Closing the Book : Emotions Show as Olympic Saga Comes to Finish

The Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee voted to dissolve itself Tuesday, leaving only a group of four “liquidating trustees” to handle a few pending claims and a surplus nearing $235 million.

A last board meeting at the Century Plaza Hotel turned emotional as leaders of the private committee and Mayor Tom Bradley expressed pride in the 1984 Olympic effort and said the promises to the citizenry of financial solvency had been kept.

From New York, where he is now commissioner of baseball, the committee president, Peter V. Ueberroth, said: “The circle is now complete and all of us--70,000 LAOOC staff and volunteers--can with great pride close the book on this small piece of history.”

Bradley and Olympic board chairman Paul Ziffren both recalled the early years of the Olympic effort, when there were many critics in Los Angeles who said that the Games would not be successful.

‘Most Successful Games’

Bradley said: “You could spend a week counting those who opposed, who wouldn’t believe, who were so negative about everything that we attempted to do in connection with the Games. I hope they’re watching and listening today, as we wind up the work of this committee . . . putting on the most successful Games in history.”

Ziffren said: “This is truly a day of celebration, because we have a right to be proud of what we were able to accomplish.”

John C. Argue, the attorney who headed the bid committee that secured the 1984 Games for the city, ended the meeting by asking U.S. Olympic Committee leaders who were present to support the city’s bid for a return of the Games in 2004. He noted that St. Louis has already said that it will provide some American competition.

The projected surplus of about $235 million is higher than the $222.7 million announced last June, and includes additional interest earned on funds held and $3 million the committee expects to get back from the City of Los Angeles. The $3 million is money the committee advanced the city for security and other services, but which was never spent.

The LAOOC, founded seven years ago last week, ended up with the biggest profit recorded by any sporting event in history. The Games also had the greatest attendance of any Olympics.

Ziffren said that $128.8 million of the surplus has already been distributed, according to the formula set out in the contracts that brought the Games to the city. These allocated 40% of any profit to the U.S. Olympic Committee, 40% to Southern California youth sports and 20% to national sports federations.

Ziffren said that almost all of the remaining money will be distributed within days in the same proportions. The Southern California share goes to an amateur sports foundation established to disburse it over a period of years. This foundation has already made its first grants to a variety of projects, many in economically deprived areas.

A small reserve of unannounced size will be retained to settle pending claims against the LAOOC, Ziffren said. Whatever is left from that will also be distributed, using the same formula.

Named as the liquidating trustees were MCA Inc. chairman Lew Wasserman, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, former Nixon Administration budget director Roy L. Ash and former U.S. Olympic Committee treasurer Lawrence Hough. All had served on the executive committee of the LAOOC board of directors.

Made Few Decisions

The full board, with its 61 members, left the bulk of the work to the Olympic staff, headed by Ueberroth and his executive vice president, Harry L. Usher.

Ueberroth and Usher only seldom referred important decisions to the board and, for their part, the board members seemed content to let them direct operations without interference.

The most sizable remaining claims against the committee are reported to be from several minority-owned licensees who say that they were wrongfully prevented from selling their Olympic souvenirs at stadiums controlled by the committee during the Games. The committee’s general counsel, Carol C. Daniels, and outside counsel, Latham & Watkins, continue to negotiate these matters. They will now be directed by the liquidating trustees.

Ziffren said that an U.S. Internal Revenue Service audit of the committee’s books has been concluded and that there is no expectation that the committee, legally a nonprofit organization with its surplus directed to charitable purposes, will have any tax liability.