[Senate Document 105-8]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



105th Congress, 2d Session  - - - - - - - - - - Senate Document 105-008


 
             Dedication and Unveiling of the Statue of
                     RICHARD BREVARD RUSSELL, JR.





                   Proceedings in the Rotunda of the
                     Russell Senate Office Building

                            Washington, DC

                           January 24, 1996





A Senator for the Ages






                  Senator Richard Brevard Russell, Jr.
                              1897-1971



105th Congress, 2d Session  - - - - - - - - - - Senate Document 105-008

                Dedication and Unveiling of the Statue of

                      RICHARD BREVARD RUSSELL, JR.





                   Proceedings in the Rotunda of the
                     Russell Senate Office Building

                            Washington, DC

                           January 24, 1996

        Printed by the United States Government Printing Office
                         Washington, DC:  1997 


                Presented to the United States Senate
                           on behalf of the

                     Richard B. Russell Foundation

     The Richard B. Russell Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit 
organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Richard B. Russell, 
Jr. through the Richard B. Russell Chair in American History, 
scholarship awards, other public service endeavors, and the Richard B. 
Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, The University of 
Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia.

                     Foundation Board of Trustees

                          Frank J. Barron, Jr.
                            William M. Bates
                     The Honorable Michael J. Bowers
                            Dr. D.W. Brooks
                           Otis A. Brumby, Jr.
                     Charles E. Campbell, Chairman
                          Thomas G. Cousins
                         Bradley L. Currey, Jr.
                    The Honorable George W. Darden
                      Charles L. Gowen, Treasurer
                           Don Elliott Heald
                            Jesse Hill, Jr.
                      The Honorable Pierre Howard
                            David E. Hudson
                           W. Thomas Johnson
                         William H. Jordan, Jr.
                          Dr. Charles B. Knapp
                          Earl T. Leonard, Jr.
                            Powell A. Moore
                        William H. NeSmith, Jr.
                 William L. Norton, Jr., Vice-Chairman
                          Hugh Peterson, Jr.
                        Dr. Stephen R. Portch
                  Dr. William Gray Potter, Secretary
                 The Honorable Robert G. Stephens, Jr.
            The Honorable Herman Talmadge, Chairman Emeritus
                         Jack W. Tarver
                 Norman L. Underwood, Vice-Chairman
                      Betty Russell Vandiver
                           T. Rogers Wade



                           Accepted by the

                United States Senate Commission on Art

                      Bob Dole, Kansas, Chairman
             Thomas A. Daschle, South Dakota, Vice Chairman
  Strom Thurmond, South Carolina           Wendell H. Ford, Kentucky
  John W. Warner, Virginia

                Kelly D. Johnston, Executive Secretary
                       Diane K. Skvarla, Curator






Color guard at the opening of the dedication ceremony in the rotunda 
of the Richard Brevard Russell Office Building.



                                  CONTENTS

Dedication and Unveiling Ceremony...................................  1

"Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. (1897-1971)," by Senator Robert C. 
     Byrd (D-WV) Congressional Record, February 1, 1988............. 25

Resolution Designating the "Richard Brevard Russell Office Building"   
    (S. Res. 296, 92d Congress, 2d Sess.) .......................... 54

The Russell Senate Office Building.................................. 55

Sculptor Frederick E. Hart.......................................... 58
    Biography
    Sculptor's Notes
    Vincent Palumbo

Appendix I: Remarks by Charles E. Campbell, Russell Statue Luncheon,
    Governor's Mansion, Atlanta, Georgia, October 23, 1995.......... 61

Appendix II: Chronology............................................. 65

Appendix III: Bibliography.......................................... 66

Appendix IV: Acknowledgments........................................ 67






Unveiling of the Richard B. Russell, Jr. statue.



                    Dedication and Unveiling of the
                             Statue of 
                     Richard Brevard Russell, Jr.
                 Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda
                         January 24, 1996
                             4:00 p.m.


                       Armed Forces Color Guard
                                 and
                  "The President's Own" Marine Quintet

                              Benediction
                 Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, Senate Chaplain

                              Proceedings

                          Vice President Al Gore               
                 Richard Russell, A President's Senator  

                          Senator Robert C. Byrd
                  Richard Russell, A Senator's Senator

                          Senator Ted Stevens
                  Richard Russell, A Senator's Senator

                          Governor Zell Miller
                   Richard Russell, Georgia's Senator

                            Senator Sam Nunn
                          Master of Ceremonies

                      Recognition of Special Guests
                      Charles E. Campbell, Chairman
                      Richard B. Russell Foundation

                           Unveiling of Statue
                       Frederick E. Hart, Sculptor
                              Russell Family

                                 Reception






The Richard B. Russell, Jr. statue unveiled.



