US steps up warning on Olympics boycott

The Carter administration sent strong new signals to the Kremlin Wednesday to pull its troops out of Afghanistan by mid-February or face a US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, in an interview in the New York Times, said he and President Carter personally opposed US participation in the games under current circumstances.

Mr. Vance said that a decision had to be made by mid-February on a Us boycott and that he did not expect Soviet forces, which US estimates put at 85,000, to be withdrawn by then.