“Winning for Themselves, Not for Moscow”: Baltic Independence and the Olympic Games During the 1980s

This article looks at efforts by the Baltic community in the United States to use international sport as an anti-Soviet platform during the 1980s. These efforts included campaigns involving the 1980, 1984, and 1988 Olympic Games (Summer and Winter). Using archival materials from the Baltic American Freedom League and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, along with other primary sources, this article argues that the Baltic community was able to attract considerable publicity to their cause through the platform of international sport. The best known of these endeavors was the Ban the Soviets Coalition, a group which contributed to the Soviet Union’s boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1984.