                                 PROCEEDINGS

     Senator Nunn. Our beloved Senate Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie,
will give the invocation. 

     Chaplain Ogilvie. Let us pray. Almighty God, sovereign of our 
beloved nation and Lord of our lives, we praise you that you call 
leaders to shape the course of history. 

     We have gathered here today to thank you for the impact on history
of Senator Richard Russell. Here in this building that bears his name, 
we place this statue of his likeness. May this statue call all of us to
the excellence that distinguished his career, the nobility of his 
character that made an indelible mark on history, and his faith in 
you that gave him supernatural gifts of wisdom and discernment and 
vision. 

     Thank you for the lasting impact of the rare blend of humility and
stature, patriotism and statesmanship that made him a legend in his 
own time--Georgia's pride, a lodestar leader, a senator's senator for 
thirty-eigth years, and a truly great American. May we measure our 
commitment by his indefatigable faithfulness and set as a 
benchmark for our lives his belief that work in the government is 
one of the highest callings.

     In this spirit of dedication to your best for America and in 
affirmation of this giant of history, we renew our commitment to 
serve you. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

     Senator Nunn. Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated.

     Charlie Campbell, the president of the Russell Foundation, will 
give more elaborate introductions, but let me begin by welcoming the 
members of the Russell family here today. I understand there are 
about one hundred of you. We are very, very proud to have each and 
every one of you here.

     The Russell trustees and supporters, we welcome you, and we thank 
you for all of your efforts in making this historic day possible; past 
and present members of the United States Senate who will be 
introduced later; and friends and admirers of Richard B. Russell.

     This is indeed an important event in the life of the United States
Senate. Every day since I have been serving in this unique legislative 
body, I have considered it a great honor to be the temporary holder 
of what I think of as the Russell seat in the Senate.

     I am also proud that I had the opportunity to follow Senator 
Russell's footsteps as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
which he chaired so ably for fifteen years during the Cold War, the 
Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the construction of the 
Berlin Wall.

     I will never forget when I was a twenty-three-year-old lawyer 
sitting in the back of the Senate Armed Services Chamber right down 
the hall as Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, the chairman of the 
House Armed Services Committee, presented the House position on a 
legislative matter to Senator Richard Russell at the other end of the 
table, also of Georgia and chairman of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee. Those were the days for Georgia and for our nation.

     Twenty-seven years later, as chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, I watched with the rest of the world as the Berlin Wall 
was torn down, Eastern Europe regained its freedom, and the Soviet 
empire disintegrated. I have often thought that this occurred without 
a nuclear war and without worldwide destruction in considerable 
part because of the wise leadership of Richard Russell and Carl 
Vinson in building a strong United States and a strong NATO alliance.

[Applause.]

     When this historic building was named in honor of Richard Brevard 
Russell in 1972, the powerful imprint of his record of service was 
still very fresh in the memory of the Senate and of our nation. Today, 
with the dedication of this magnificent statue, we have occasion to 
remember why Richard Russell made such an indelible imprint on 
the history of Georgia, the U.S. Senate, and our nation.

     Although our nation is very different today than it was at the 
time of Senator Russell's election in 1932, or even at the time of his 
death twenty-five  years ago, his service and his example are more 
instructive now than ever before.

     In this context, no one is better suited to begin this ceremony of
remembrance, recognition, and dedication than our next speaker. 
Like Richard Russell, Vice President Al Gore was molded by his 
southern heritage and by a loving family that encouraged and 
supported his early and energetic and total commitment to public 
service.

     Like Richard Russell, Al Gore is the son of a prominent political 
father. Indeed, Al Gore, Sr. served in the Senate with Richard Russell 
and with many in attendance here today. Richard Russell's own 
father was chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, and in that 
capacity, administered the oath of office when his son became 
Governor Russell of Georgia. 

     Just as our vice president was known as "Young Al" when he began 
his political career, Richard Russell was known as "Young Dick." Like 
Richard Russell, Al Gore spent a lot of time on the family farm, and as
young boys these youthful experiences gave both men a special 
understanding of people who work with their hands, work in manual 
labor, as well as an abiding appreciation of conservation and the 
environment. 

