It Takes Two to Make a Bribe

The snowfall here has been unusually light this winter, except for the massive rumbling snowball that claimed the jobs of Salt Lake City’s top two Olympic officials Friday on its way to International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The resignations of Frank Joklik, Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s president, and Dave Johnson, senior vice president, represented only the first wave of the damage-control tsunami now cresting over the Salt Lake City bribery scandal.

Next up: IOC headquarters, where as many as a dozen well-upholstered chairs could be vacated by the time the organization concludes its in-house investigation later this month.

IOC Vice President Anita DeFrantz, in town for a U.S. Olympic Committee conference on drugs in sports, confirmed as much when asked, rather indelicately, by a reporter, “Do we need to see heads roll?” in Lausanne.

“I don’t think we’ll have any executions,” DeFrantz replied, “but we will have fewer members.”

It takes two to dance the devil’s tango, and if the Salt Lake City 2002 bid team had operatives trying to grease the vote-gaining process with offers of free scholarships, sweetheart land deals and outright cash payments, someone wearing an IOC pin had to be doing the clutch-and-grab on the other end.

“There are a few individuals who abused their privilege,” DeFrantz said. “They will be removed from the Olympic movement.”

The IOC inquiry panel, headed by another IOC vice president, Richard Pound of Canada, is scheduled to issue a report of its findings before the 115-member body Jan. 24--a body that could be down to 105 or so members by Jan. 25.

DeFrantz said she fully expected “voluntary resignations” after the Pound commission cites crimes and misdemeanors and names names.

How many, she was asked.

Dozens?

“Not that many,” DeFrantz said. “I’d say no more than a dozen.”

Angry and embarrassed Salt Lake City officials said they expected nothing less from the IOC. They contend that they were simply playing the game according to an insidious set of ground rules established by certain IOC members--jumping through the same twisted hoops required of every city wishing to win the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games.

Salt Lake City’s biggest mistake?

It got caught.

Joklik alluded to “disturbing actions” taken by the Salt Lake City bid committee that were encouraged by “an atmosphere in which at least some IOC members expected such gifts. . . .

“While I do not believe that anyone promised us a vote in exchange for our expenditures, nor that our actions influenced the outcome of the bidding process, a handful of IOC members seem to have seriously abused our generous impulses and expected--and received--more than they should have been given.”

Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt issued an emotional challenge for IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch to clean out “the sinister and dark corner of corruption” within his organization.

“The power of the Olympic movement does not flow from a sovereign constitution,” Leavitt said. “It does not come from a powerful army or the prowess of its leaders.

“The power of the Olympic movement must be derived from trust. Trust of people all over the world. Trust in the integrity of the five Olympic rings. If trust ceases to exist, the power of the Olympics will cease. . . .

“This culture of corruption has taken root because of a lack of accountability. Power unchecked is power abused.

“I spoke this morning with President Juan Antonio Samaranch. We vowed to work together in these very difficult moments. Under these circumstances, the IOC must step forward and help Salt Lake City.

“President Samaranch has committed that he will root out wrongdoing and purge it forever. He must do so. I call upon the Olympic family to form an agenda of reform and carry it out with deliberation and speed. . . . The integrity of the rings must be restored.”

Of course, Samaranch himself has been a rich benefactor of the Salt Lake City bounty. Despite IOC rules prohibiting members from accepting gifts worth more than $150, Samaranch admitted this week that he had received at least three expensive guns as gifts from the Salt Lake City bid committee.

(The Salt Lake City bid committee also gave other IOC members free skis. Guns and skis. What exactly were they trying to do--outfit the IOC for the biathlon?)

Samaranch, however, claims he is exempt from the $150 limit because he does not vote in the elections that award the Olympics.

Well, unless there’s a tie, in which case he casts the determining vote. And besides that, he can influence the elections simply by tugging on a member’s sleeve for a quiet one-on-one chat out in the hallway about “the respective merits of the bids.”

Joklik had watched his organizing committee become paralyzed by the earlier misdeeds of his bid committee and chosen to offer himself as a symbolic sacrificial lamb for the good of SLOC as it tries to win back the confidence of wary--and vitally necessary--corporate sponsors.

Might Samaranch consider taking a similar high-road exit?

For the good of the “Olympic movement”?

I wouldn’t bet his 7mm bolt-action Browning rifle on it.

Samaranch has vowed to serve his term to its conclusion in 2001, a motion seconded by DeFrantz, who, with Pound, is a leading candidate to succeed Samaranch.

“I would say he shouldn’t step down,” DeFrantz said, rather diplomatically. “He’s been a good president. We have some work to do. We have some members who abused their privilege and they should be gone.”

And they will be gone, before month’s end.

The beast that ate Salt Lake City isn’t sated yet.

* SCAPEGOATS: The two top officials in Salt Lake City’s organizing committee for resigned. A1