Welcome to the arms of Athens . . .

George Kimball America At LargeWhen one reflects on the unhappy events in Munich in 1972, as one must in the midst of the armed camp that is Athens in 2004, one is reminded that the official version of what happened on that fateful morning requires a virtual suspension of belief.

For 32 years now the world has blithely accepted the contention - a preposterous one, when you think about it - that German "sharpshooters", firing blindly through helicopter windows across the tarmac in the half-light of dawn, killed nothing but Palestinians, while each and every one of the Israeli hostages was killed by grenades exploded in a final gesture of defiance by the dying terrorists.

Now, one might reasonably argue the point is moot, since the Munich hostages were essentially doomed the moment the first shot was fired, but the official version of events presumed a level of marksmanship that did leave one wondering why these fellows weren't on the German Olympic rifle team instead of in the bundeswehr.

Those questions have haunted me for better than three decades.

Then, a couple of months ago in New York, I happened to be watching an archived film about the Munich massacre, in which a German official was queried on this very point.

"Charpchooters?" he replied. "Zey vere not 'charpchooters'. Zey vere chust . . . men viz guns."

The entire security framework here in Athens is based on the hypothesis that not only are the good guys all armed, but actually know how to use their weapons.

During the British Open at Troon last month the golf writer-cum-novelist Dan Jenkins informed me his daughter Sally would also be covering the Olympics in Athens.

Sally Jenkins, in addition to her role as Lance Armstrong's Boswell, is a featured columnist for the Washington Post, and in preparation for her Olympic assignment, said her father, for the past several weeks she'd been attending classes in conversational Greek.

"So far, the best I can gather, she's learned two useful sentences," Dan told me. "One is 'I'd like some more red wine, please'. The other is 'I'm down here under the rubble'."

A recent survey indicated 52 per cent of Americans polled thought it likely there would be a terrorist attack during the Athens Games. My more informal calculations would suggest the percentage of American sports editors holding this view is even higher.

Changing planes in Amsterdam en route from Dublin to Athens last Sunday I ran into my friend Steve Springer of the Los Angeles Times, who told me that not only had everyone in his paper's travelling party, but the entire Chicago Tribune family, been required to endure seven hours of terrorist-response training.

Upon arrival at his Athens hotel, said Springer, he and his colleagues were all being issued gas masks, which they were supposed to don at the first whiff of trouble.

This struck me as just plain silly. For one thing, I doubt even seven hours of intensive training could equip one to distinguish the cloud of industrial pollution that seems to perpetually hang over Athens from an actual chemical attack. Moreover, I reminded Springer, in the event of a genuine terrorist attack, putting on a mask and running out of the building seemed an almost certain way to get oneself shot between the eyes, since Greek security forces might quite reasonably assume somebody wearing a mask was more likely to be a terrorist than a journalist.

The Associated Press, which has dozens of staffers in Greece for the Games, has even developed various contingency plans for how to cover the carnage if 20, 30, or even 50 per cent of its complement have been eradicated by an attack.

Athens' own response to potential disruption of the first summer Games to be conducted since the September 11 attacks seems more reasonable. Those entering the Olympic village, the main press centre, or the arenas themselves, must have their hand-luggage and computer bags scanned, and are required to pass through metal detectors - roughly the same procedures in effect at US airports prior to 9/11.

Helicopters perpetually buzz overhead, augmented by a white dirigible equipped with the latest in hi-tech surveillance equipment.

While by no means as obtrusive as the draconian security measures in force at Salt Lake City two years ago, the presence is everywhere. Police, with side-arms, regularly patrol the perimeters of the Olympic venues, including the villages housing the athletes and the media, augmented by ominous-looking soldiers equipped with assault rifles. (A tertiary layer of dark-shirted security men, apparently not armed, sternly walk about, quietly poking through trash bins in their vigilance for anything suspicious.)

The overall effect does inspire a degree of confidence. I have no doubt, for instance, should the terrorists, if there are any, try to lay siege to the chain-length fence behind the terrace of my village apartment, they would be repelled by massive firepower, but one suspects the terrorists, if they exist, would be cleverer than that.

But beyond the security dragnet around the official Olympic complex, one is still left wondering about the ex officio venues. A seven-person contingent from the Boston Globe, for instance, had been assigned to an Olympic village which ran into construction delays and was not completed in time for the Games.

The entire group was relocated to a ward in the local Maternity Hospital.

"If there are security people there I haven't seen them," a Globe scribe told me two days ago, "but each night when we return home we get greeted by a new batch of balloons and teddy bears."