     Like Richard Russell, Al Gore served on the Senate Armed Services 
Committee and devoted a considerable portion of his time to building 
a stronger America and a safer world. Like Richard Russell, Al Gore 
was elected as a very young man to Congress, and he has dedicated 
his life to the people of his state and to the people of our nation. 

     Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome the Vice President 
of the United States. 

[Applause.]


                            Richard Russell,
                         A President's Senator
                       by Vice President Al Gore

     Vice President Gore. Thank you. 

[Continuing applause.]

     Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, ladies and 
gentlemen. 

     And, Senator Nunn, thank you for your very kind words of 
introduction. One of my greatest honors in the time I served in the 
United States Senate was serving under your chairmanship on the 
Armed Services Committee, and thank you so much for your kind 
words. 

     Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens, two close friends and great 
leaders of this institution, other members of the Senate who are 
present--forgive me for not even attempting to single out individual 
senators because there is such a great turnout and such a large 
presence here at this event--former members of the Senate who are 
here, as well. 

     Governor Zell Miller, thank you for honoring us and this occasion 
with your presence here, and thank you for your leadership in 
Georgia and in our country. 

     To Charles Campbell, Chairman of the Richard B. Russell 
Foundation; to Frederick Hart, the sculptor; and to Chaplain Ogilvie--
thank you for your invocation; to members of the family of Senator 
Russell--Carolyn Nelson and Pat Peterson especially, sisters of Senator Russell; to all of the other family members who are here.

     It is an honor to him that so many of you are 
present. This really is a very, very special day, and to hear Sam Nunn 
introduce me with even slight comparisons is beyond what I can'
that sets off my hubris alarm, Sam, because Senator Russell is rightly 
regarded as a legend, and all who had the privilege of serving with 
him understand that.

     Incidentally, not too many days ago some tourists remarked to an 
acquaintance of mine from Tennessee that they had seen the Al 
Gore statue on the White House lawn, and I said, "What day was 
that?"

[Laughter.]

     It's been so cold here recently people who don't know me thought I
was frozen stiff. But in any event, ladies and gentlemen, from this 
day forward, in the rotunda of this majestic building named in his 
honor, a statue of Richard Brevard Russell will stand sentry. Georgia's
senator, America's senator, a legendary figure in American politics 
will gaze over us--a fitting tribute to a towering presence.

     I knew Senator Russell when I was a young man. I did not have the 
opportunity to serve in the Congress during his time of service, but 
my father's service in the Congress overlapped with his for thirty-
two years. These two men had a great deal in common. Eighteen of 
those years my father served in the Senate with Senator Russell. 
Both were sons of the South and both provided shoulders on which a 
new generation of Democrats now stands. 

     Both believed that public service was an honorable calling that 
demanded common courtesy and rewarded basic decency. Both 
marched in the direction pointed by the compass of their conscience, 
no matter the prevailing winds or the calls to shift their course. 

     I remember often hearing my father say that whatever their 
occasional disagreements--and they did have some; on occasion they 
stood toe to toe, but when it came to certain core ideals; love of 
country, devotion to duty, respect for principles, they always saw 
eye to eye. But whatever the occasional disagreements, on one 
matter my father was resolute whenever he spoke about Senator 
Russell. Dick Russell had a heart of gold and was one of the most 
honorable individuals ever to serve in the United States Senate 
throughout its more than two-hundred-year history.

     To six United States presidents, Richard Russell was a mentor and 
an occasional menace. He stood up for Franklin Roosevelt at the 1932 
Democratic Convention, nominating him for president when some 
people thought Roosevelt couldn't win. And then he stood up to 
Roosevelt a few years later, casting a deciding vote against his Court-
packing plan when some people thought Roosevelt couldn't lose. 

     He challenged Harry Truman for the presidential nomination in 
1948, but he challenged the nation to honor Truman's authority as 
commander in chief when he presided over the Senate's Army-
MacArthur hearings three years later.

     President Johnson knew him best among all the presidents served 
by Richard Russell, and the relationship between Richard Russell and 
Lyndon Johnson began as so many of his relationships had. Johnson 
was the student, and Russell was the teacher.

     They became very, very close friends, even though they too had 
occasional disagreements and feuded from time to time. And Johnson 
owed much of his rise to the benevolence and wisdom of the Georgia 
Giant.

     Senator Russell, we all remember, was an austere man, and, 
ironically, Johnson lavished him with gifts from time to time--fancy 
neckties, glass bowls, one time a watch just like the one that 
President Johnson wore. And, as the story goes, one Christmas 
Johnson gave Senator Russell a beautiful Christian Dior handkerchief. 
The senator thanked him, and he said, "Now, Lyndon, I'm going to 
have to buy a new suit to go with this."

