Kissinger’s Favorite for 2008 Is Beijing

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger said today that he’d like to see Beijing win the five-way contest to play host to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting, Kissinger--who was a key player in the reform process that dominated the International Olympic Committee in 1999--said that from a “strictly foreign policy point of view” and “what is best for the future of Asia and the rest of the world” the 2008 Games should go to Beijing.

Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka, Japan, are also vying for the 2008 Games, which the IOC will award in 2001. Giving China the Games, Kissinger said, “would affect their whole behavior for eight years.” He did not elaborate and departed the meeting before there was a chance for follow-up inquiries.

Kissinger’s comments come as the race for the 2008 bid hits full stride. All five cities have meet-and-greet delegations in Sydney. An IOC team will fan out over the next few months to inspect each of the five. The vote is set for next July at an IOC session in Moscow.

Kissinger, meantime, was elected Sept. 13 as one of five “honor” members of the IOC. The post goes to “eminent personalities,” as the IOC puts it, who have “rendered particularly outstanding” service to it. The post does not entitle him to a vote at IOC meetings.

In his remarks today, Kissinger said that the Sydney Olympics were the “best-run Games I have ever seen.” Nonetheless, he said, if he’d had a vote in 1993, when Sydney narrowly beat out Beijing for the 2000 Games, he would have voted for Beijing.