Two days later, still needing a victory over Finland to
secure the gold medal, the United States once again
came from behind in the final period to earn a 4-2
win and achieve its surprising Olympic victory.
Impact The year 1980 was a difficult one for the
United States. A deep recession had taken a toll on
the nation’s economy, and the Iranian hostage crisis
and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had left the
nation feeling helpless and vulnerable in a danger-
ous world. In what would be the first of several inci-
dents of the Cold War bleeding into the athletic
arena during the 1980’s, the U.S. team’s victory re-
stored a large measure of national pride to Amer-
ica’s damaged psyche.
Further Reading
Bernstein, Ross.America’s Coach: Life Lessons and Wis-
dom for Gold Medal Success—A Biographical Journey
of the Late Hockey Icon Herb Brooks. Eagan, Minn.:
Bernstein, 2006.
Coffey, Wayne.The Boys of Winter: The Untold Stor y of a
Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey
Team. New York: Crown, 2005.
Powers, John, and Arthur C. Kaminsky.One Goal: A
Chronicle of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team.New
York: Harper & Row, 1984.
Devon Boan
See also Cold War; Hockey; Olympic Games of
1980; Soviet Union and North America; Sports.
Missing and runaway children
Definition Abducted children or children who
run away from home
The issue of missing and runaway children became widely
identified as a growing problem as print and electronic me-
dia covered stories of these children during the 1980’s. Indi-
viduals who endured personal and sometimes tragic ac-
counts of missing children became vocal advocates and
helped to put a public face on missing children by mounting
a campaign to put missing children’s photos on milk car-
tons at the supermarkets. Public sympathy for victims and
families created political pressure.
“Missing children” is a term for a societal problem
that gained popular attention following Senate
hearings on exploited children in 1981 and 1982.
Missing children were categorized as children miss-
ing through abduction by family, usually parental
abduction during or after divorce proceedings;
children missing through abduction by strangers;
runaways, children who either elect or are forced
through some family situation to leave their home
and parental care; throwaways, usually older chil-
dren who are abandoned by parents or kicked out of
a home; and the lost, injured, or otherwise missing.
Parental and familial abduction issues gained
traction in the media and public eye in the early
1980’s. Georgia K. Hilgeman’s daughter was abduc-
ted by her former husband and taken to Mexico.
The experience motivated Hilgeman to establish
the nonprofit Vanished Children’s Alliance in 1980.
In response to the growing number of international
parental abduction cases, in the same year the Hague
Convention on the Civil Aspects of International
Child Abduction established protocols for dealing
with custody issues that crossed international bound-
aries. The U.S. Congress enacted the Parental Kid-
napping Prevention Act, which assured that full
faith and credit was given to child custody determi-
nations.
In 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted
from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida. John
Walsh, Adam’s father, mounted a vigorous media
campaign to locate his son. Adam was found mur-
dered in another part of Florida one month after his
disappearance. John and Revé Walsh established the
Adam Walsh Child Resource Center in Florida and
lobbied to help pass the Missing Children Act of- The media exposure helped transform the is-
sue of missing children into a national cause. John
Walsh became a spokesman for victims’ rights and
a television personality as host ofAmerica’s Most
Wanted, which first aired in 1988.
The emotional appeal of missing children sold
magazines and newspapers and brought millions
of viewers to local television news, talk shows, and
prime-time programming. The public primarily
identified missing children as victims of parental or
stranger abduction. News media attention, along
with comprehensive statistics on missing children,
motivated politicians to pass the Missing Children’s
Assistance Act of 1983, which established a national
toll-free telephone line for missing children and a
national resource center and clearinghouse, the Na-
tional Center for Missing and Exploited Children
(NCMEC) in Washington, D.C.
The Eighties in America Missing and runaway children 659