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Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War through the Twentieth Century Jonathan F. Vance, ed Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1994, pp. xii, 324

1986, North Korea was demanding to cohost eight sports and call them "the Games of the XXIVth Olympiad at Pyongyang." Thus, the road to the Games would be punctuated by the high drama of war threats, incidents of terrorism and another possible socialist boycott. The trick for Samaranch was to maintain negotiations with both Koreas until a majority of states, both East and West, committed themselves to participation. Ultimately, the outcome could hardly be in doubt, Pound relates, since, "North Korea resolutely took advantage of every opportunity to lose the backing of those.. . inclined to support North Korea's position" (162). On November 29, 1986, a South Korean airliner was blown out of the skies, killing all 115 passengers. One of the bombers, a woman, failed to swallow her cyanide pill and confessed to being a North Korean agent. Meanwhile, attempting to break the North-South deadlock, Samaranch cleverly requested in early 1987 that the IOC delegation to Pyongyang be allowed to visit the South via the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom. The North Koreans refused, fundamentally undermining their future participation. In a telling footnote Pound relates, "One can imagine the consternation with which the DPRK [North Korea] must have considered the prospect of [the] flood of media [30,000 expected for the Games] from the rest of the world. This was always one of the prime reasons why the IOC was so confident that it was virtually impossible for a final agreement to be reached" (181). By September 1987, superpower reconciliation had occurred at Reykjavik, and Mikhail Gorbachev, apparently the architect of the 1984 Soviet boycott, had committed most of the communist world to the Seoul Games. By January 1988, a record 161 acceptances were received by the IOC. Only a few stragglers like Cuba, Nicaragua and North Korea excluded themselves. The IOC's first deliberate venture into international politics is nicely summed up by Pound when he points out that "the Olympics were a small pawn in a superpower game, but pawns have their uses and properly manoeuvred pawns can occasionally capture queens" (330). It may well be that the events and diplomacy described in this book set the International Olympic Movement back on a firm and successful track. It may also be that Pound's part in this complex process could stand him in good stead for a run at the IOC presidency in 1997.