A Newsvine Interview With Author David Maraniss About His New Book Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World.

I don't know what it is about the Olympics that so fascinates me but I'm one of the millions of people who don't follow sports much year to year but tunes in faithfully every four years to watch the Olympics, and I'll be doing so again this year (and am looking for others to help with Newsvine coverage of it).

David Maraniss has written a great book about the 1960 Olympics, which were in Rome. If this had been a book about one particular athlete or sport I might have opted not to read it and request an interview about it.

What stopped me short was the author of the book, an associate editor of the Washington Post who has won the Pulitzer Prize, and the topic of the 1960 Olympics. For what Maraniss does with this book is not just talk about the athletes who ranged from decathlete Rafer Johnson to boxer Cassius Clay (who would later become Muhammad Ali) to track star Wilma Rudolph but to also talk about history.

For during those 18 days in the summer of 1960, and the days leading up to it, there were major changes afoot, from glimpses of the civil rights struggles in America and South Africa to the dysfunctional relationship between West Germany and East Germany to China's diplomatic dispute with Taiwan.

The book also shines a spotlight on the problem of steroids in sports, a problem plaguing all sports today.

Maraniss new book comes out July 1. He agreed to talk to me via email. The only condition was that I had to do the interview before he leaves on a book tour on July 1. You can expect to see him mentioned and interviewed in many publications in outlets in the next two weeks… Or you can enjoy scoop's little scoop of getting this interview a few days ahead of the major news organizations.

You may recognize Maraniss' name. His prior books include Clemente: The Passion And Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi; and They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America.

I had not read those books I knew Maraniss from his political coverage, particularly of Bill Clinton. He also wrote First In His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton.

Scott: What can we learn by reading about the 1960 Olympics?

David: Rome 1960 is a book of history and sociology wrapped in the drama of sports. I hope the reader will enjoy learning about a point in time where the modern world as we know it today was just coming into view, for better and worse. When you think about the extravaganza of televised Olympics today, or the way that doping and drugs have infiltrated sports, this book will show you where it all started. It was also a key turning point for blacks and women in sports, as well as a moment of great tension in the cold war. This is where Muhammad Ali got his start on the world stage, then known as Cassius Clay. But of more interest to me were the athletes who are now too forgotten, including Wilma Rudolph and the Tigerbelles from Tennessee State, Rafer Johnson, the great decathlete, and Abebe Bikila, the marathoner.

I had no idea that drug use in cycling went so far back. If I understand you right Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died partially because the cyclists' trainer had given them a drug that intensified blood circulation? Is that correct? Did those revelations foreshadow the steroids scandals today? Do you think we will ever get drugs out of the Olympics or is this like a genie that once out of the bottle can't ever be returned? What is your solution – if you have one – to the use of drugs in the Olympics and other sports? Have you seen the new documentary about steroids that's been getting raves, Faster, Bigger, Stronger?

The death of Knud Enemark Jensen during the Rome Olympics is a seminal point in drugs and athletics. It is because of that death that the World Doping Agency was formed and drug testing came into being in modern sports. The problem is a conundrum that is not easily resolved. don't think we will ever get drugs out of sports, but nor do I think that they should just be accepted as part of the game. It is one of those problems that represents a never-ending struggle. I saw a version of the documentary at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is excellent.

Which athlete did you find most interesting to write about and why? I wouldn't want to pick a single athlete. Rafer Johnson was a very admirable guy and terrific decathlete. The story of Wilma Rudolph and the Tigerbelles moved me, as did the story of Abebe Bikila running barefoot through the cobblestone streets of Rome. But I also enjoyed writing about unknown characters, like high jumper Joe Faust, who finished in seventeenth place, yet whose unlikely story was so interesting that I gave him a separate little chapter in the book.

