U.S. President Ronald Reagan stands with his arm around the shoulders of U.S. Olympic champion gymnast Mary Lou Retton, as other Olympic athletes clap behind them, Los Angeles, Calif.
Reagan attended the opening of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the first U.S. President to do so. The Soviet Union and several other Communist countries boycotted the Games in retaliation for Jimmy Carter’s partial boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Reagan’s presidency not only helped speed the end of the Cold War, but also marked the end of presidents giving the cold shoulder to the Olympics. During a two-day trip to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Co. (paid for by his re-election campaign), the President, a former college swimmer, assured the American team that the Soviets “don’t want to be embarrassed by having revered athletes in their country come to this country and stay.” The games grossed $223 million, becoming “a model for future games”—and Reagan’s re-election campaign motto “America is back.”