For many the spectre of nuclear conflict felt all too real as tensions escalated into what became known as the "Cuban Missile Crisis." 

American President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev squared off against one another before a compromise was finally agreed.

The 1962 IOC Session was the first international Olympic meeting of any kind to be hosted by the Soviet Union, and only the second time that they had ventured to behind what Sir Winston Churchill had once described as the "Iron Curtain."

The decision to gather in Moscow had been taken shortly before the Rome 1960 Olympics.

Budapest, Nairobi and Stockholm had also been in the running.

Sweden’s Bo Ekelund withdrew the Stockholm bid in favour of Moscow or Nairobi.

When a vote was taken, Moscow edged out the Kenyan capital by 28 votes to 23.

In June 1962, the grand Opening Ceremony was therefore held in the Kremlin.

"Soviet people regard the opening of this Session in the capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow as recognition of the contribution made by athletes of our country and their organisations to the international Olympic Movement," Leonid Brezhnev, chairman of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet, told the assembled IOC members.

"On the banner of the social system under which millions of Soviet people live and work, daily performing splendid deeds in all spheres of human endeavour, are words which, although simple, are permeated with the great ideals of humanism 'everything for the sake of man, for the benefit of man,'” Brezhnev continued.

When the working Session began at the Hotel Sovetskaia, the agenda included "political interference in sport."

It seemed that such a discussion could not come soon enough.

The question of South Africa’s continued participation at the Games was at the forefront.

IOC President Avery Brundage complained that "the assurances given in Rome were not carried out."

The IOC resolved to give the South African Olympic Committee an ultimatum.

"If the policy of racial discrimination practised by their Government in this respect does not change before our Session in Nairobi takes place in October 1963, the International Olympic Committee will be obliged to suspend this Committee."

IOC papers record that this was carried by a "vast" majority.

In fact, suspension was not implemented until 1970, but South African athletes did not take part at the 1964 or 1968 Olympics. 

The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 heightened antagonism between East and West Germany.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) slapped a travel ban on East Germans in protest.

There were threats to bar them from the World Alpine Skiing Championships in Chamonix and the World Ice Hockey Championships in Colorado Springs and Denver.

Ultimately, Eastern bloc nations withdrew from the competitions as a protest of their own.

These developments were considered by the IOC.

"We wrote to the Interallied Travelling Bureau in Berlin which gave us the assurance that visas would be granted to East German athletes belonging to a unified German team," the organisation said.

The IOC also resolved that they "only grant the organisation of the Olympics to a city which gives visas to all athletes and officials belonging to Olympic Committees recognised by the International Olympic Committee."

The idea of a unified German team comprising athletes from both East and West was retained but became ever more fragile in the early sixties despite the support of Brundage.

It was eventually agreed that the East Germans should have their own team.

The attempts to bring together the two Koreas in such an arrangement were equally fraught with difficulties.

Both sides "played politics" but in Moscow, the IOC agreed that "the Olympic Committee of North Korea is to be placed provisionally on the official list."

They also resolved to contact the South Koreans asking them for "a unified team representing North and South Korea," and set a deadline of September 1 for an answer. 

"In the event of a negative reply, the Olympic Committee of North Korea will be entitled to participate in the 1964 Games as an independent team," the IOC said.

Ultimately North Korea did not compete in Tokyo.

Later in 1962, the Indonesian Government refused to grant entry visas to the Israeli and Taiwanese teams to compete at the Asian Games in Jakarta, a decision which laid problems in store for the Tokyo Olympics.

More straightforward was the admission of Mongolia and Dahomey (now known as Benin) and a number of nations in the Caribbean who had competed in 1960 as the Federation of the West Indies.

For their part, the Soviet Union had in fact only joined the Olympic Movement a decade before.

At the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, they had insisted on separate accommodation for all Eastern bloc athletes, and installed pictures of the Communist leaders on the walls.

As the Cold War intensified later in the decade, the Soviets and the United States began to produce rival medal tables at each Olympics which each told a different tale.

"In order to prevent the fanciful points tables which appear regularly in the press after the Games, it is suggested that the International Olympic Committee sets a standard rule of placing," said a proposal at the 1962 Session.

"Normal national pride is perfectly legitimate, but neither the Olympic Games nor any other sport contest can be said to indicate the superiority of one country or of one political system over another," Brundage responded as the motion was rejected.

There was no shortage of political messages in Moscow as Soviet officials enthusiastically talked up their sporting accomplishments.

"We trust that your stay in Moscow will give you a chance to see the life of our country, the peace loving Soviet people and Soviet athletes," Union of Sports Societies and Organisations Central Council chairman Yuri Mashin said.

"We have become convinced that the Olympic Games are a wonderful school of athletic skill, a means of uniting young people of all countries and cementing friendship and fraternity," Mashin continued.

"The physical training movement in the U.S.S.R is a truly mass movement, sports facilities are available to all."

The agency that would eventually become known as "Olympic Solidarity" also began to take shape under the leadership of Comte Jean de Beaumont, the IOC member in France.

At the time it was known as "The International Board of Olympic Aid."

Moscow born IOC member Konstantin Adrianov and Kenya’s Reggie Alexander were installed as vice-presidents with the Egyptian Ahmed El-Demerdash Touny as secretary.

The IOC declared that the Board was "sure to carry fruitful achievements within these countries which also aspire to expand in the field of sport."

Before the end of the Session, there was also a glimpse of how the IOC would be made up in the future.

Soviet IOC members Adrianov and Aleksey Romanov made the following proposal to widen the scope of membership.

"Presidents of the International Federations and National Olympic Committees, recognised by the International Olympic Committee, who are not members of the International Olympic Committee may attend the meetings."

In fact it was only many years later that the IOC finally accepted "persons with an executive or leadership function within an International Sports Federation or National Olympic Committee," as full members.

In 1962, the IOC emphasised that "members of the IOC are delegates of the committee to their countries or International Federation and not representatives of their country."

It was a subtle distinction that was reaffirmed last week in Lausanne.