Olympic decathlon champion wrestled Bobby Kennedy’s assassin to the ground
When Bobby Kennedy was shot dead in 1968, while seeking the United States presidency, it needed the reactions and athleticism of an Olympic decathlon champion to leap instantly on the assailant. Rafer Johnson and his friend Roosevelt Grier, an American football star, wrestled Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian activist, to the ground.
Johnson, who has died aged 86, clamped his hand round the gun as chaos broke out in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy had been celebrating his victory for the Democratic nomination in the Californian primary. Johnson kept the weapon in his pocket before handing it to the police. Later he was a pall-bearer at the funeral.
Although
Johnson was renowned for his physical prowess, he had also campaigned for the rights of blacks and the deprived in the United States, and he saw in Kennedy someone who might improve people’s lives. Johnson’s honour in 1960 of being the first black athlete to carry the flag at the opening ceremony of the Olympics had been symbolic.
Rafer Lewis Johnson was born in Hillsboro, Texas, the second of six siblings, to Lewis, a cotton picker, and Alma Gibson. They later moved to San Joaquin Valley in California, where all the family worked in the fields. In his autobiography, The Best I Can Be, Johnson recalled: ‘‘Thinking about picking cotton brings tears to my eyes to this day, just from remembering how hard my parents had to toil to earn ameagre living.’’
In high school, Johnson was outstanding at American football, baseball and basketball. However, he preferred athletics, saying: ‘‘There was something pure and innocent about the sport. You ran, you jumped and you threw things, just as young men had done since the dawn of civilisation.’’
He won state high school decathlon titles and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The state was regarded as less prejudiced than the South, but Johnson was still confronted by racism. When he was elected student president, among the hostile remarks aimed at him was a letter saying: ‘‘Who do you think you are, black boy?’’
Johnson’s all-round physical ability and size – hewas 6ft 2in (1.88 metres) and 89 kilograms – quickly brought him success. He set aworld decathlon record in winning the 1955 Pan American Games and was selected for the 1956 Olympics for the decathlon and long jump. But a knee injury resulted in him finishing second to his compatriot Milt Campbell in the decathlon.
Johnson’s preparations for the 1960 Olympics were handicapped by an injury, suffered in a road accident, and also by a lack of money. He helped to keep himself by working in a hamburger restaurant. However, he benefited from the guidance of athlete b August 18, 1934 d December 2, 2020
‘‘There was something pure and innocent about [athletics]. You ran, you jumped and you threw things, just as young men had done since the dawn of civilisation.’’ Rafer Johnson
the celebrated coach ‘‘Ducky’’ Drake at UCLA, where another student, Yang Chuan-Kwang of Formosa (now Taiwan), became a training partner and rival.
Johnson, who again set aworld record in qualifying for the Games, addressed the crowd in the New York sendoff for the US team. In his book Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World, David Maraniss wrote of Johnson: ‘‘He flawlessly called out the names of dozens of his teammates who stood by his side. He had a firm grasp of the occasion and team officials took notice.’’ He was chosen as the flag bearer.
The contest with Yang was so close that there was never more than 144 points between them. In the last of the ten disciplines, the 1500m, Yang, the superior runner, needed to finish 10 seconds clear of his friend. Johnson asked Drake what he should do. The advice was to stay right behind Yang and prepare for a ‘‘hellish sprint’’ at the end. When Yang sought help, the reply came that he should build up a big lead and go all out on the last lap. In the race, Yang was unable to shake off Johnson. As the pair embraced, the crowd chanted, ‘‘Give them both gold medals’’.
After hanging up his spikes, Johnson became a sports broadcaster and a goodwill ambassador for the State Department. He also appeared in a James Bond film Licence to Kill, and with Elvis Presley in Wild in the Country. In 1969, he founded the Californian Special Olympics for people with disabilities and subsequently promoted the American Red Cross and Muscular Dystrophy Association.
He married Betsy Thorsen in 1971. They had two children, Joshua, who threw the javelin for UCLA, and Jennifer, amember of the US women’s beach volleyball team at the 2000 Olympics. All survive him.
Johnson was a leading figure in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and was chosen to light the flame. This involved, at 49, running up 99 narrow steep steps, carrying the blazing torch, with the world watching. He recalled: ‘‘I was in a sense an Olympian again.’’
Peter Ueberroth, the president of the 1984 organising committee, said of Johnson’s contribution to those Games and to the less privileged in society: ‘‘He was just one great person, amarvellous human being.’’ –