SHORT MEMORY

There might have been a small problem in the translation or, perhaps with the Summer Games winding down everyone is tired, but a statement issued by Makoto Kobayashi, the organizing committee’s director general for Nagano, Japan, site of the 1998 Winter Games, sounded a bit smug.

In discussing Nagano’s preparation for the 1998 Winter Games and in particular, Olympic security, after the bombing in Centennial Park last week, Kobayashi said Japanese security specialists have been observing Atlanta’s arrangements but added, “I don’t think there is much chance of a terrorist attack in Japan.”

Hmmm.

Kobayashi must have been out of the country when a Japanese extremist group poisoned the subway system in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring countless others March 20, 1995.

Or maybe he was referring to foreign terrorists.