Biography

Robertson Lee Johnson was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1930. His father managed a sawmill in Toledo, Oregon, where he spent most of his childhood. His family relocated to Portland when Johnson was 11 years old. He then attended prep school in New Jersey, then Princeton. In 1953, he joined the U.S. Navy and served as a staff communications officer. After leaving the Navy in 1956, he attended Stanford Law School, graduating in 1959. He grew up with Dorothy Marie Miller, and the two began dating while Johnson was in the Navy. They married in 1956 and had five children. Johnson worked for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., right after graduating from Stanford. After a few years, he returned to Oregon, practiced law in Portland, and entered politics. Johnson, a Republican, represented Multnomah County in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1965 to 1968, was attorney general for Oregon from 1969 to 1975. He was briefly a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals, from 1977 to 1978, then he worked in the administration of Governor Vic Atiyeh. Subsequently, he served as a judge on the Multnomah County Circuit Court from 1983 to 1995. He died in 2009.

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