Olympics: Mysterious Hate Mail

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The letters are so venomous that they seem too extreme for even the Ku Klux Klan. "African Monkeys!" says one. "In Los Angeles our own Olympic flames are waiting to incinerate you." The shocking notes arrived at the Olympic Committee offices of at least five countries—Zimbabwe, China, Malaysia, South Korea and Sri Lanka. Although the letters, one postmarked in Maryland, are on paper with a Ku Klux Klan logo, the State Department suspects that Moscow was their real source. Said Secretary of State George Shultz, who was in Asia last week: "It makes you wonder if it is a disinformation campaign."

The letters' stilted syntax and the use of words like "curs" seem caricatures of American polemics. The letterheads include hyphens between "Ku" and "Klux," a style rarely used by the myriad of self-proclaimed K.K.K. groups in the U.S., which also tend to refer to their organizations by fuller names. State Department experts were analyzing copies of the letters for further evidence that they were a shoddy attempt to reinforce Soviet claims that Los Angeles presents a security risk to foreign athletes. Said Samuel Royer, Maryland Grand Dragon of the Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan: "In no way was the Klan involved."