     When Johnson was vice president, he hosted a dinner in Senator 
Russell's honor, which was a grand affair swarming with cabinet 
officers, elected officials, and Washington's elite. And at that 
dinner, Johnson told the assembled gathering that if he were able to 
personally choose the president of the United States, he would select 
Richard Russell.

     Richard Russell was indeed a president's senator and a senator's 
senator. And if things had gone a little bit differently, if the South 
had been a little bit different, if other things had been just a 
little bit different, he might have been a senator's president.

     On some things Senator Russell was way ahead of his time, a 
little bit like that great Barbara Mandrell song "I Was Country When 
Country Wasn't Cool." For example, Richard Russell was reinventing 
government before reinventing government was cool.

     We're still in that period before reinventing government is cool.

[Laughter.]

     As governor, he reduced the number of state bureaus, commissions, 
and agencies from 102 to 17. He cut the cost of government 20 
percent, saved the state the then-astronomical sum of a million 
dollars. He knew that a government that didn't spend money as 
wisely and carefully as a family could never earn any family's 
respect.

     On national security, of course, Senator Russell had no peer. He 
championed a robust national defense, and he helped build a 
Pentagon that was the envy of the world. He also influenced all of 
those who came after him. Many members of the United States 
Senate today owe something of their bearing and approach to the job 
to their learning experience in watching Senator Russell.

     In fact, I have sometimes thought--and I dare say I'm not the 
only one--in watching the level of excellence brought to the job of 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee and now ranking 
member by Sam Nunn--that his experience, along with others, in 
watching Senator Russell was an important factor in giving our 
nation the degree of commitment to public service that we find from 
so many who watched Senator Russell carefully.

     But perhaps his most lasting influence was on matters that were 
less explosive and less immediately tied to life and death, less 
immediately newsworthy--bringing electricity to rural America, 
getting loans for Georgia's farmers, making sure that poor children 
could eat a decent lunch at school. And there was always that 
reverence to his life, his spartan apartment, his utter devotion to 
the Senate as an institution, his enduring selflessness that inspired 
even those with whom he disagreed.

     I do understand that more than one-hundred members of the Russell 
family are here this afternoon, and we all thank you for sharing your 
outstanding brother, uncle, cousin with the United States of America.

     I guess we all should have expected, however, that even at the 
dedication of his statue, Senator Russell would make certain he had 
the votes to come out on top in case any question was put.

[Laughter.]

     There's no need to worry about that this afternoon. Today and 
forever, this leader, this patriot, this legend, remains where he 
belongs--in the Senate standing tall.

[Applause.]

     Senator NUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Richard 
Russell was an astute judge of the character and the quality of his 
fellow senators. He made his judgment, not only on the basis of their 
words, but also on the basis of what he observed--their deeds. When 
Richard Russell determined that you were a man or woman of honor, 
he was your champion for life.

     One young senator who met this Russell test was Robert Byrd. The 
last vote Senator Russell cast before he died was cast from his 
hospital bed in favor of Robert Byrd's bid to become the majority 
whip of the Senate in 1971.

     Senator Russell was an advisor and confidant to six presidents. 
He served under seven, but only a brief time under one. He had the 
deepest respect for the office of president, so much so that he never 
called any sitting president, even his old friend and protï¿½gï¿½ Lyndon 
Johnson, anything but Mr. President.

     With a similar respect, Senator Byrd never called Senator Russell 
anything but Senator Russell. Senator Russell believed strongly in the 
independence and coequal role of the Congress of the United States, 
and he insisted on more than one occasion that he had not served 
under six presidents, Al, but rather, he served with six presidents--a 
real difference.

     Like Richard Russell, Robert Byrd reveres the Senate of the United
States, not just because he serves in it, but because of his respect 
for its role in the history of our nation and the world. Like Richard 
Russell in his day, Robert Byrd by the power of his intellect, by the 
depth of his understanding of history and the Senate rules, by the 
strength of his character, and by his faith in God, is today the 
custodian of the Senate ideals that go back, not only to the founding 
fathers but, indeed, to ancient Rome.

     Like Richard Russell, Robert Byrd embodies the traditions, the 
dignity, and, indeed, the honor of the United States Senate. It is my 
great privilege to introduce the honored friend of Richard B. Russell, 
Robert C. Byrd.

[Applause.]


