This Day In 1970's History: Tuesday February 12, 1980
- A Moscow Olympics site was approved again by a unanimous vote of the International Olympic Committee for the summer Games, but the panel left open the possibility of reconsidering the issue later. The committee's position seemed certain to set off new diplomatic efforts seeking to spur a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan as the price for participation in Moscow by the United States and other major sports countries.
The International Olympic Committee has "left a door open" to reversing its decison to let the Summer Games proceed in Moscow, according to Carter administration offficials. But they said that Washington had no choice but to proceed with its plan to seek an American boycott of the Games. [New York Times]
- Chinese athletes are taking part in their first Winter Olympics, which opened at Lake Placid. Their participation was facilitated as New York state's highest court refused unanimously to strike down an International Olympic Committee rule that forbids the delegation from Taiwan from using the name, flag and anthem of the Republic of China. [New York Times]
- Ayatollah Khomeini asked Iranians to support the governing Revolutionary Council. But he kept silent on whether he would approve a compromise plan for the release of the American hostages that the council had submitted to him.
Silence about the American hostages in Iran was imposed in Washington as the Iranian leadership apparently reassessed its position about their possible release. The State Department spokesman said that any official comments would not be "productive," but a senior official said that the crisis might end in three or four weeks. Nine American Embassy employees in Teheran slipped out of the compound as it was being taken over Nov. 4, but four were recaptured by the Moslem militants, apparently because they chose the wrong route out of the area. The episode was reported by an official who was one of six Americans harbored by the Canadians until last month, when they escaped from Iran. [New York Times]
- The discovery of ransom money from the hijacking of an airliner in 1971 was reported by the F.B.I. Agents said that several thousand dollars of a $200,000 ransom given to the legendary "D. B. Cooper" and carried by him when he parachuted from an airliner over the Pacific Northwest had been found by a family on the banks of the Columbia River. The bureau said it had found no trace of the hijacker. [New York Times]
- A top organized-crime conference had been planned to establish, among other things, new boundaries for the territories of the chiefs, but the meeting was canceled when they learned that federal agents knew of the plan, according to government sources. [New York Times]
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