Relay becomes elaborate game of hide-and-seek

Thousands of spectators and demonstrators gathered in San Francisco on Wednesday to see the Olympic torch, but they were duped. AP

SAN FRANCISCO -- It was a cautious decision, a safe decision, the decision you'd expect from an actuarial, or a hand-wringing assistant principal. But this call was made by one of America's most high-profile mayors.

Fearful of disruption similar to that which marked the Olympic torch's tumultuous trips through London and Paris, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom called an audible just before Wednesday's torch relay, truncating and altering the course at the last minute. This meant that in its only North American stop, the torch was borne by athletes who weren't running so much as they were fleeing. It also meant that 10,000 or so spectators, including this reporter, never caught so much as a glimpse of the flame.

Thus did the security apparatus of the nation's 14th-largest city run up the white flag against an assortment of protesters with disparate agendas but one thing in common: a commitment to nonviolence. Sure, things might have gotten a bit bumpy if the (irony alert) Journey of Harmony had stayed the course. But no one was going to extinguish the torch -- not with San Francisco's finest surrounding the phalanx of Chinese special forces sent by Beijing to protect the flame at all costs. (Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Games, described this Chinese Praetorian Guard as a band of "thugs.")

But protesters might have clashed with the cops, and those clips would have played on the evening news, a risk acceptable neither to Newsom, who has ambitions beyond San Francisco's City Hall, nor to USOC President Peter Ueberroth, who'd earlier expressed his concern about "our reputation as a country." A courteous reminder to Mr. Ueberroth: He lives in a democracy. Dissent goes with the territory. Yes, it's messy at times. That's part of the deal. At Justin Herman Plaza, while awaiting closing ceremonies that never came, I talked to a native Tibetan named Tashi Tsundue, who'd flown down from Portland, Ore. To the Chinese-flag-waving counter-protesters who screamed "Liar!" and scolded him for being duped by "false" accounts of Tibetan unrest in western media outlets, he had a simple, serene riposte: "We couldn't even be having this conversation in China. I'd be put in jail for 15 years."

The late and legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was fond of describing this city as Baghdad by the Bay, an affectionate nod to its effervescent multiculturalism. San Francisco has a proud tradition of embracing dissent. But not on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Newsom, his advisers and the Olympic apparatchiks huddling with them showed all the brio of so many claims adjustors. On Wednesday, this city was Hartford by the Bay.

The first torchbearer began running at the appointed hour from McCovey Cove, in the shadow of AT&T Park. But after just 300 meters, the runner ducked into a warehouse. The flame was smuggled to Van Ness Avenue, miles from the scheduled route. The "relay" came to an unceremonious conclusion on an on-ramp to the Golden Gate Bridge. Closing ceremonies were canceled, and the flame was hustled to the San Francisco Airport.

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