Ceremony promises to be worldwide event

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah -- Don Mischer remembers attending the opening ceremony at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and leaving with the feeling he had seen something very special.

It wasn't until a dozen years later, when the Emmy Award-winning producer became involved with the Olympics, that a high-ranking foreign official told him the California ceremony was "second only to Hitler's in 1936" for jingoism.

Balancing such concerns, particularly at the first Olympics since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, became one of the major problems for organizers of the Friday night opening ceremony.

"When you produce something like this, you have many audiences," Mischer said Monday in a break from rehearsals.

"You have to be very careful not to concentrate too much on the United States.

"This is a worldwide event."

On a windy Monday afternoon with temperatures in the low 20s, the show's overseers conducted a dry run of several ceremony moments. A teen-ager in a black winter jacket ran into the stadium with an extinguished torch, subbing for the yet-to-be identified actual torch bearer.

Trumpets blared, hot-air balloons floated, and covered wagons were parked. Outside, a dozen olive Humvees were parked as soldiers in combat fatigues milled about.

Mischer, standing in the middle of Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium, said there was no question that Sept. 11 would affect every aspect of the opening ceremony.