What the World Needs Now

​We’re all passing around as much good cheer as possible during the COVID-19 crisis, and my favorite so far has been the Berklee School of Music’s version of “What the World Needs Now.” The minute I heard this stellar virtual orchestration of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1965 hit, I recalled that ABC Sports used this song in their pre-Olympic telecast for the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, West Germany.

As recounted by Doug Wilson in his memoir The World Was Our Stage: ​

Jim McKay, the iconic host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports and Olympic telecasts, aptly referred to the Olympic Games as a town meeting of the world. The ABC Sports team had been preparing for this telecast for years, and as our plane approached Munich, I thought about the first time I had flown in to the city. It was eight years earlier on my way to the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. The man sitting next to me, who had fought in World War II, reminded me that the Munich airfield was once the site of Luftwaffe Headquarters. Now I was landing at their headquarters! I looked at the buildings through the eyes of my boyhood. Pockmarks still etched the walls from Allied shelling, and as I entered the terminal, my fellow passenger remarked that the last time he had entered the space, ammunition crates were packed from floor to ceiling. I truly felt scared.

The first German I encountered was a customs officer in a dark gray uniform with a high-brimmed military-style cap. He looked like a Gestapo officer. Then I spotted a sign that said “Trink Coca Cola,” and the sight of that American trademark relaxed me a little and reminded me it was 1964, not 1945.

In 1972, much of Europe still had a militaristic, post-war feel to it. The Iron Curtain was still standing strong, and it would be another seventeen years before the Berlin Wall would fall. The memories of Nazi Germany still lingered. The West Germans, who landed on the free side of divided, post-war Germany, were keenly aware of this sensitivity. They wanted to set a tone completely opposite of the very militaristic one set in 1936, when Chancellor Adolph Hitler used the Berlin Summer Games as a world stage to showcase the supremacy of his “Master Race.”

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The Olympic Games in Munich Begin

For the Munich Games, the West Germans were dedicated to creating an atmosphere of peace, tranquility, and healthy competition in hope of recasting themselves and their country in the eyes of the world. Their official symbol was a bold, graphic sun design representing light, freshness, and generosity. Their official mascot was Waldi, a harmless multicolored dachshund—a breed with an image that couldn’t be more opposite of the German shepherd, Hitler’s canine preference. The official motto was “The Happy Games,” and the Dove of Peace was seen on posters throughout the city.

They built a striking, avant-garde stadium with a tent-like canopy made of sweeping steel cables and panels of acrylic glass. This airborne transparency evoked not only the nearby Alps but also the “new” Germany. Great swaths of fabric in soft pastels of blue, yellow, and green were hung from streetlight poles and municipal buildings. They even dressed the police in pastel blue shirts.

ABC’s telecast the night before the Opening Ceremony played on the peace them, too. It included a video that ABC News foreign correspondent Peter Jennings and I put together about the history of the Olympic site in Munich, which included a 50-meter high, 1300-meter-wide hill made from rubble cleaned up after the war. During the video feature, Peter said “…now it is an Olympic hill, and down below for the next two weeks there’s going to be that great international attempt to be one in brotherhood athletically.”

Peter then narrated more historical facts over black-and-white “B-roll” of the four European leaders signing the treaty, and the song they used was “What the World Needs Now.” One cut showed the victory arch Siegestor, circa 1945, which had been heavily damaged during the war. This monument, commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria to commemorate his army's victory during the Napoleonic Wars, was only partially restored in the 1950s so that it also stood as a symbol of peace.

As the song's key rose to an even more exhilarating level, the black-and-white images of the archway dissolved into the restored gate in 1972 in full color. Modern-day Munich was now a happy, peaceful city, filled with joy for the upcoming Games and Bavarian Gemültichkeit (friendship and goodwill)! Peter closed with, "On the eve of these Games, athletes from all over the world are here now in the Olympic Village. And although there have been political crises in the last week"—he was referring to Rhodesia having been barred from the Games for its apartheid policies—"now it doesn't seem to matter where they come from on an individual basis. They're here to meet, to admire, and have a cup of tea, and make friends."

For ten days, the Munich Games would, indeed, show the world a new vision of Germany and bring the world lots of happiness and love, most notably from U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz, who won a record-breaking seven gold medals, and most surprisingly from Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut. This seventeen-year-old’s blind grab on the uneven parallel bars, combined with contortionist-like moves on the balance beam and her pixie personality, made Olga Korbut a household name across the United States and around the world overnight.​​

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The Munich Games Take a Tragic Turn

We all know the tragedy that unfolded during the second week of the Games, when eleven members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists and killed in what became known as the Munich Massacre. Then, as now, what the world needs now, is love sweet love.

Read more about the Munich Games and producer/director Doug Wilson’s 50-year career with ABC Sports in his book, The World Was Our Stage: Spanning the Glob with ABC Sports. ​#Sportsbooks #whattheworldneedsnow

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