                           Richard Russell,
                         A Senator's Senator
                  by Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)

     Senator Byrd. Thank you.

     Mr. Vice President, my colleagues, fellow Ameri-cans, ladies and 
gentlemen.

     If I appear today to wear a pained expression, that's because I 
have some pain. If any of you have ever had the shingles, you know what
I'm talking about. Although a great number of people think I wear 
that expression all the time.

[Laughter.]

     And they're not far wrong.

     I want to thank, first of all, the Senate Chaplain, Dr. Ogilvie, 
who performed the most important part in the program. I thank Mr. 
Campbell for inviting me to participate in this program. And I thank 
Sam Nunn. He stepped into some big shoes when he came to the 
Senate, and those shoes fit today.
[Applause.]

     The Duke of Wellington once said that the presence of Napoleon on 
the field was worth forty thousand men in the balance. And so it is 
when Sam Nunn speaks on the subject of our national defense. He 
has no peer in the Senate, and everybody listens.

     Let me say that I'm very grateful for the presence of so many of 
our colleagues here today. My eyes are growing dim, but I had the 
pleasure of personally greeting some of my colleagues before I came 
up here. So I want to thank John Warner and Danny Inouye, and 
former senator and former judge Mr. Griffin; Thad Cochran and Jesse 
Helms, Mark Hatfield and Paul Sarbanes; and the only man in the 
Senate who has served longer in the Senate than I have, Strom 
Thurmond.

[Applause.]

     That is in the Senate.

     My tenure on the Hill is a little bit more than Strom's. Claiborne
Pell. And our old friend Russell Long.

[Applause.]

     Our great friend Mac Mathias, Paul Coverdell. I think I see Ted 
Moss and Wyche Fowler. There may be others. You'll forgive me if I 
can't see you from here, but thank you for coming.

     When I first came to the Senate in January 1959, my office was in 
room 342 of this building, then known as the Old Senate Office 
Building. That was still thirteen years before the Senate would adopt 
the resolution that I offered renaming the building in honor of 
Senator Richard Brevard Russell.

     Yet even though his name was not yet affixed to the wall of the 
building, it might well have been because he was the senator, the 
uncrowned king of the southern block, and he was as truly a Senate 
man as was Henry Clay or Daniel Webster or John C. Calhoun or 
Thomas Benton or any of the other giants who had preceded him.

     Back in January 1959, I was yet a relatively young senator of 
forty-one. Twenty years my senior, Senator Russell had already served 
over a quarter of a century in the United States Senate. He was a 
patrician in all aspects of the word, and of all the senators with 
whom I have served over these past thirty-seven years, he was the 
only senator whom I never addressed by his first name when 
speaking to him personally. That was the measure of my respect and 
admiration for Senator Richard Russell.

     On many occasions I sought his opinion and advice, and I always 
found him courteous and easy to talk with. He was urbane and 
scholarly, courtly and polite, a statesman by every definition.
His arrival in Washington in 1933 coincided with the start of 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal administration. Recognizing the 
severity of the Great Depression, Senator Russell gave loyal support 
to President Roosevelt whom he viewed as a great leader who 
sympathized with the problems of ordinary citizens. Russell's 
colleagues quickly recognized the talents and the abilities of this 
young senator. As a freshman, he won an almost unheard of 
appointment to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

     Richard Russell never married. We used to say he was married to 
the Senate. Governor Miller, he studied its traditions and its customs,
its rules, its history, and its practices assiduously. Ted Stevens, 
Senator Russell avoided speaking often on the floor but preferred to 
do his work quietly in the committee rooms.

     Senator Russell's philosophy of government was rooted in 
constitutionalism. His belief in the limits of federal power and the 
separation of powers among the three equal branches of government 
was the main force behind his opposition to what were popularly 
known then as civil rights acts. His attitude toward the role of 
government he summed up once by saying, "I am a reactionary when 
times are good; in a depression, I'm a liberal."

     He was always regarded as one of the most fair and conscientious 
members of this body. The truth of this was clearly demonstrated 
during the Senate inquiry of President Truman's dismissal of General 
Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea. Senator Russell 
presided over those hearings from May 3 to June 27, 1951. During 
that time, he was unfailingly courteous and was particularly 
solicitous of the general's views. In hindsight, it has been claimed 
that his judicious handling of this volatile event did much to diffuse 
an explosive situation.

     Through it all he served his nation well. Richard Russell followed 
his own star. He did not pander. His confidant was his conscience. He 
was always the good and faithful servant of the people. He was good for
the Senate, and he loved it dearly. I can say without any hesitation 
that he was a remarkable senator, a remarkable American, a 
remarkable man who enjoyed the respect and the affection of all 
who served with him.

