Hotline at Calgary Winter Olympic Site Draws Fire From USSR Sports Paper

A Soviet newspaper charged that organizers of the Winter Olympics in Calgary Sunday created a special hotline and a protected holding area for athletes who want to defect. Canada’s sports minister denied it.

Sovietsky Sport, official publication of the USSR Sports Committee and the nation’s main sports periodical, said a red telephone installed in the athletes’ living quarters and a special quarantine section at Foothills Hospital were intended to lure athletes into defection. It said the actions violate the Olympic charter prohibiting political propaganda.

But Canadian Sports Minister Otto Jelinek said the 24-hour hotline will be set up for regular immigration emergencies and not to help prospective defectors at the XV Winter Games.

“It would ruin everything if anyone was stupid enough to try and put in a hotline for defectors,” Jelinek said. “They wouldn’t have the authority from the immigration minister or myself to do it.”

He said the hotline is simply to help in such emergencies as lost passports or visitors having difficulty entering Canada.