Flashback Friday: Detroit's Olympic Dream It's hard to believe, especially given the past four decades of economic struggle and population drain,that Detroit used to be seriously considered as a host city for the Summer Olympics. Detroit was a finalist to host the 1968 Games, after being chosen by the United States Olympic Committee as the winning American bid, competing with Mexico City, Lyon, France and Buenos Aires. President John F. Kennedy made Detroit's case by film to the International Olympic Committee in 1963, saying the city would give, "the warmest and most cordial welcome in the U.S." But hosting the Olympics was not to be. Mexico City was won by 16 votes over Detroit in voting by I.O.C. members in 1963. Detroit has long sought to host the Summer Olympics, being the only city to bid seven times without success: 1944, and from 1952 through 1972. The 1968 bid came the closest. The U.S.O.C."s nod to Detroit for the "68 bid did not come without controversy in 1962, with some U.S.O.C. members asking for a reconsideration of the decision. Detroit's ability to finance and follow through on plans was questioned. Detroit's host committee went on the offensive, putting together a film featuring then-mayor Jerome Cavanaugh and Michigan Gov. George W. Romney, the father of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to save the bid. For those who hail from Detroit, the film is amusing, sad, frustrating, and stunning to see what might have happened to the city if it had hosted the Olympics. For the rest of the country, it's a glimpse of the positivity and ambition that Detroit abounded with at that time. The film, entitled "The Detroit You've Never Met," makes the case that Detroit is the right place to host the Olympics for many reasons. It's a classic, with B-movie-quality special effects, with a serious Romney and Cavanaugh staring straight into the camera from behind a massive podium. Dioramas show the plans for a 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium, to be built on the now-closed Michigan State Fairgrounds site. A 10,000-seat outdoor velodrome was also planned. The Olympic Village was to be built as part of Wayne State University in midtown Detroit, and then turned over after the Olympics to be used as student housing. Cavanaugh touted using the Detroit River for the first artificial rowing course. Their plans were big, and according to Cavanaugh, money was no problem. The chairmen of the automotive companies, headlined by Henry Ford II, also make appearances in the film, to show Detroit's might. Cavanaugh talks at length about Detroit's balanced budget, set for $350 million in 1962-63 fiscal year. He declares, "Detroit has never been so financially healthy." Contrast that with today's nearly-bankrupt Detroit, which narrowly warded off the state mandating an emergency manager this spring, through a controversial consent agreement. In the logo, the Olympic rings were replaced by five gear wheels, a riff off the auto industry, with each wheel having a positive trait: talent, expertise, resources, responsibility and enthusiasm. Clichés are liberally employed to make Detroit's case, with the announcer intoning, "The only dirt on Detroiter's faces is the dust kicked up by dedicated men rolling up their sleeves to do a job and do it well." Cavanaugh tells the committee that Detroit is a diverse, yet unified, place and would get behind hosting the Olympics, from "the high schools, college students...to Labor Unions." Unfortunately, Detroit's unity would be shattered in 1967, when riots inflamed the city and the National Guard was called out to restore peace. Romney, a more dynamic speaker than Cavanaugh in the film, told the U.S.O.C. that taking the Olympic bid away from Detroit would "injure us irreparably." The U.S.O.C. stuck with Detroit. Detroit's final try for the Olympics came in 1965, which featured another Cavanaugh film, in a bid for the 1972 Games. The film, called "Detroit, City on the Move," is part of the Prelinger Archives. Cavanaugh described 1965 as "Detroit's finest hour," and called it, "the most cosmopolitan city of the Midwest." If only Cavanaugh knew what was to come, from the riots to the collapse of the auto industry (twice) to the mass population move from Detroit to its suburbs. Who knows if the Olympics could have helped Detroit mitigate those calamities?