Scandal Is Vindication for Olympics Muckraker

Andrew Jennings is the official gadfly of the Olympic Games, having written two controversial books exposing alleged corruption within the International Olympic Committee--”Dishonored Games: Corruption, Money and Greed at the Olympics” in 1992, followed by a revised version, “The New Lords of the Rings,” in 1996.

Five years ago, Jennings’ work got him sued for criminal defamation by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. Jennings and his co-author of the first book, Vyv Simson, were handed a five-day suspended sentence by a Swiss court for “lampooning” Samaranch.

Today, in the wake of the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal, Jennings spends much of his time fielding congratulatory phone calls and e-mail.

“People say, ‘Oh, Mr. Jennings, you’re vindicated. Your books were right,’ ” Jennings says by telephone from his home in London. “I say, ‘Yes, they were, actually. But not only that, you were wrong.’ ”

Jennings is enjoying his moment in the spotlight, having recently appeared on “Nightline,” been interviewed by “60 Minutes” and commissioned to write an essay for Newsweek. There is a gleeful lilt in his voice as he predicts the demise of Samaranch and the IOC as a consequence of the current scandal.

“I think they’re going to disappear,” Jennings says of the IOC. “I think there’s every chance that the IOC could implode and, of course, it would be a great benefit to us all.

“I say that because I don’t think they’re capable of reform. Let’s get real about what’s going on. If I hear one more crack from Anita [DeFrantz], from Samaranch, from [Dick] Pound that ‘We’ve never had hard evidence before,’ I’m going to be extremely ill. It simply isn’t true. . . .

“The IOC have long passed their sell-by date. How can an organization led by people who steadfastly look us in the eye and lie about the hard evidence they’ve never had--why should we let them carry on? Why should we give them any more time? They’re only doing this [investigating the Salt Lake City situation] because the feds are in.”

Jennings believes Samaranch--whom he refers to as “Sama-RANK”--will have to resign to placate wary Olympic corporate sponsors.

“If the people in the board rooms of UPS, if they’re still players, and Delta, if they’re still players, and Coke, which I’m sure will remain a player, were speaking openly, they would say, ‘Get him out of here! He’s an embarrassment, he’s surplus cargo.’ ” Jennings says.

“He’s an embarrassment because he is exactly what he’s proud to be--an unreconstructed man of an authoritarian background, particularly the anti-democratic background of Franco’s Spain. And he finds that all very cool and proper.

“I think the CEOs of the big sponsors would like to see Samaranch go very quickly because then they could start using this wonderful American term ‘closure.’ ‘We got rid of the guy whose watch it happened under.’ ”

Jennings contends the IOC is incapable of self-reform.

“We are talking about thieving, stealing, the betrayal of morality,” he says. “The ambition of these people is depressing. . . . They haven’t the credibility to reform themselves.”

He views this weekend’s IOC meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, where several members will be asked to resign over their part in the Salt Lake City scandal, with similar skepticism.

“First of all, there are going to be a lot of IOC members saying, ‘Phew, I’m so pleased I couldn’t fit in time to go to Salt Lake, because I’d be on that list. Thank God the kid had a toothache. Or I was busy overthrowing our dictator to put another one in,’ ” Jennings says.

“You know there’s going to be horse trading. I mean, there always is. It’s the way of the world--it’s not just a sin of the IOC.”

“Somebody will say, ‘I tell you what. You pull Fred’s name off the list if we stick Billy on. You want to trade on that? Because I don’t want my boy to go. . . . So we’ll give him a bye this time, then we’ll watch him in the future.’ ”

Jennings argues that the only solution is to dismantle the IOC and start over.

“Some organization like the U.N. could help with a process that could take a few years of sampling opinion, encouraging people to write papers, encouraging people to express opinions on how they think it should be run,” he says.

“Then you slowly put together a democratic organization which can revitalize the Olympics as a sports event. Because it is a sports event that is also failing, but nothing on the rate the IOC is.”