     In the death of Senator Russell, I felt a great personal loss. 
From my first days in the Senate, I looked upon him as my mentor, and 
he was the man I most admired in Washington, a man of great intellect, 
the finest of public servants, and his patriotism and love of country 
will never be excelled.

     "I saw the sun sink in the golden west 
     No angry cloud obscured its latest ray;
     Around the couch on which it sank to rest 
     Shone all the splendors of a summer day,
     And long--though lost of view--its radiant light 
     Reflected from the skies, delayed the night. 

     "Thus, when a good man's life comes to a close, 
     No doubts arise to cloud his soul with gloom; 
     But faith triumphant on each feature glows 
     And benedictions fill the sacred room; 
     And long do men his virtues wide proclaim, 
     And generations rise to bless his name."

     And so to his kinspeople, to his kinspeople and his host of 
friends, I say, I am honored indeed to have been invited to participate
in this ceremony in which we dedicate this handiwork of the sculptor to
the memory of Richard Brevard Russell, late a senator from the state of
Georgia. How poor this world would be without the memories of its 
mighty dead. Only the voiceless speak forever, the memory of this 
noble man will ever be like a star which is not extinguished when it 
sets upon the distant horizon. It but goes to shine in other skies and 
then reappears in ours as fresh as when it first arose.

[Applause.]

     Senator Nunn. The distinguished senator we will hear from next 
also served with Senator Russell, but from across the aisle. Like 
Richard Russell, Ted Stevens's record of supporting his state's 
concerns and his record on national and international issues have made 
him a formidable force in his own home state and throughout the nation.
In his own state of Alaska, his record discourages most potential 
opposition and crushes those who are daring enough to run against 
him.

     Like Richard Russell, Ted Stevens has chaired the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee and has been an effective proponent 
of a strong national defense. Like Senator Russell, Ted Stevens is a 
champion of both our veterans and our men and women in uniform, 
and he fights to see that our troops have the weapons and the 
equipment they need to prevail in combat.

     Like Richard Russell, Ted Stevens believes that when our flag is 
committed, it is time to transcend partisan politics and to support our
troops. Richard Russell once described the legislative process well 
when he said, quoting him, "Only through a meeting of the minds and 
by concessions can we legislate."

     Like Richard Russell, Ted Stevens understands that the legislation
requires cooperation and coalition building in both political parties, 
not only to pass but to last.

     Ted, to you and to my good friend and colleague Paul Coverdell, I 
have one message for Majority Leader Bob Dole who wanted to be 
here today but had other pressing commitments. In Georgia, we have 
a small town that might remind Bob Dole of home in case he ever has 
any reason in the next few weeks or months to wander into our 
territory, and it's called Russell, Georgia. We'll be proud to have him
there at any time.

     I am proud to present to you the distinguished senator from the 
state of Alaska, a friend of Richard Russell, the Honorable Ted 
Stevens.

[Applause.]

                          Richard Russell,
                        A Senator's Senator
                     by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)

     Senator Stevens. Thank you very much, Senator Nunn. You 
embarrassed me with that introduction. I am delighted to be able to 
pinch-hit for Senator Dole and to be here with this distinguished 
group.

     After listening to my good friend--and he is my great friend--
Senator Byrd, I am reminded of a friend of mine that told me when he 
was ready to make a speech he felt like Lady Astor's seventh husband. 
He knew what he had to do, but he didn't know how to make it 
interesting.

[Laughter.]

     After a speech such as Senator Byrd's and the vice president's, 
I'm humbled to be here. But I am delighted to be here, Sam, because as 
you said, Senator Russell was the chairman of the subcommittee that 
I've been chairman of twice now, and that's the Defense 
Subcommittee, and I really feel greatly the responsibility of that 
position.

     Because he spent half of his lifetime in the Senate and enjoyed 
relationships with every president from Franklin Roosevelt to 
Richard Nixon, as you've heard, Senator Russell had a deep 
understanding of the nation and a deeper understanding of how our 
government works, more so than most Americans.

     He was very generous in sharing his wisdom and insight with new 
senators regardless of their political affiliation. That legacy lives 
on today, and I am one of the beneficiaries as Senator Nunn mentioned. 
Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Senator Mansfield, Senator 
Stennis are people who served with him. They served as mentors for 
me and others, regardless of politics.

