“At first, Eisenhower aimed to ‘liberate’ Eastern Europe through an aggressive application of psychological warfare and covert operations,” they write. “When it became clear that such methods were unlikely to result in a revolution behind the Iron Curtain, […], the Eisenhower administration switched its strategy,” developing a plan for a more gradual cultural influence, i.e., sports exchanges.
“Sports exchanges aimed to communicate American ideas and values to populations denied access to them,” explain Rider and Witherspoon.
Sports were a common language, competition a non-violent contest of wills and strengths. The US and the USSR used sport meets as tools of diplomacy, goodwill efforts to keep the Cold War cool and to tout themselves. The US hoped athletes aboard would weaken the bonds between the Soviet government and its “captive peoples,” as East Europeans were called in the West.
American infiltration began with the Balkan Games in Bucharest in 1956. Just three American athletes competed, but pole vaulter Bob Gutowski was the hit of the games. After the official match, he continued vaulting to the roaring approval of 30,000 spectators in the stands. Proceeding to surpass his day’s winning vault, he first broke the Romanian record and then the European record. He missed the world record (4.60 meters) three times, but the stadium full of new fans didn’t seem to mind. The US ambassador was very impressed. The next year, world champion shot putter and “Athlete of the Meet” Parry O’Brien got a standing ovation from the Bucharest crowd.
In 1958, seventy-one American athletes traveled across the Curtain for the “Match of the Century” in Moscow followed by meets in Warsaw and Budapest. Receptions in Poland and Hungary—where Americans felt they had to tread cautiously in the aftermath of the failed revolution of 1956—were impressive. Locals went all out in hosting the Americans, clearly trying to one-up the Soviet reception. Meanwhile, “crowd response to Soviet athletes was lukewarm, and at times even adversarial, revealing rifts of discontent within the Soviet bloc.” The “captive peoples” poked the Soviet bear any way they could. “Here we were, deep inside the Iron Curtain—and they openly favored us!” exclaimed a surprised Parry O’Brien.