Flash back to the summer of 1984. The Olympics were on the ropes.

Boycotts had become part of a Cold War tit-for-tat strategy. First, the U.S. stayed away from Moscow's Games in 1980. Then, fewer than three months until the Los Angeles Games were to open in 1984, the Soviet Union pulled out and threatened to keep out 100 other nations.

Virginian Charles Carter Lee came to the rescue.

The Roanoke native helped save a key piece of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Lee, fluent in Mandarin, personally wooed leaders of China's sports establishment to attend the games, which were boycotted by several Eastern Bloc nations.

It could have been worse.

"It was arguably a turning point," he said of his delicate mission to Beijing, which had not sent athletes to the Summer Games for decades. "I think it helped stem the tide towards a [massive] boycott."

Fast forward to tomorrow night. Lee, who recently retired as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge after 20 years on the bench, will lead the U.S. delegation into the Beijing opening ceremonies as the ceremonial "chef de mission" of Team USA.

Lee is the formal ambassador of the U.S. Olympic delegation to other nations' teams, the International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Organizing Committee.

Lee's role 24 years ago, when the Los Angeles Olympics were sloshing through controversy, was on an emergency basis. He was brought in by the head of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, Peter Ueberroth.

Lee's role this year is based on his long relationship with China and as recognition for his work on the 1984 Games. Also, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee happens to be Ueberroth.

"Judge Lee's experience, stature and knowledge of both the Olympic movement and China is unparalleled," Ueberroth said when Lee was appointed to his leadership post in April.

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Lee, 62, was born into one of the most historic families in the state. His great-great-great grandfather was Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, a renowned Revolutionary War Cavalry officer and colleague of George Washington's. He is the great-grandnephew of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The youngest of four children, he attended Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg. He then went to Washington and Lee University, where he was a German major, and the University of Virginia School of Law.

His law school days were interrupted by Navy service during the Vietnam War. While stationed in the Philippines in the early 1970s, he traveled to Taiwan and became fascinated with the Chinese language. He would spend two years studying Mandarin.

Language aside, he learned this: "I think there's some similarity between Chinese culture and Southern culture. There's a concern for older people. There's great concern for courtesy and kindness."

After becoming fluent in Chinese and completing law school, he landed a job in Los Angeles and, before long, his law firm was representing a fledgling group with the goal of bringing the 1984 Olympics to Southern California.

As a lawyer, Lee helped draft the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee's bylaws. Ueberroth led the effort.

But during the planning of the games, politics tripped up the process. The Soviets, still smarting from the U.S.-led boycott of their Olympics four years earlier, said "Nyet" in early May. The games were set to open in late July.

Ueberroth, anticipating such a possibility, had enlisted envoys to key countries. Knowing of Lee's language skills, he sent Lee to meet with top Chinese Olympic Committee officials.

"We very much wanted to get a written acceptance," Lee said of trying to get the Chinese to commit to Los Angeles. "After two or three days, we got it."

For China, it was historic: 1984 was the first Summer Games the nation had attended since the communist country was formed in 1949.

In July 1984, when the Chinese team arrived in Los Angeles, it was Lee who greeted the athletes, speaking, of course, in Chinese.

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Which leads to tomorrow night. Lee will have a starring role. The one-time high school and college tennis player will be toward the front of the 600-athlete U.S. delegation as it enters the National Stadium, nicknamed the "Bird's Nest." He will march right behind the U.S. flag bearer.

As for the politics of the Beijing Games, Lee said, "I don't address that. I see my role as sports-related. My primary function is to make sure our athletes have the best opportunities to perform at their maximum."

He added: "I've had a couple of jobs in my life where I couldn't wait to wake up. This is one of them."