This IOC Session Will Be Amid Blanket Security

With soldiers toting M-16s guarding the doors to the Abravanel Concert Hall, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge tonight will welcome more than 100 IOC members back to Salt Lake City, site of the worst corruption scandal in Olympic history, and to the United States, which the IOC has--as an institution--formally avoided for the last six years.

All signs are that the session, as the IOC’s general assembly is called, will be low-key, with no issues on the agenda demanding immediate resolution. The mission here is to steer the Winter Games through a new era of security controls.

“I expect very good Games,” Rogge said in an interview a few days ago in his newly established Salt Lake office. He added that security levels are “unprecedented,” and that the IOC is confident in the security plan; 10,000 policemen and soldiers are on hand, and their presence is evident at every Olympic venue. He also said he believes the American public “wants these Games to [succeed].”

In his opening remarks tonight, Rogge said he plans to make mention of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Summer Games. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the kidnappings and murders. He said he is not planning to refer to the Israeli dead at the opening ceremony of the Games, on Friday night.

The IOC will also conduct routine business at the session, including elections; business begins Monday after tonight’s ceremonial opening. Jim Easton of Van Nuys, a member since 1994, is a candidate for an IOC vice presidency. Sandra Baldwin of Phoenix, the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, is the only American among 10 candidates up for IOC membership. The IOC currently has 121 members.

In large measure because of the Salt Lake bid scandal, the IOC has not held a general assembly in the United States, nor has its ruling Executive Board convened here, since the close of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

Various IOC members have been here, often to inspect preparations for the Winter Games. Rogge has been to the U.S. on several occasions since he was elected in July to an eight-year term as IOC president, succeeding Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, who had served atop the IOC since 1980.

The scandal erupted in late 1998 amid revelations that officials in Salt Lake had given more than $1 million in cash and gifts to IOC members or their relatives in their winning bid for the 2002 Games. The scandal sparked the expulsion or resignations of 10 IOC members, and the enactment of a 50-point reform plan, including a ban on visits by IOC members to cities bidding for the Games.

The issue of member visits to bid cities remains controversial within the IOC, however. It is due to be considered at an IOC assembly scheduled for later this year in Mexico, at which the membership is due to take a fresh look at the 50-point reform plan.

Rogge, like Samaranch, said he is strongly opposed to such visits. But he said he is well aware that “a number of my colleagues” believe that without visits “they cannot judge fairly” which cities are best qualified to play host to the Games.

If the membership votes to bring back the visits, so be it, he said. But if the visits return, he said, it would be imperative that the members visit in groups, not individually; that the IOC pay for the trips, and that there be no “dining and wining.” He said the crucial thing is to ensure the visits do “not open the [door] to corruption.”

As part of the reform process, meanwhile, the IOC has vowed to be more open--what it calls “transparent”--in its financial affairs.

A provisional 2002 budget, which Rogge provided to The Times upon request, projects IOC revenues for the year of approximately $105 million and expenditures of $59.2 million, meaning a surplus of $45.8 million. The budget also calls for a $20 million grant to the Olympic Foundation, an IOC investment fund, cutting the surplus to $25.8 million.

The assembly is due to approve the budget this week. It does not, however, tell the complete story of Olympic finances because the movement is now a $1.1-billion annual enterprise, with the IOC acting as a pass-through for vast sums of cash that go to sports federations, national Olympic committees and others.

The budget does show at least one symbolic sign that Rogge is serious about his oft-stated goal of downsizing some of the trappings that have come to mark the movement. Spending on “Olympic souvenirs and promotional items” is due to be cut significantly. Last year, the IOC spent $1.2million on such items; this year’s budget line lists $500,000.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

IOC Wages

The International Olympic Committee has vowed to be more open in its financial affairs, and in response to inquiries from The Times, the IOC supplied a salary table for the 238 people it employs at headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and at the nearby Olympic Museum. The numbers show that 205 of the 238 make less than $73,500 annually. Two IOC employees make more than $206,000 a year. IOC President Jacques Rogge, who receives no salary, declined to match names to salaries--saying that’s still private. The IOC salaries, with annual wage range, number of IOC staff members in that range and the percentage of the staff represented:

$29,500 of less 33 13.9 $29,500-$45,000 86 36.1 $45,000-$59,000 54 22.7 $59,000-$73,500 32 13.4 $73,500-$88,000 13 5.5 $88,000-$103,000 4 1.7 $103,000-$117,500 4 1.7 $117,500-$132,000 2 0.8 $132,000-$147,000 0 0.0 $147,000-$162,000 5 2.1 $162,000-$176,000 2 0.8 $176,000-$191,000 0 0.0 $191,000-$206,000 1 0.4 $206,000-$260,000 2 0.8

Source: International Olympic Committee