     When we came to the Senate, and I came to the Senate twenty-eight 
years ago, we were the recipients of the attention of Senator Russell, 
and we were guided by the senators that he had so well instilled 
with the love of this institution. As they took us under their wing, as
Senator Russell had done to them, they counseled us in our first 
years in the Senate. Those were years when senators were seen and 
not heard for a few years, but I was an appointed senator so they 
sort of made an exception because they weren't sure I'd be back.

     I think that there was no question that at that time we all 
recognized that we were serving with the foremost congressional 
authority on our nation's defense, and really the architect of our 
nation's security. He was chairman of the Armed Services Committee and chairman of 
the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee at the same time as I 
recall. I always remember that, because I'm sorry that I can't enjoy 
that same circumstance. Senator Hatfield will understand that.

     But it is something for all of us to remember that he worked 
primarily to assure that this nation remained strong. And he was 
very bipartisan in dealing with that, and I'm very serious about 
saying he took time with young senators to explain his 
understanding of defense and why it was so necessary to keep such a 
firm foundation.

     I think he played a greater role than any other senator in shaping
the defense establishment of our post-World War II period here in 
America. President Nixon said this of Senator Russell, "When the 
security of the United States was at issue, six American presidents 
leaned upon this great patriot," Richard Russell. "He never failed 
them."

     By remaining bipartisan, Senator Russell kept our nation from 
retreating into isolationism during a period that was very essential to
our history, the period right after World War II.

     Long before Dwight Eisenhower became president, Senator Russell 
and Ike were great friends. Their friendship continued and grew 
after Eisenhower was in the White House.

     In testimony to America's spirit of democracy throughout the 
world, Senator Russell showed our nation the importance of rebuilding, 
rebuilding not only our nation but our enemies'--Germany and 
Japan--after World War II.

     Ensuring that the Marshall Plan became a reality was one of Dick 
Russell's real goals, and he was most successful. And while he was a 
tower of strength for our national defense, I am sure you know, Sam 
and the senators here from Georgia, he was a faithful representative 
of the people of Georgia. He saw better than others the future of the 
burgeoning discoveries in science and ensured that funds would be 
available for research in new technologies in medicine, agriculture, 
and in conservation. 

     I feel truly honored to have been able to serve with Richard 
Russell, and I am deeply honored to my friend Robert Dole for being 
elsewhere so I could say it here today. Twenty-five years ago, just a 
few years after his death, I was a young senator, but I joined other 
senators in paying tribute to our departed friend. 

     Let me just repeat now what I said then. He never sought publicity
nor attempted to impress his colleagues with flashy rhetoric, but that 
is not to say he was not a forceful advocate and a fierce adversary. I 
am confident that history will mark him as a consummate statesman 
who transcended regional boundaries to become a senator for all 
here in the United States. He was a paragon worth emulating by 
those who would pursue a life in public service. 

     Nothing has changed in the twenty-five years since I said those 
words. Russell is still a great influence, his legacy is alive today 
as it was then, his achievements and unique abilities will never be 
forgotten as Senator Byrd has so ably said, and I'm pleased to be 
here to be part of the dedication of this statue and pleased even 
more, as I said, to have been fortunate enough to have been able to 
serve with this great man, Richard Russell. 

     Thank you very much. 

[Applause.] 

     Senator Nunn. Like Richard Russell, our next speaker has dedicated
his life to public service, and has recognized that political leader-
ship is an honorable calling. Like Richard Russell, Zell Miller comes 
from north of what we in Georgia call "The Gnat Line," the geological 
fall-line that separates north Georgia from south Georgia, with 90 
percent of the gnats on the southern side of the line where I live. 

     Many north Georgia politicians never get elected because they 
never master a vital skill; that is, to be able to blow away the gnats 
and talk at the same time. 

[Laughter and applause.] 

     Like Richard Russell, Zell Miller clearly mastered this skill 
despite his geographic disadvantage. 

     Like Governor Richard Russell and Senator Richard Russell, 
Governor Zell Miller has been a champion of job creation and fiscal 
responsibility. 

     Like Richard Russell, Zell Miller has a powerful commitment to the
education of all of our children. As governor of Georgia, Richard 
Russell recognized and reorganized higher education. He established 
the board of regents and paved the way for Georgia's top institutions 
to become leaders in our nation. 

     In Washington, Senator Russell was the father of the school lunch 
program, one of his proudest accomplishments. 

