WHEN THE U.S. State Department claimed last week that 50 nations will boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow, it may have ushered in the end of the Olympic movement. For while an alternative Olympics would preserve the ideals which the Games seem to represent, they could never reconstruct the spirit of international unity that stands as the real premise of the Games.

Although an international athletic meet is the most obvious function of the Games, it is the least important one. Other meets occur far more frequently than the Olympics. These meets will continue, whatever happens to the Olympics; and, even if they didn't, sport fans could still rate athletes against each other by comparing their record performances. The events, purely as athletic phenomena, gain little but imagery by being conjoined in a mass spectacular. The athletes don't jump higher, swim faster, or run more quickly. Instead of looking so much to the Olympics for outstanding performances, observers should look more broadly at all the meets at which international class athletes compete, and where they set most records. This is not much of a reason to save the Olympics.

The Olympics serve also at least as a titular celebration of amateur athletics. As amateurism has fallen almost entirely into abeyance, however, this function means less and less. All athletes, to gain the quality necessary to compete in modern Games, must live for their sport. They must, in some way, gain their support from it, either as students in Western countries or as "soldiers" in Eastern ones. And when the most successful of these athletes can look forward to special rewards after their playing days are over, like the Kellogg's advertising contract awaiting skater Eric Heiden, then they are pros in all but name. This cannot be a reason to save the Games either.

Thirdly, special fillips that the Games offer to nationalistic pride and patriotism have chiefly contributed to the spectacular growth of the Olympic movement in this century. Host nations have poured ever-increasing amounts of money into spectacular facilities to amaze international attention and raise pride in their own countries. Great nations keep sending larger squads to the Games to participate in an increasing variety of sports events and win more and more medals. Every event excites the countries which sent the top athletes, and the athlete who wins makes all his countrymen happy.

These positive feelings toward athletes seen as national heroes is strong in all countries, small and large. Even in the United States we feel, or are expected to feel, good about American medal winners. This positive feeling is the reason why advertisers stake millions of dollars on TV campaigns based on winners like Mark Spitz and Bruce Jenner. Our affection for these men is real. It is worth money. Imagine how much more a smaller, closer-knit nation feels for athletes.

Unfortunately, this reason too is not enough to make the Games worthwhile. Happiness based on national pride could cause damage in climates of international crisis like ours. Nationalistic pride is based fundamentally on the belief that one's own nation is better than most or all of the others--that one is a member of a nation superior in some way, superior in construction, or swimming ability, or diving skill. And at a time when international hates and fears are strongly present, feelings of national superiority detract from a spirit of international cooperation. Citizens should not let themselves think that they, or their nations, are somehow inherently better than others.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES cannot rest solely on athletic competition, amateurism and nationalism. The reason that they should continue to be worthwhile is that they are not just a meet of national athletes; they are a gathering of the whole world of all these nations together. They are, in some way, a celebration of whatever togetherness there is in the world. The athletes aim to increase their own glory, and that of their country. But their attention, and that of the spectators and TV watchers, is focused on the same object. They, and we the spectators, are part of something larger than ourselves.

That's why people look forward to the Olympics. They want to be part of the event. Athletes striving in a single arena foster a unity which becomes a universal goal. The Olympics become a psychological forcefor this unity instead of disunity, for pride in humanity rather than in a nation.

For this reason the Games ought not--cannot--be allowed to disappear. The U.S. boycott of the Olympic Games could harm whatever concern remains about the common interests of mankind. It goes beyond athletic concerns, affecting the political drama which led to it in the first place. And if the Olympic movement itself is allowed to die, hope for relieving these tensions could also die.