Olympics Under Investigation

Alarmed over claims that bribery helped Salt Lake City land the 2002 winter games the U.S. Olympic Committee Tuesday formed a special commission to investigate. CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports.

The commission was given just two months to figure out what went wrong and come up with recommendations to ensure it won't happen again.

"The very purpose of the commission is to try to get the factsÂ…to try to help make certain that if, in fact, there were practices in the past that were inappropriate, that we do everything we can to prevent them from occurring in the future," said former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

The payoffs ranged from college tuition for relatives of some International Olympic Committee members to plastic surgery and expensive gifts for three of the members themselves.

Dr. Richard Anderson says he donated at least $4,000 worth of free plastic surgery on one IOC member.

"It appears that these people expect to be treated like royalty and it appears that they always have," said Dr. Anderson.

The scandal unraveled when IOC executive Marc Hodler alleged that every recent winning Olympic bid, from Atlanta's for the 1996 summer games to Nagano's for the 1998 games had been tainted by bribes from the winning cities and demands for gifts by some corrupt International Olympic Committee members.

Salt Lake City's payoffs, however, are not likely to cost it the games.

"For us Salt Lake City was the victim of blackmail and not a villain," said Hodler.

Of greater concern to the Salt Lake City now is an investigation by the Justice Department's Criminal Division into this whole mess. Although no one anticipates any indictments at this point, investigators say it may be months before they know the whole story.

Reported by Jim Stewart