campaigns that sent propaganda materials around the globe as the United States mobilized culture in general, and sports in particular, to fight the communist threat.

Deeply researched and boldly argued, Cold War Games recovers an essential chapter in Olympic and postwar history.

Industry Reviews

""The scholarship is immensely impressive. There is nothing in the literature of the early Cold War that competes with this book. Rider convincingly makes the case for the secret role of the U.S. government in international sports.""--Robert Edelman, author of Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR ""Rider has explored this subject in depth and detail not previously seen in our field. 'No stone unturned' is one thought generated after having read the book. Very impressive.""--Stephen Wenn, co-author of Selling the Five Rings: The IOC and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism

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