Russell, Richard (1897–1971), governor of Georgia and U.S. senator.A widely respected political figure, Russell, a Democrat, served in the U.S. Senate from 1933 to 1971. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1968, he greatly influenced American military and foreign policy in the post–World War II era.

A leader of southern senators against civil rights, Russell unsuccessfully opposed President Harry S. Truman's 1948 integration of the military. In 1951, his deft leadership helped assuage the outcry over Truman's dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of United Nations forces in the Korean War. As chairman of a Senate inquiry into MacArthur's dismissal, Russell provided Truman's congressional opponents an outlet for their anger and prevented expansion of the war and cancellation of armistice negotiations.

Although a strong supporter of Truman's Korean policy, Russell opposed America's initial involvement in Southeast Asia in 1954. By the mid‐1960s, he became a reluctant supporter of Presidents Johnson and Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War, although he expressed strong concerns that neither man was willing to pursue a decisive victory over North Vietnam. In 1968, Russell relinquished his Armed Services chairmanship in order to head the Appropriations Committee, where he secured continued funding for the war.
[See also Vinson, Carl.]

Bibliography

Gilbert C. Fite , Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia, 1991.
John A. Goldsmith , Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1993.

Robert Mann

RUSSELL, RICHARD

Member of English Chapter and bishop; b. Berkshire, 1630; d. Vizeu, Portugal, Nov. 15, 1693. At an early age Richard (apparently of humble origins) went to Lisbon in the service of the English College there, and in 1647 he enrolled as a student for the priesthood. He finished his studies at Douai and Paris and was ordained in 1655. For the next 15 years his life was about equally divided between Portugal, where he served as the procurator of the English College at Lisbon (1657) and secretary to Queen Luisa (1660), and England, where he was chaplain to the Portuguese ambassador, Francisco de Mello, and made a canon of the English Chapter (1661). The Chapter, almost desperate after its long agitation to obtain a bishop with ordinary jurisdiction for England, saw in Russell's unique position a final hope—as a consecrated bishop of a Portuguese see, he could resign, return to England, and assume an episcopal leadership of the English clergy. Russell, resisting his old Chapter loyalties, saw the scheme as thinly disguised schism. He accepted the See of Portalegre in 1671 and remained there for ten years, relinquishing it only for another Portuguese see, that of Vizeu. There till his death, he was a worthy bishop, zealous and efficient for reform. In England, in the meanwhile, Philip Howard had been consecrated vicar apostolic, thus ending whatever danger of schism still remained.

Bibliography: j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time, 5 v. (London-New York 1885–1902; repr. New York 1961) 5:455–457. w. m. brady, Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland, and Ireland (Rome 1876–77). w. croft, Historical Account of Lisbon College (Barnet, England 1902).

[r. i. bradley]