Athens troubles bring speculation about U.S.

plans

The question hasn't come up since President Carter angered the world and his nation's athletes by keeping the U.S. Olympic team home from Moscow. Even now, there are just whispers and speculation, though they grow louder with every bombing and passing day.

Would the United States dare pull out of the Athens Games because of safety concerns?

Unlikely, but not entirely out of the question anymore, either.

"It would mean things have spiraled totally out of control," said Walter Purdy, a director of the Terrorism Research Center outside Washington.

Barely three months from opening ceremonies, U.S. officials say they are committed to going to Greece and remain confident Olympic organizers can protect the 500-plus Americans who will compete in the games.

Others, though, are beginning to wonder if that could change as the Summer Olympics draw closer.

"I think it's going to come down to the wire in making a huge decision whether they send the U.S. to Athens," said Stacy Dragila, who won gold in the pole vault at the 2000 Sydney Games. "It's unfortunate to the athletes because we've worked so hard in training."

The bombings May 5 in Athens highlighted the dangers that face the Olympics despite a security plan with a price tag over $1 billion, four times the cost in Sydney. Greek officials have revised the plan dramatically in the last few months to try to ease concerns, and they have called in NATO countries to help.

Athens organizers say all athletes will be protected, and that all countries remain resolute in their intention to come. They point out that former President Bush recently wrote to the president of the organizing committee saying he will be at the games.

Americans have a right to feel more jittery than most. Some experts say the Olympics will be tough for terrorists to resist in a country with strong anti-American sentiment.

"This Olympics has the potential of enormous symbolic appeal to terrorists," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at RAND, a think tank that often does work for the Pentagon.

Hoffman said the latest bombings, a series of timed blasts that caused no injuries, indicated that Greece has not been entirely successful in wiping out its homegrown terrorist groups. Those groups don't kill on a widespread basis, he said, but the fact they are still active is troubling.

"From al-Qaida's point of view it's manna from heaven because you now have another group the Greeks have to be concerned with," Hoffman said.

Top U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Greece is moving too slowly in implementing security measures, although they say much progress has been made in recent months. But delays in construction will make guarding Olympic venues even more difficult.

"It's hard to figure out how you're going to secure something when it's still in the process of being built," Purdy said.

Still, the U.S. Olympic Committee says no one in the government has mentioned anything about the possibility of not sending a team.

"We're going. We're not going to rob our athletes of the chance they've worked for years to earn," said Bill Martin, acting USOC president.

If the United States didn't go, it would cause serious damage to the Olympics.

The decision by Carter in 1980 to keep the U.S. team home because the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan was severely criticized in the Olympic movement. The Soviets retaliated in 1984 by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics.

Nine-time gold medal sprinter and long jumper Carl Lewis was one of those who had to stay home.

"Absent some clear and present danger, we should never take that course of action again," Lewis said. "Our athletes have been training for much of their lives for this very special moment. Let's not take that away from them."

Three-time judo Olympian Jimmy Pedro agreed.

"We've lost the fight for freedom if we give in," he said.