You paint a funny but different portrait of Cassius Clay than I expected. I thought it was hilarious that Clay – normally so fearless – was afraid to fly and thought a bidet was a drinking fountain and tried to drink out of it. Were you surprised to learn that he was not Mr. Popularity, as myth has it, so much as that, essentially, he went out of his way to meet as many people as he could, to whom he shared his boasts? Was that an early glimpse of Clay's myth-making machine where he tended to exaggerate things or were others responsible for this confusion about how many came to see him, as opposed to the reverse of him going to see others?

Cassius Clay had the same personality then that he would have as Muhammad Ali, but none of the meaning behind it. Then, as later, he would talk and bluff his way past his own fears. But as the mythology
of Ali grew, everything he did took on more importance. I did not want to make more out of him in 1960 than he really was.

Why do you think the International Olympic Committee rejected the efforts to criticize or at least note that South Africa was being unfair in not allowing some of its better, black athletes participate in the Olympics? Was the committee afraid to make waves? Did they try to repair this mistake in later Olympics?

The IOC, an old boy club of rich, white royalists, was essentially racist then, and did not like to be told what to do by anyone, right or wrong. And that's why they failed to act promptly on the racism of South Africa. It's not that they TRIED to repair this in later Olympics, it's that the world FORCED them to change.

Do you have anything you want to say about sports reporter Jim McKay, who died recently and, at least for me (I'm a bit younger than you), symbolized television coverage of the Olympics?

I interviewed Jim McKay for this book, and was amazed to hear his stories about 1960, where he got his start in Olympic coverage that made him famous, and that made the Olympics what they later became. He was the studio host in Rome, but did not even go to Rome! He hosted from a studio in New York. Imagine how many assistants and researchers the TV people have today. McKay told me he used to learn about people and countries by reading about them in almanacs and encyclopedias before going on the air. What an amazing difference in fifty years.
McKay himself was open to the world, curious, intelligent, and accepted people at face value, free from cynicism.

What questions are you most tired of answering? My guess is it'll be, "Why the 1960 olympics?" or "What are you working on next?

See answer below. Also, yes, the question of why these Olympics. But that is an important question to answer, that is what the book is all about.

What surprised you most to learn as you did research on the 1960 Olympics

See above question. The question of what surprised me most is always the question I dislike the most. If you are a good researcher and approach a subject with open eyes, everything is a surprise. I approach every book as though I have an entire new world to learn. But to get beyond my knee-jerk reaction to that question, I would say what most fascinated me, and to some extent surprised me, was the connection between the cold war and civil rights and women's rights in the U.S. – that in effect those causes were helped along by the cold war in that the U.S. looked hypocritical proclaiming itself a beacon of freedom in the world at the same time that it was relying on athletes who were denied rights back home. It is an obvious point, but I had never seen the connection so clearly until I got into this book.

How do you handle the logistics of being a newspaper editor while also writing this and other well-researched books? Do you sacrifice sleep, for example, in the process?

I am an associate editor at the Post, which I jokingly say means I don't have to associate with editors. Actually, I think of my position as a sort of professor emeritus. I am connected to the paper, but mostly I write books. I edit a few major projects, such as the investigation of Walter Reed Army Medical Center by the Post last year, and when there is a major story that they want me to write, I do it no questions asked, like after the tragedy at Virginia Tech last year, but the rest of the time I am free to work on my books.

What is the biggest wrong stereotype about the Olympics then (1960) and now?

Because of the glamour of certain sports and the fame of the athletes, there can be an assumption that the Summer Games are about basketball and gymnastics, but in fact track and field was the heart of the games, and still is.

Did Wilma Rudolph's victory over polio mark a turning point in fighting that disease, or had polio already been contained by that time?

Wilma's recovery was remarkable, but was not a turning point in polio. She was just one of many thousands of people who were struck by polio. Some died, some were permanently crippled, and the lucky ones worked their way past it. My longtime editor at The Washington Post, he famous Ben Bradlee, also overcame childhood polio, but he is in better shape now at age 86 than most 40 year olds.

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