MUNICH MEMORY

IF HE'D had a mind to, Mark Spitz could have celebrated on a far grander scale. He could have whooped it up with coaches, teammates and his legion of fans who now were everywhere in Munich. But he wasn't a party animal, and even on this night of epochal triumph, he wouldn't become one. Nine days of pressure-actually, four years of pressure had been lifted from his shoulders, leaving him relieved and happy but with emotions in check. For him, the cobbled-together, late-night dinner at Käfer-Schänke would be celebration enough.
He had ended his athletic career in glory. Shortly after 9 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 4, 1972, in the final swimming event at the Munich Olympics, the 400-meter medley relay, Spitz entered the water for the last time. Swimming the butterfly leg, he helped propel the U.S. team to victory, completing a personal feat that redefined perfection: seven events, seven gold medals, seven world records.
Afterward, he changed into street clothes and was surrounded by well-wishers in a hallway of the Olympic Schwimmhalle. Rakishly handsome, with a recently acquired jet-black mustache set off by a movie-star smile, he accepted congratulations, signed autographs and posed for photos. Finally, the crush of admirers thinned.
I was covering the Olympic swimming competition as a writer for SPORTS ILLUSTRATEDwhich meant, really, that I was covering Mark Spitz. On the beat with me were two German-born SI colleagues, photographer Heinz Kluetmeier and reporter Anita Verschoth. We knew Spitz well and he knew us well, and when I invited him to have dinner, he accepted. Anita asked around and came up with Käfer-Schänke, a stylish restaurant open until the wee hours. Heinz was bringing a date, so it would be the five of us.
Or maybe six. At the last minute, Spitz asked a member of the U.S. women's swimming team, 15-year old Jo Ann Harshbarger, to join us. There had been news reports of a romance between the 22-year-old Spitz and Harshbarger, which he laughed off. "I'm too young for Donna de Varona," he said mock ruefully, referring to the 25-yearold American swimming star, "and I'm too old for Jo Harshbarger." Spitz had a mischievous side, and I think he may have invited her mainly to keep the rumors going. But because of the late hour and on the counsel of her minders, Harshbarger declined. He didn't seem disappointed.
No plans for dinner until I mentioned it to him? Shot down asking for a date? This was Mark Spitz on this night of all nights. No worries. He was mellow Mark.
It was after 11 when we arrived at the restaurant. Entering, Spitz was greeted by rolling applause. 
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TRAGIC DAY
The standoff between German police (above) and the terrorists lasted nearly 18 hours.
During dinner, free drinks came our way, but he didn't touch a drop. On other occasions he could be chatty, sometimes overly so, but not tonight. Dinner was leisurely-he asked Heinz about underwater photography-and time flew by.
We dropped Spitz off outside the U.S. compound in the Olympic Village a little before 3 a.m. He was scheduled to hold a press conference at 9. I told Mark I'd see him there, and we watched him head for the elevator.
At 4 a.m., near to where we'd said goodnight to Spitz, eight terrorists, members of Black September, an extremist arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization, carrying assault rifles and explosives, scaled a two-meter-high perimeter fence of the Village. They couldn't have known how close they had been to coming face-to-face with the Jewish hero of the Games.
The Palestinians gunned down a wrestling coach and weightlifter in the Israeli quarters and took nine hostages. Those nine were killed along with five of the terrorists and a Munich police officer in a bungled rescue attempt later that night at the city's Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base.
The Munich massacre shattered what to that point had been a joyous
Summer Olympics, an event intended to put a more humane face on Germany. In contrast to the previous Olympics held in Germany, the notorious 1936 Games that glorified Hitler and reeked of racism and antisemitism, the Munich Olympics were friendly, open and relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed.
Munich also afforded a chance at redemption for Spitz. Four years earlier in Mexico City, as a callow, wisecracking 18-year-old, he had boasted that he would win six gold medals. Instead, he choked, winning two as a member of U.S. relay teams while settling for a silver and a bronze in individual events. He was ridiculed by some of his own teammates.
On arrival in Munich, determined this time to keep his foot out of his mouth, he had announced that he wouldn't talk to the press during the swimming competition but, win or lose, would hold a press conference after his last event. Until then, reporters bristled at the many times he told them, "No comment." His press embargo, I was happy to learn, didn't apply to me. For whatever reason, Spitz seemed to trust me. My previous stories for SI had apparently been met with his approval, even if what I wrote hadn't always been flattering. I had mentioned his occasional laziness at workouts and his head-spinning swings between braggadocio and bouts of deep insecurity. However, I didn't dismiss him, as some other writers did, as simply a spoiled brat at least not in those words.
Often in Munich, I was at Spitz's side. My entrée to him gave me access to much else. If I was challenged by security, Mark said, "It's O.K.; he's with me," and I was waved through. I was his shadow and sometimes his confidante. I knew reporters aren't supposed to get too close to their story subjects, and ll leave it to the journalism ethics police to determine whether I crossed lines.
Well, all right, I know I crossed lines, but I wasn’t wringing my hands. For all the negative things Spitz was reputed to be and often was, I saw him as a sympathetic figure, never more so than in Munich. I thought he was being failed there by some of the elders around him and needed a friend. I cart say that I was that friend, but at times I acted like I was.
A few hours after our dinner at Kafer-Schanke, I was preparing to depart for the long-awaited Spitz press conference. In the lobby of the Munich Sheraton I ran into Peter Jennings, of ABC. He gave me the shocking news. There was now, obviously, a bigger story in Munich than Mark Spitz.
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As I arrived at the Press Center it was filling with journalists. Soon I saw Spitz entering from a side door with three coaches. They were in good spirits. I walked over to them. Mark thanked me for dinner. I had a really good time,” he said.
“You don’t know, do you?” I could tell that he didn’t.
“Don’t know what?” he said.
The coaches hadn’t heard about the horror in the Olympic Village either, and I told them what little I knew. Spitz was no longer mellow Mark. He said he didn’t want to go before the microphone, where he thought he’d be too easy a target. They'd just take me hostage—they wouldn’t kill me, would they?” he asked. That may sound like paranoia, but the truth was, at the time nobody knew the extent of the terrorist threat.
I sought to put Spitz’s mind at ease. I told him that what the assembled media, myself included, now most wanted was a briefing from authorities about the events unfolding in the Olympic Village. I said I thought that the press conference with him would be put on hold.
I was wrong. In a moment an official approached, r...