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He's Booth Gardner, Pierce County executive and candidate for governor. And here's what people say about him. He's an executive who'd rather skip the showbiz and get on with the problems. His three years in office have been marked by decisive leadership and integrity. He balanced the budget too. An almost ideal candidate, fiscally conservative, business background, but with a proven concern for social problems. Booth Gardner, governor. The best is yet to come. Hi folks, here at Yakima Dodge. They're really going fast, and I mean fast. 37 new cars and trucks sold in July. So we are continuing our 50% discount sale on all 1984 cars and trucks. Hurry on in. Great selection right here at Yakima Dodge. We sell for less and we'll prove it. Plus, we service what we sell. Personal injuries and accidental deaths happen every minute of every day. Yet we're never ready for them when they do occur. It's at times like these that you're forced to make life altering decisions. That's when you need to call us at Aveda and Nelson. We can get the full compensation that you're entitled to. There's no charge to discuss your case with us and no fee unless we recover for you. We're experts in personal injury. So if you've been seriously injured, call us at Aveda and Nelson, the firm that gets results. Joining us live now in our New York studios is Dave Anderson, who covered the Los Angeles Olympics for the New York Times. And in our Los Angeles bureau, Ken Rich, who covered the LA Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympics for the Los Angeles Times. Ken, you heard what Alexander Paladin had to say, competitive level is sort of mediocre, he said. Do you agree? No, I think that the competitive level was exciting here in Los Angeles. I don't think Mr. Paladin must have attended the Moscow games either because he didn't apparently notice the Russian flags there and the booing of the Polish pole balder and various other incidents that occurred in Moscow. Well, you don't expect consistency necessarily here. But what I am asking is when he makes the point. I mean, statistically, only 11 world records set at these Olympics. I say only 11. Is that significant? The Moscow records were set in the competitive level of 1980. The competitive level in 1984 is somewhat higher. Now would these games have been more competitive had the Soviets and the East Germans been here? Of course they would have been. But that doesn't mean to say that these were any less of a real Olympic games. Dave Anderson, let me use that term again that Mr. Paladin used, pretty mediocre, he said, the competitive level. What do you say? Well, the competitive level, Ted, certainly was not mediocre. It was very high. I was just sorry that the Soviet bloc nations weren't here because to me, without them, it was not whatever you want to call it, a real Olympics, a complete Olympics. To be a real or complete Olympics, all the nations, virtually all the major athletic nations should be in the Olympics. All right. Mr. Paladin, what you're leading us into, and I guess that's where I wanted to go next anyway, is an aura. There is, I mean, it's one thing to talk about the very best kind of competitiveness, clearly that we did not have, at least not in all events. But as far as the Olympic aura was concerned, do you think that was damaged? I don't know if it was damaged. It was certainly incomplete. I know at the Winter Olympics when we had the Russian hockey team and the Russian speed skaters and things like that, that to me was what the Olympics are supposed to be. All the great athletes meeting for the games. I'm not sure I agree with that. And without them, it's not the same. Go ahead, Ken. I'm not sure I agree because if all the great athletes were here, then we'd have all the professional American athletes from football, baseball, basketball. We'd have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And that's not what the Olympics are all about. If these Los Angeles games, 140 countries came, they represented a greater percentage of the world's population than any Olympics that had ever been held. We had China for the first time since 1952, and they really did not compete very seriously in 1952. So that it's true that some were missing. That was regrettable. Not the Los Angeles Olympic Committee's fault, obviously. But a lot of the world was here, and these were the best watched, most complete games that had ever been held. All right, let me ask you both the question that we were promoting during the course of the evening and that irritated a lot of viewers. They've been calling up. You know, obviously, people feel very proprietary about these Olympics and about the good, warm, patriotic feeling. Are those medals in any way tarnished by the fact that the Eastern Europeans were not there? Well, certainly some are, Ted. Carl Lewis's medals, for example. There was nobody from the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Bloc, that could run with him in his events. So naturally, his medals and his events were not tarnished. But if you look down the whole list, I'm sure some, maybe tarnished is the wrong word. I'm sure those athletes who know the great athletes of those other nations have a little doubt in the back of their mind. And yet, I'm sure they're also completely happy that they have their gold medal or silver or bronze. All right, Ken. The people who own the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee, have set certain rules. And those rules entail free participation. You can choose whether to come or not come. There are no sanctions for those who don't come. Like in any athletic contest, the winners are those among those who show up. And the ones who can't show up, I don't think it's, I don't think they're in a position to quarrel with them or that they can tarnish the wins. If we had the NFL playoffs without the Raiders and the Cowboys, I think the team that won might wonder if they would have won had those two teams been there. Yes, but I think also- And we talked before about all the great athletes. I'm a proponent that all the great athletes should be in the Olympics, whether they're professional or whatever you want to call them. Just open the Olympics to any and all competitors. Let them sign up if they want to compete. And that would be in today's world, not the world of 1896, but in today's world, that would be what the Olympics should be. All right, gentlemen, it's one of those questions that I fear we will be endlessly debating, and