U.S. Officials Bracing for Nod to Beijing : Olympics: USOC leaders fear backlash boycott of Atlanta if China wins 2000 Summer Games bid and is criticized by Congress.

Concerned about the potential adverse impact on their efforts leading to the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta and beyond, U.S. Olympic Committee officials are bracing for a possible victory by Beijing when the International Olympic Committee votes today on the site for the 2000 Summer Games.

LeRoy Walker, president of the USOC, said this week that representatives of the USOC and the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) have been meeting with members of the U.S. Congress in Washington, trying to convince them that calls for a boycott of Beijing could harm the U.S. Olympic movement.

Mike Moran, a USOC spokesman, said that athletes who were denied participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics at Moscow because of the U.S. boycott also have been enlisted to speak out if necessary.

“I think we can head this off,” Walker said. “But we couldn’t wait until after the IOC vote to get started or we might be facing another Moscow, where we didn’t get involved with the Congress until it was too late. We needed to be proactive this time instead of reactive.”

Senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who sponsored bills this summer in opposition to Beijing’s bid because of the Chinese government’s human-rights record, have assured the USOC that they do not favor a boycott, Walker said.

But he added that even the mere discussion of a boycott by other members of the U.S. Congress would result in counter threats by other nations within the IOC against the Atlanta Games, negatively affect ACOG’s negotiations for sponsorships and foreign television rights and cost Salt Lake City support in the vote two years from now for the 2002 Winter Games.

Although voting by 89 IOC members from 74 countries is difficult to predict, Beijing is perceived by followers of the Olympic movement as the favorite. Other candidates are Sydney, Australia; Manchester, England; Istanbul, Turkey, and Berlin.

Walker, a former track coach who has had sports contacts with China since 1975, would not endorse a city. But he said that a Beijing victory could prove the most problematic for the USOC, and not only because of the possible reaction from Washington.

About 45 members of Friends of Tibet, which opposes Beijing’s bid, marched outside the USOC’s headquarters at Colorado Springs, Colo., last Sunday, and although the protest was peaceful, Walker said he is concerned that future demonstrations by that group and others involved in the human-rights movement might be aimed at Olympic sponsors if Beijing wins.

“Between 1996 and 2000, we’re going to have a $500,000 budget,” he said. “In order to raise that much money, one of the most important things for us is going to be our relationships with the sponsors. We would be negatively impacted if they were being harassed.”

Human Rights Watch, the largest U.S. human-rights group, wrote letters this summer to 17 corporations associated with the IOC, warning that their image would “suffer by association” with the Games in Beijing.

Richard Dicker, a Human Rights Watch representative who has been actively campaigning in Monte Carlo this week, said Wednesday that the group would intensify efforts to communicate its message to Olympic sponsors in the event of a Beijing victory.

If Beijing wins, corporate sponsors, who contributed 34% of the IOC’s budget during the four-year period leading to the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona, will be considered by many analysts to have played a major role.

One IOC marketing consultant, who did not want to be identified, said that a poll of sponsors would indicate a preference for Beijing because the Olympics would give them access to a largely untapped market of 1.2 billion consumers.

Richard Pound of Canada, chairman of the IOC’s marketing committee, said that he did not believe more than 10 votes would be influenced by such considerations as long as all five bidding cities are financially viable.

Equally difficult to gauge is the impact of actions this summer by the U.S. Congress. The House of Representatives passed a resolution critical of Beijing’s bid, and 60 Senators delivered a similar message in a letter to all IOC members.

In an interview this week with a French newspaper, Le Monde, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said: “We find it difficult to understand why a country that has given China most favored nation status to develop its trade with it asks us today not to give it the Games.”

IOC member Mario Vasquez Rana of Mexico said he knew of several colleagues who switched their support to Beijing as a protest against interference by the U.S. government.

Saying that he is not insensitive to human-rights considerations, Pound speculated that the attention focused on Beijing during the seven years if it is chosen as the site for the 2000 Games might result, as that city’s banners promise, in a more open China.

“If you, as a politician, really want to influence change in China and your objective is to improve human rights, this is an opportunity to do it,” he said. “There is a risk, but the potential is there, and the rewards are enormous. You’ve got seven years of unrelenting foreign involvement in China. It’s a made-in-heaven opportunity.”

He may meet with disagreement from the Friends of Tibet, who delivered a single white rose to the room of each IOC member Wednesday at the Hotel de Paris. Attached to the stem was a message that read: “Please don’t forget the people of Tibet.”