Bradley Knew He Had a Winning Hand

Among the moments Peter Ueberroth remembers most fondly from his Los Angeles Olympic experience is watching Mayor Tom Bradley swing the Olympic flag during formal presentations at the opening ceremony.

They had become close friends. Ueberroth, the suburban Republican businessman, and Bradley, the street-smart Democratic city politician, were an unlikely pair of bosom buddies.

But Ueberroth, who had been brought on board to run the Los Angeles Olympics after they had been acquired in early 1978, understood and appreciated what Bradley had done to keep his city’s Olympic dream afloat.

“Without him,” Ueberroth says now, “it never would have happened.”

Amy Quinn, the L.A. Olympic Organizing Committee’s news secretary, says, “Had he failed, had the Olympics failed in Los Angeles, he would have never recovered politically.”

When the Games were awarded to Los Angeles by the International Olympic Committee, there was a caveat: Los Angeles had to find a way to get public funding. The IOC feared that, without some sort of governmental commitment, it could be left holding the bag. Los Angeles, then as now, doesn’t commit public money easily to anything, especially a 16-day sporting event.

The LAOOC knew it could run a profitable Games, but the IOC wouldn’t budge and so finally, Bradley became the front man for the Great L.A. Olympic Bluff. On July 18, 1978, only months after the Games had been conditionally awarded and at a time when the IOC was pressing hard, Bradley announced that his city would have to back out of the Games. It could not meet the IOC’s demands. His message was along the lines of, “Sorry, we won’t be able to do it your way, so it looks like you’ll have to take your Games elsewhere.”

Well, elsewhere wasn’t going to be easy, because L.A. had been the only bidder. Bradley knew the IOC’s comfort zone did not include starting that process over. It had a bird in the hand, Los Angeles.

Soon after the gauntlet was thrown down, the IOC softened, finding a face-saving out in a guarantee-against-loss offer from the U.S. Olympic Committee. Bradley had won the poker game for Los Angeles.

So the Games of the 23rd Olympiad opened, with a record 140 nations competing, despite a boycott by most of the Soviet Bloc countries.

It was a ceremony that took 200 minutes, included the release of 2,500 pigeons and 1,065 balloons, featured music from 84 baby grand pianos, and cost $5 million. President Reagan officially opened the Games with a 16-word Olympic statement spoken from behind bulletproof glass. Gina Hemphill, granddaughter of 1936 Olympic hero Jesse Owens, made the last trip around the track with the Olympic flame before handing it off to Rafer Johnson, who climbed the ladder to the torch caldron in the peristyle end of the Coliseum, looked out on the crowd of 93,000 and, expressionless, ignited the flame that circled the Olympic rings.

Jim Murray, the legendary sports columnist of The Times, who would win a Pulitzer prize six years later for his stylish offerings to the readers of Southern California, wrote the next day:

“Well, it’s here and it’s happened. The Olympic Games they said would never take place are taking place. ... The Olympics that every two-bit politician with an election coming up tried to block now find these same politicians, standing with their hats over their hearts, tears in their eyes, wishing they could take credit.”

On the floor of the Coliseum, Tom Bradley was swinging the flag, a broad grin across his face. He was a politician, but not one of Murray’s two-bit variety. The credit he was taking was deserved.

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-- Bill Dwyre