it will be grist for sports bus for years to come. I thank both of you very much for joining us this evening. In a moment, tonight's insider report, a look at what the LA Games have meant for one of the biggest Olympic winners of all, the American Broadcasting Company. It's more than a brunch, it's a banquet. So today it's more than coffee, it's new La Cafe. Mmm, something smells delicious. Sure does. What's she brewing in? La Cafe is the premium ground coffee with subtle flavors of chocolatey mocha, spicy cinnamon, indulgent amaretto. Discover how different a premium ground coffee can be. Mmm, mocha. With coffee like this, who needs dessert? It's more than coffee, it's La Cafe from General Foods International Coffees. In the search for higher technology, the driver is finally being rewarded. The Mercury Cougar XR7 Turbo. Electronically fuel injected and turbocharged to boost its four cylinder engine into the realm of eight cylinder power. And six shock absorbers reward you with exceptional stability. We've assumed you want more than good looks. Mercury Cougar XR7 Turbo, a more enlightened approach. Heinz versus the others. Watch what happens when folks are given their choice of ketchups. Hidden cameras record the results. More people choose Heinz. But that's no surprise. Thick rich Heinz is America's three to one choice over any other single ketchup. Why? It tastes the best. It is the best. Heinz means anything else is average. Yep, seeing is believing. All across America, thick rich Heinz wins again. Once upon a time, there was a family with a small problem. Well, actually a rather large problem. But instead of doing something about it, they ignored it, pretending it didn't even exist, hoping it would go away. It never did. Which only goes to show you can't solve a problem by ignoring it. A gentle reminder about the problem of alcoholism from your friends at Care Unit. The disease is alcoholism. The answer is Care Unit. Open your eyes to the world with Steve Bell and Kathleen Sullivan. For the early risers before Good Morning America. Tomorrow, watch ABC's World News this morning. I'm David Hartman. Tomorrow, take our Good Morning America driving test and find out what you really know and don't know about driving. Also David Burney. Wednesday, George Carlin on Good Morning America. Let's inside a report on one of the biggest winners of all in the Los Angeles Olympics, the network that covered the games, ABC. Here's Judd Rhodes. Every second counts for those who answer the call to glory. Forget what the commercial says, for the ABC television network, this was the real call to glory. ABC's own publicity people pre-billed the 23rd Olympiad as the most elaborate, complex, costly and most watched event in television history. And so it was. A total of 180 million Americans watched at least some of ABC's 180 hours of Olympic programming, more than for any other TV program ever. It was a major victory, born of a major gamble. It was definitely a calculated risk. There were two or three ways they could have lost and only one way they could have won and they won. But it was a far different story earlier this year at the Winter Olympics. The games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia were a major disappointment for the network that bills itself as the leader in sports broadcasting. The lengthy time difference with the US meant viewers often knew the results before seeing the competition and poor weather often delayed the games in any case. Games were bad, ABC had to give rebates to its advertisers. ABC promised its sponsors better numbers in Los Angeles, indeed promising them a prime time rating of 25, 25% of the viewing audience and in the end that prediction was just about on the money and the money involved was considerable. Charging $260,000 for 30 seconds in prime time, ABC sold out its commercial slots, earned back its $335 million investment and even turned a profit. It's great television and it's great show business but from an investment point of view it doesn't really change the picture. From an investment point of view what you look for are surprises in profits and there were no particular surprises. In fact many analysts say what ABC earned it could have made more or less with its usual programming with none of the risk. Of course regular programming doesn't have all those side benefits. The multi-million dollar playground of paper dolls. ABC's Olympic coverage was laced with promotions for its fall lineup and shows like Call to Glory which debuted tonight. A similar push during the 1976 games in Montreal took the perennial number three network to number one for the first time ever. This is really an extension of what networks normally do and that is promote themselves heavily on their own time. There's a lot of padding on the back and self-congratulatory things that occur all the time and this is just an occurrence when the network has spent an awful lot of money, $225 million in rights and they feel they're going to exploit that as much as possible. And ABC used its high visibility at every opportunity. From ABC News, this is the weekend report. Now reporting from Los Angeles, here's Peter Jennings. Anchorman Peter Jennings appeared not just on his own world news tonight but virtually every other news program shown during the games. His increased visibility along with the already huge ratings helped boost world news from its current fight for the number two slot behind CBS to the very top of the ratings. The high ratings also helped ABC's troubled daytime programs which were trimmed and slotted in the middle of daytime Olympic broadcasts. In 1988, Calgary, the Olympic tradition continued. 38 months to Calgary. ABC's self-proclaimed Olympic tradition will continue with the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, Canada. The network's readiness to pay $309 million for the Winter Games may indicate its reluctance to pony up for the Summer Games in Korea, reported asking price as much as a billion dollars. And with Korea's time difference and political problems, analysts warn ABC must be wary. That they don't let the success go to their head, figure that they're bulletproof and spend too much money for Seoul in 1988 and wind up perhaps will have a sadder story to tell four years from now. Whether or not ABC has the heart for Seoul, for now it has gambled and won, using the Olympics to run rings around the competition. Judd Rose for Nightline in Los Angeles. That's our report for tonight. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.