FORTY— FIVE years ago today, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games when he led off the victorious 400-meter relay team that included Ralph Metcalfe, Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff. It was a race Jesse Owens was not supposed to run.

Forty-five years ago today, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, both Jewish, lost their chance to win an Olympic gold medal when they were told in a meeting before the qualifying heat of the 400-meter relay that they could not run. The meeting was called by the United States Olympic track coach, Lawson Robertson, and his assistant, Dean Cromwell, who was also head track coach at the University of Southern California. All six sprinters involved attended the meeting.

Much has been said about what transpired during that prerace meeting. The most dramatic story was that the president of the United States Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, along with Robertson and Cromwell, had bowed to pressure from Nazi officials to remove the Jewish runners so as not to embarrass Adolph Hitler's regime.

For many years, stories circulated that the Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, had appealed to the American officials not to enter a relay team that consisted of two black and two Jewish runners. The fact that Brundage later became associated with the America First Committee, a group that many believed was sympathetic to Hitler and the Nazi regime, only added strength to the reports.

Glickman vividly remembers the Berlin meeting. Over the last decade while filming ''The Olympiad'' television series, I also interviewed Owens, Metcalfe and Wykoff for their recollections of the circumstances.

''We were told,'' says Glickman, ''that the first three finishers in the 100-meter final tryout at Randalls Island in July 1936 would run the 100 meters in Berlin. We were also told that the runners who finished fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh in the 100-meter final tryout would make up the 400-meter relay team in Berlin.''

Owens, Metcalfe and Wykoff confirmed that this was their understanding, too. ''Owens, Metcalfe and Wykoff finished 1, 2, 3 in the final Olympic tryout,'' recalls Glickman. ''Foy Draper was fourth, I was fifth, Sam Stoller sixth and Mack Robinson, Jackie's brother, was seventh.''

Glickman maintains that only he, Stoller and Draper were certain to run on the relay team because they were not competing in the individual events.

Owens should have been the last of the seven considered. He would have to run four races in the 100 meters, four in the 200 meters, and do extensive jumping to qualify in the long jump. In order to reach their finals, Metcalfe and Wykoff would each run four races in the 100 and Mack Robinson would have to run four in the 200. Owens, Metcalfe, Wykoff and Robinson made it to the finals in their events.

Metcalfe died in 1978. In his interview with me, he said: ''Marty Glickman is right: You'll recall that in the 1932 Olympics, when Eddie Tolan, George Simpson and I each qualified for both the 100 meters and 200 meters, the coaches reasoned that it would be better to have four fresh sprinters run the relay who would have the benefit of practicing their baton passes while we were running the individual races. Neither Tolan, Simpson or I were even mentioned about running in the relay in 1932.''

Glickman, Stoller and Draper appeared certain to run the relay. It was assumed that Wykoff would be the fourth runner even though he was competing in the 100 meters. Wykoff was on the previous United States Olympic 400-meter relay teams that won gold medals in Amsterdam in 1928 and in Los Angeles in 1932.

This belief was confirmed by an Associated Press dispatch in The New York Times on Aug. 5, three days before the qualifying heats of the 400-meter relay.

On Saturday morning, Aug. 8, a few hours before the qualifying trials of the 400-meter relay, the pre-race meeting was held. ''Lawson Robertson announced that because of the rumors that the Germans were hiding their best sprinters in preparation for the relay, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe would replace Sam Stoller and me on the relay team,'' recalls Glickman. ''We were shocked. I remember saying, 'This is ridiculous, how is it possible to hide world-class sprinters?' ''

Before he died last year, Owens told me that he felt terrible for his friends Glickman and Stoller. Glickman confirms Owens's recollections of the meeting.

''Jesse was magnificent,'' says Glickman. ''He said, 'I've had enough. I won three gold medals. Let Sammy and Marty run.' '' Glickman remembers that Robertson and particularly Cromwell were adamant. ''Cromwell would not accept Jesse's offer,'' says Glickman. Glickman and Metcalfe have different versions of Metcalfe's participation in the meeting.

''Metcalfe was fairly quiet,'' says Glickman. ''He had two silver medals in the 100 meters in both Los Angeles and Berlin. Apparently he was hoping for a shot at a gold medal.''

However, Metcalfe reacted angrily when recalling his reaction to the 1936 meeting. ''I thought at the time it was terrible,'' he said. ''It was unjust to leave two athletes off the team just because they were Jewish.''

Wykoff, who died in 1980, said: ''We hadn't worked with Jesse or Ralph at all. I think that if Glickman and Stoller had run, we would have had just as fast a time, if not faster.''

''The decision to keep the only two Jewish athletes on the United States team out of the competition was made by American Nazis,'' Glickman says, ''Both Avery Brundage and Dean Cromwell were members and supporters of the America First Committee who were sympathetic to the Nazis.''

I spent five years researching the 1936 Games for my film, ''Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin.'' The United States came close to boycotting the Berlin Games because of Hitler's Nuremberg laws, which deprived German Jews of their citizenship and protection under the laws of the Third Reich. The anti-Olympic feeling forced Brundage to make a pre-Olympic visit to Germany. His conclusions decided the matter. He reported that Germany had fulfilled all the obligations required under the Olympic charter. So sensitive were the Nazis to the protests from the United States that they bent over backwards to quiet stories of Jewish persecution in the months preceding and during the Games. Several Jewish athletes competed for Germany in the 1936 Olympics.

The real culprits in the Glickman-Stoller affair appear to be Robertson and Cromwell, in deciding to eliminate the two qualified Jewish runners, and then, in giving the shameful explanation that their decision was made to protect an American victory against a mythical superteam of German sprinters.

Glickman, who was an 18-year-old freshman at Syracuse University in 1936, later gained national fame as a sportscaster. He'll never forget Aug. 9, 1936.

''I remember watching the 400-meter Berlin final,'' Glickman says, ''and I still have a feeling of frustration and sadness that I was not out there, was not running. Something I had pointed to all my young life. When they mounted the victory stand and they played the National Anthem, I thought, I ought to be out there, I should be out there … and I wasn't …'' --------------------------------------------------------------------- Bud Greenspan won an Emmy Award for ''The Olympiad'' television series. His production, ''The Heisman Trophy,'' will be shown in December.

1936 Summer Olympics