When Jimmy Carter Recruited Muhammad Ali to Boycott the Olympics
The disastrous legacy of the 1980 Olympics boycott.
Jimmy Carter greets Muhammad Ali at the White House in 1980 to discuss his diplomatic trip to Africa.
Forty years ago, the intersection of sports and geopolitics came to a bizarre head. Faced with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, President Jimmy Carter was weighing his retaliatory options.
The choices were limited given the climate of the cold…