New Books In National Security

Today we are joined by Heather Dichter, Associate Professor of Sports History and Sports Management at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University. She is also the author of Bidding for the 68 Olympic Games: International Sport’s Cold War Battle with NATO (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). In our conversation, we discussed the origins of the East German sporting travel ban, the NATO alliance and the competition to host the 1968 Summer and Winter Olympics, and the role of smaller NATO members in reshaping the alliance’s border and travel regulations. In Bidding for the 68 Olympic Games, Dichter examines a little-known and understudied until now diplomatic conflict between NATO and the International Olympic Committee. In the 1950s and 1960s, NATO members struggled to balance their adherence to the Hallstein Doctrine – non-recognition of state-symbols of East Germany – with their participation in and desire to host sports mega-events. The Hallstein doctrine limited t