SAN FRANCISCO — An American credited with prompting the release of more Chinese political prisoners than anyone else, John Kamm, is launching his most audacious campaign yet: a call for an Olympic pardon that could free tens of thousands from China’s jails.

Mr. Kamm, 57, a former chemical company executive who won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2004 for his human rights activism, says public opinion toward China is in a global meltdown and that bold moves are needed to head off a debacle at this summer’s Beijing games. The big threat, he says, is not a boycott of the Olympics by tourists or politicians, but that a global television audience wary about China will snub the games.

With about three months to go before the opening of the games, Mr. Kamm sat down near the offices of his Dui Hua Foundation for a talk with The New York Sun. Edited excerpts follow:

Q: You’re promoting an Olympic Pardon as a way for China to repair its image in advance of the Beijing games. Tell us about it.

Mr. Kamm: I’m trying to give them some ideas and I think this idea of an Olympic Pardon, obviously, is something that could help. It would mean freedom for a lot of people. And it would start this precedent. You’ve never had something called an Olympic Pardon. You have the concept of the Olympic truce.

How would the pardon work?

Under Chinese law, you become eligible for parole when you’ve served half of your sentence….Let’s say you’ve served 75% of your sentence. You’ve had sentence reductions for good behavior and you’re not a threat to society. I can name about a dozen political prisoners just off the top of my head who meet that description. When you get an Olympic pardon, it’s essentially parole….This could affect tens of thousands of prisoners. This is not targeted at political prisoners. This is not an Olympic pardon for June 4th (Tiananmen Square) political prisoners. It just so happens that June 4th prisoners would fall under almost any Olympic Pardon because it’s 19 years ago. Almost everyone would be out.

What reaction have you gotten thus far?

I can’t give you names but there’s huge support for it. Even in China, I’ve heard good things….You can appeal to them in an uplifting way. You can say this is in accordance with Chinese history. Under the emperor, imperial pardons were very common. There have been seven pardons in the history of the People’s Republic, all under Mao…Guomindang [Chiang Kai-shek allies], Uighurs, Mongolians….It’s in the Chinese constitution.

Are you planning to travel to China to pitch it?

I don’t think I have to…I think once the idea is out there it just has a life of its own…..If they release some of these old Tibetan prisoners who have been in for a long time, that would touch the heart of the Tibetans…The Dalai Lama would definitely like this idea. It’s something China can do. Win-win-win all around. That’s the kind of thing we should be promoting.

How is China viewed in the world today?

This is an image that’s as bad as it has been since 1989. No host of the games has had this kind of public image …..70% (of Americans) say it was a mistake to give Beijing the Olympics. Last year, in May it was 39%….China has overtaken the U.S.: 35% of Europeans say China is the no. 1 threat. Two years ago, it was 12%….I think China’s image has been cut in half.

The recent Tibet violence and chaos surrounding the torch relay obviously played a role in pushing down those numbers, but do you think the earlier scandals over poisoned dog food and lead-laced toys also turned off Americans who are normally neutral towards China?

There’s no question about it. If you have issues surrounding the health of your kids and your pets, and not necessarily in that order, you know that strikes very close to home.

What do you think of calls for a boycott of the games or even the opening ceremonies?

I don’t like the idea of institutionalized, nationalized boycotts. It backs China into a corner. It makes an already very nationalistic population more nationalistic….It will boil down to whether or not people watch and that’s what they need to be concerned about….Athens in ’04 had a pretty good image and viewership was terrible. So the sponsors have got to be a little bit worried about this. Are people going to watch China sort of exult in its medal count? I don’t think so. So they have a steep hill to climb.

Several world leaders, including Chancellor Merkel of Germany, have pledged to skip the opening ceremonies to protest China’s human rights record. President Bush has insisted on going. How do the Chinese view that?

If you do it on a head count basis, George Bush is probably the most popular Western politician in the world right now. That will shock everybody, but the fact of the matter is especially among the emerging middle class in Chinese communities, Hong Kong, the fact is that he is the guy who just stood up to all the other Western leaders and said, I’m going.

Why do your arguments to the Chinese focus so often on public relations and not morality?

Ultimately, the people who are going to change China are the Chinese people themselves. And if the agents for change are in prison, they can’t change China. It’s not for John Kamm to convince the Chinese to be moral. I’m not a missionary. My job is to get these guys out of prison and I think I do a reasonably good job. They way you do that is by convincing the Chinese government it’s in their interest, not by being a good missionary.

At the moment, who is winning the great bet between the West and the Chinese Communist Party about whether economic opening will bring pressure for political reforms?

For a very long time, if you look at my position on key issues, I’ve favored the view that opening up, having this relationship is going to produce a better China….At the bottom of that optimism was this view of Chinese youth. The thing that has rattled me and what I’m seeing very unexpectedly on the part of Chinese youth is instead of being more critical, more tolerant, more worldly, they are reverting to a form of nationalistic intolerance of any form of dissent, blind patriotism, paranoid conspiratorial kind of theorizing, the politics of grievance…I’m still not ready to say anything I’ve done is a mistake, perish the thought, but the experience of the last few weeks has been very unsettling.

Are you going to the Olympics?

I never had planned to….I don’t like big crowds and hot places. I just don’t.