Arab Countries' 1956 Olympic Boycott Over The Suez Crisis

The 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, were a largely happy, non-political affair even though the Soviet Union had given the Cold War its latest Arctic squall by invading Hungary and blunting that small eastern European country’s brief stab at liberalization.

As Red Smith, the great sports columnist, wrote at the time, “In the opening ceremonies, the big U.S.S.R. team followed the big U.S.A. delegation into the Stadium and the two groups lined up side by side on the infield. Pretty soon they broke ranks and mingled, indistinguishable in their white jackets except for a trace of tattletale gray in the Soviet uniform. American women took off their shoes and wiggled their toes in the grass. Men swapped lapel badges for souvenirs. American women traded white gloves for the Soviets’ red breast-pocket handkerchiefs. Who could have known there was a microfilm in every glove?”

Yet seven countries had boycotted the Melbourne games: Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands, to protest the Soviet invasion of Hungary; and Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, to protest Israel’s invasion of the Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

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