Photojournalist Red Grandy:
Covering the Sarajevo Olympics for Stars & Stripes

Red crashes the Iron Curtain (5:19 Real)

Red Grandy's newspaper, Stars and Stripes, was often caught in a bind when it came to getting full press credentials for its reporters and photographers. The U.S. considered Stars and Stripes a European newspaper, but Europeans considered it an American publication—and often no one would grant credentials. That left Red Grandy on his own more than once. The 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo—then behind the Iron Curtain—was one of those times. He had no press credentials, and no pass to get into Yugoslavia, but a story is a story, so Red packed a car with all his gear, and headed for the Austrian border with Yugoslavia, at Graz, where he spent a nervous night planning his way in. He did make it to Sarajevo, and he did get credentials, but it wasn't easy.    

 Photo © 1984 Stars and Stripes