Havana Site Poses Potential Problems for Pan Am Games

In November 1986, Havana was given an opportunity that Cuban President Fidel Castro had wanted for years: It was selected as the host city for the 1991 Pan American Games. There were no other candidates, so there could have been no other choice.

But at that moment Havana became more than just another host of the oft-troubled quadrennial games. For the now-shrinking Communist world, the Games became a symbol. For Castro and his people, the Games became a cause. And for the U.S. government, they became a problem.

In a year and a half, on Aug. 3, 1991, the Pan Am Games will begin. But as things stand now -- due to the long-standing U.S. trade embargo of Cuba -- the Games will go on without the sport of bowling, without U.S. spectators, U.S. cash and, most important, possibly without live U.S. television. There also are concerns about how drug-testing equipment will get to Cuba and how technicians will be trained.

What’s more, there may be long-term negative repercussions involving the United States in international Olympic circles if some of these problems don’t get solved.

“Some nations in Latin America that have been opposed to the United States or U.S. policy will use this unfairly to argue that the U.S. government is against sport,” said U.S. Olympic Committee President Robert Helmick. “The problem is a lot of sports leaders around the world will buy it. So if indeed there are a series of problems that are not resolved, there could be repercussions and they could reflect upon the Olympic bids of our cities.”

One of those cities is Atlanta, which is locked in a multi-million dollar battle with five other cities for the 1996 Summer Olympics. The International Olympic Committee will choose the winner this September.

“Generally, this is not helpful,” said Doug Gatlin, executive director of the Atlanta Organizing Committee. “We would like the embargo to be lifted for international sport. The bad news is (the Pan Am Games situation) might reflect badly on us even though we are opposed to the embargo.”

Once again, sports and politics have collided in the international arena, this time the competition among the 38 nations of North, South and Central America in the year preceding the Olympics. With Cuba hosting its first major international sporting event since Castro took over in 1959, policies that have been in place for decades for U.S. business are coming into play for U.S. sport.

A State Department official who wished to remain anonymous said, “We support U.S. participation in a sporting event, but we are not going to turn our foreign policy upside down for it.”

The problems are multiple; potential solutions confounding.

U.S. companies are not allowed by law to trade with Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea or Cuba without a license. The Treasury Department is responsible for enforcing the embargo and granting those licenses. The embargo was designed to keep U.S. currency and-or goods that can be traded for U.S. currency out of Cuba.

Now, these goods include bowling alleys and drug-testing equipment. And it’s ABC Sports that wants to pay Cuba a reported $9 million in cash.

Bowling is trying to gain any recognition it can in the Olympic arena, so when it became a Pan Am Games medal sport in 1986 and the Cubans said they didn’t have bowling facilities, officials thought they could help Cuba learn about the game and construct bowling lanes at the same time. The Brunswick Corporation offered to donate several used lanes and related equipment to a bowling facility to be built for the Games, according to Jerry Koenig, executive director of the U.S. Tenpin Bowling Federation.

But the Treasury Department turned down Brunswick’s request for a license.

“We couldn’t send the stuff to Cuba unless we brought it back, and it wasn’t worth it to the company to do that,” Koenig said. “Plus, if we took it out the Cubans would be left with an empty building. Those weren’t the conditions that the Cubans agreed on going in.”

So bowling officials are scrambling to find a third country willing to provide the equipment and send it to Cuba. Bowling officials in Japan and Canada have declined, and Koenig said the latest hope is Singapore.

“I’d say our sport is in a state of limbo now, and it’s unfortunate, because this would have been a great opportunity for us,” Koenig said.

Hewlett-Packard has provided the drug-testing equipment for almost every international sporting event in the last decade: the Olympics, the Pan Am Games, the World Cup of soccer. It usually sells the equipment to the organizing committee of the event, and the lab stays in operation after the event is over.

Not this time, though.

“It’s a bit of a road block right now, although I do think we’ll get a temporary export license to get the equipment in there for the Games and then take it out again,” said Bud Bromley, major accounts manager for the analytical products group of Hewlett-Packard. “It’s a political problem, and we understand it. The U.S. government is justified in dealing with Fidel Castro this way.”

It’s possible the company will lease the equipment, valued at more than $500,000, to the Pan American Sports Organization, based in Mexico, Bromley said. There are other options as well.

While he believes the lab will be in place in Havana in time for the Games, he is not as certain who will be administering and analyzing the tests.

“We usually train local people to run the lab,” Bromley said. “But this delay may mean we won’t have time to do that and someone from the International Olympic Committee will have to run the lab.”

The most lucrative venture currently in jeopardy is ABC’s contract to provide live TV coverage of the Games. In December, Capital Cities-ABC Inc. filed suit in the Southern District of New York against the Treasury Department seeking a reversal of a decision banning the network from paying about $9 million for the rights to the Games.

The Treasury Department said it would not allow the payment because it “would transfer very substantial sums to Cuba,” wrote R. Richard Newcomb, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. He said the department considers the live telecast “an activity related to entertainment,” not news reporting or news gathering. The stationing of production personnel in Cuba also concerns the department.

Stephen Solomon, senior vice president for ABC Sports, said the network doesn’t understand the “inconsistency inherent in the ... decision to allow the U.S. team to compete in Cuba but to deny U.S. citizens their First Amendment right to view U.S. athletes in competition.” Solomon also said ABC objected to being allowed to pay for videotaping the Games, but not for a live broadcast.

“This artificial distinction just does not make sense to us,” Solomon said.

Solomon said a hearing on the suit is tentatively set for March 9. He said he hopes for a decision on the matter a week or so after that.

“It’s not too late, but it will be a struggle (to put on a telecast) starting in mid-March,” Solomon said. “We could probably even do it in early to mid-June, but that’s about it.”

The USOC wants to see the Games on TV. “It’s very important to the American public and to the loved ones of the athletes to see the events on TV, particularly since they can’t go and watch,” Helmick said. “We just hope it can be worked out between ABC and the Treasury Department.”

There will be restrictions on U.S. Olympic officials and athletes in Havana. They will have to report how much money they take into Cuba -- and how much they take out two or three weeks later. No credit cards will be allowed. And, unless restrictions ease, only the official U.S. delegation -- no families, no friends -- will be allowed in, Helmick said.

Meanwhile, the USOC, fearful of problems with communications and equipment, is considering anchoring a ship off the coast of Havana to house some of its personnel (non-athletes) and avoid irritations.

The issue is emotional. Elliot Abrams, former State Department assistant secretary for Inter-American affairs and now a Washington attorney, said the Games should never have been granted to Havana.

“It’s very striking, in this moment of mass democratization in Latin America and around the world, that the Games will be held in one of the very few dictatorships in the hemisphere,” Abrams said. “It’s disgraceful to hold the Games in Cuba.”

Castro has angered the Olympic community by boycotting the last two Olympic Games. Cuba joined the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and skipped the 1988 Games for political reasons. Some thought Cuba might lose the Pan Am Games for being a no-show in Seoul, but no movement to take away the event materialized.