That Time the FBI Conspired To Get George Foreman an Award for Boxing
The FBI is concerned with a great many things today. Incels. Orgasm cults. Facebook posts. Safe-deposit boxes. Encryption.
But in October 1968, the Bureau was concerned with whether George Foreman got the proper recognition as a boxer. Files released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the Racial Intelligence Section of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division intervened to get Foreman an additional award for his patriotism after winning an Olympic gold medal.
Foreman “gave every American an emotional lift when immediately after defeating Inoas Chepulis [Jonas Čepulis] of the Soviet Union…he showed the world that he was proud to be an American by waving a small American flag,” Associate Director G.C. Moore wrote in a memo to Assistant Director William Sullivan.
The Bureau also saw Foreman as a useful cudgel against domestic opponents. Foreman’s patriotic victory display, Moore wrote, “was in sharp contrast with the earlier despicable black power-black gloved demonstration of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the Olympic victory stand and the anti-Vietnam stand of Cassius Clay.”
Smith and Carlos were kicked off the American team for making a black power salute after winning a 200-meter race. Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali, had won an Olympic gold medal for boxing in 1960. He was convicted of defying the military draft in 1967—Ali opposed the Vietnam War on religious grounds—a conviction that was overturned in 1971.
Back in 1968, Moore suggested helping get Foreman his “justly deserved award,” on the recommendation of two special agents who belonged to the American Legion. With the approval of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the Bureau eventually settled on
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