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CNN Live Today

Olympic Massacre

Aired September 05, 2002 - 10:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thirty years ago today, you may remember, the world stopped and recoiled in horror as terrorism seized the world stage. It was the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and what was considered a showcase of sportsmanship and solidarity was soon plunged into bloody morass of murder and bad miscalculations.
CNN's Bruce Burkhardt reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an ITN news flash from the Olympic Village in Munich.

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was another one of those innocence lost moments and instead of people dropping what they were doing to turn on the TV, hundreds of millions were already watching. The Olympics, a supposed refuge from the ugliness of world politics and warfare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Early this morning, armed Palestinian guerrillas raided the sleeping quarters of the Israeli team.

BURKHARDT: Munich, 1972, another Black September day, the 5th, not the 11th. In fact, it was a terrorist group calling themselves Black September. Eight Palestinian gunmen disguised as athletes snuck into the Olympic Village in the early morning hours and broke into the quarters of the sleeping Israeli team, immediately killing two.

GURI WEINBERG, SON OF SLAIN COACH: He was fighting to save the other 10 athletes and that's when they shot him. They shot him about twice, two different times, and he kept on fighting until they shot him when he died.

BURKHARDT: With the remaining nine Israelis as hostages, these were the images the world watched for nearly 24 hours, as the captors demanded safe passage out of Germany and the release of 200 Arab prisoners.

Then Prime Minister Golda Meir said no deal. But the Germans arranged to move the terrorists and their hostages to the airport. There, a bungled rescue attempt led to the death of the remaining nine Israelis plus five of the terrorists and a German policeman.

(on camera): The Munich attack tarnished the innocence of the Olympic movement, much like the bomb that exploded here in Atlanta's Centennial Park in 1996. But the attack here appears to have been a lone act of random violence. Munich was different. It was targeted. It was well planned and it marked the beginning of a new, more ominous chapter in the Arab-Israeli quagmire and how Americans perceived it.

(voice-over): In response, Israel struck back hard. Believing Yasser Arafat's PLO to be behind the Black September group, raids were launched on PLO bases across its northern border in Lebanon. And those Olympics, which should have been remembered solely for the athletic exploits of Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut, will instead conjure up images of hooded gunmen and flags at half staff.

Bruce Burkhardt, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: ABC sports announcer Jim McKay, whose long career will forever be remembered for his anguished coverage the tragedy says now -- quote -- "Sports lost its innocence that day."

For a closer look at that, we turn to Alex Wolff, a senior writer with "Sports Illustrated."

Alex, thanks for being with us.

ALEX WOLFF, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": You're welcome, Anderson.

COOPER: A really great article in "Sports Illustrated" that you wrote on the 30th anniversary of this, and a lot of things you reported, I hadn't noticed before, most noticeably that the Germans had been warned ahead of time by a psychologist, by a security person who did a review of the potential of an incident like this happening.

WOLFF: Yes, it was more than just of the potential. This is a police psychologist who was asked to table top worst-case scenarios. He came up with 26, one of them almost down the exact detail, the number of gunmen, the time of invasion, that they would want a plane to fly them out and prisoners released. Just uncanny how much detail. It's amazing over 30 years how much has shaken out of the tree of history, what we know today that we didn't know at the time.

COOPER: And amazing how the Germans basically ignored this psychologist profile.

WOLFF: The Germans who were organizing the '72 Munich Games were determined to stage a Games that would not repeat the 1936 Nazi Olympics. And as a result, they want police, they didn't want soldiers, they didn't want barbed wires; they wanted the care-free games. And when this police psychologist said, hey, this is something to be on guard for, they asked him to come back with some scenarios that were better suited to the kind of Olympics they wanted to stage.

COOPER: And 30 years later, the Germans have yet to apologize to the families of the Israeli athletes. Do you expect an apology at any point to come?

WOLFF: I think there is remorse, certainly among some of the top German officials who were involved, there is no question. What they haven't done is released all of the information they have in their archives about what really happened in the shootout at the airport. And in spite after promise more than a year ago to the families to make a monetary settlement, according to the victim's families lawyers, they haven't gotten a penny yet.

COOPER: And also, the Germans basically ignored the help of the Israelis, the Israelis offered to send in commandos of their own. Germany said, no, we can handle it. But the people they said were their snipers, said, no, I'm not really a sniper.

WOLFF: The security world in 1972 was completely different than the one we know today. Only $2 million was spent on security in the Munich Games. In two years in Athens, they are going to spend $600 million. They had no way to handle this, no idea that it was coming. But I think even more than that, they were handcuffed by their own history. We can learn a lot of lessons from history, but I think this is an example where we learned a lesson almost too well.

COOPER: And what is the lesson that the Olympics have learned from what happened in Munich? How are the Olympics different today?

WOLFF: Well, really as much as organizers try to conceal it, they are conducted now in an armed camp. You can't get into a venue without going through massive security. At the Salt Lake Olympics, all air traffic was banned from near the Games and the venues. I think everyone holds their breath a little bit at an Olympics. And really, those were the days of innocence sense in 1972. One of the victims, Andre Spitzer, the fencing coach from Israel, was so moved, that before this incident happened, he was able to go up to a Lebanese fencer and talk about his competition and how much he hoped that sport could overcome everything else, and the Lebanese fencer was just as welcoming to Andre Spitzer as Spitzer was to him. But I think Munich changed the way everyone looks at an event like that.

COOPER: And 30 years later, there is still debate over whether those Olympics should have continued. In your article, you quote several people who talk about the memorial service that took place in the Olympic stadium, and how the Olympic official never even mentioned the Israeli athletes.

WOLFF: Yes, there was internal debate among the organizers. In fact, Billy Delma, who is the head of the Munich Local Organizing Committee, had to be talked into continuing the Games. But a lot of people involved today look back and say as hard as it was to continue, that to let the games be called off at the hand of terrorism would have been an even bigger disaster. You could debate that point forever, and people still do debate it.

Maybe two or three days of a postponement so people could properly mourn what happened would have been an order, instead of just a day.

COOPER: Alex Wolff with "Sports Illustrated." It's a fascinating article. Thanks for joining us.

WOLFF: You're welcome.

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