     As governor, Zell Miller established the HOPE Scholarship Program 
which enables every student in Georgia who achieves a B average in 
high school to receive free tuition in college for as long as they 
maintain a B average. Currently, over 105,000 Georgia students are 
being helped by this program. 

[Applause.] 

     As governor, Zell Miller is the father also of Georgia's pre-
kindergarten program, the most comprehensive program for four-
year-olds in the entire nation, one of his proudest accomplishments. 

     Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to introduce the Governor of 
Georgia, my good friend, the Honorable Zell Miller. 

[Applause.] 

                            Richard Russell,
                           Georgia's Senator
                  by Governor Zell Miller of Georgia

     Governor Miller. Thank you. 

     Thank you very much, Senator Nunn, for that introduction, but, 
most 
importantly, thank you for all that you have done for our state of 
Georgia and for this nation.

[Applause.]

     Mr. Vice President, Senator Byrd, Senator Stevens, Senator 
Coverdell, other members of the U.S. Senate present and past, members 
of the Georgia congressional delegation past and present, Russell 
Foundation Chairman Charles Campbell, former Georgia Governor Ernest 
Vandiver, and Mrs. Betty Russell Vandiver, and all the members of 
the Russell family.

[Applause.]

     Distinguished guests and ladies and gentlemen.
It is certainly a great honor to be on this platform and to have this 
opportunity to speak on behalf of the state of Georgia at this 
ceremony. Although it has now been twenty-five years, a quarter of 
a century, since his passing, many of us knew and still vividly 
remember Richard Russell.

     Some knew him as a senator's senator whose knowledge and 
reverence of the United States Senate as an institution was so deep 
that even his colleagues who opposed him on the issues, or had 
conflicting philosophies of government, had a level of respect for him 
that bordered on reverence.

     Others knew Richard Russell as a president's senator, personal 
advisor, as we have known, to six presidents beginning with Franklin 
Roosevelt. It was often said that the only power that the president 
had that Dick Russell didn't have was the ability to push the button. 
And no president would have thought of pushing that button without 
first consulting with Senator Russell.
But back home in Georgia we knew him as our senator, and when we 
sent him to Washington in 1933, it was because we already knew 
what a remarkable leader this man was.

     Dick Russell became the youngest member of the Georgia legislature
when he was elected state representative at the age of twenty-three, 
and he became speaker of the house of representatives in Georgia 
while he was still in his twenties. He was elected the youngest 
governor in Georgia's history at the age of thirty-three. During those 
early years in state government, he honed the leadership skills that 
served him so well in Washington.

     He was open, he was honest in his dealings, he was always fair and
civil to both sides in an argument, and once he had given his word he 
stood by it without equivocation.

     He was a genuine representative of the people who shunned 
political labels and special interests, and he was scrupulous about 
doing his homework on the issues, so that when he spoke, it was from 
personal understanding.

     The Dick Russell we Georgians knew regarded public service as his 
life and his work and devoted himself unstintingly to it. He worked 
twelve-hour days, cooked his own meals, washed his own socks in an 
austere bachelor apartment. He cared deeply about his large family, 
and his only indulgence was frequent visits with his kinfolk at the 
Russell family home in the little town of Winder, Georgia.

     Many of you, of course, remember him as Mr. Defense, the powerful 
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And in Georgia, 
we still feel the positive economic impact of the many federal 
facilities he brought to our state.

     In Georgia, we also remember, however, that by his own measure, as
Senator Nunn mentioned awhile ago, in his own mind the highest 
accomplishment of his career, and the only piece of legislation for 
which he jealously guarded his authorship, was the school lunch 
program.

     Here in Washington, his name lives on in this impressive Senate 
office building. In Georgia, the infrastructure is a little less 
imposing. The post office in Winder is named for him, as is an 
elementary school in Cobb County, an agriculture research center in 
Athens, the federal district courthouse in Atlanta, an Army Corps of 
Engineers reservoir, and a scenic stretch of north Georgia highway.

     But we really remember him better through ideas and intellect, the
Russell Chair in American History at the University of Georgia; the 
Russell All-State High School Debate Championship; the Russell 
Teaching Awards; the Russell Leadership Program for Outstanding 
College Students; the Russell Public Policy Symposium; and the 
Russell Library for Political Research and Studies.

     These activities are supported by the Richard B. Russell 
Foundation, which also commissioned this statue to bring a remembrance 
of the man himself into this building that honors him.

     But at the same time that we always remember Richard Russell as 
Georgia's senator, the unfailing champion in Washington of our 
interests and our state, at the same time we remember that, as 
another great Georgia senator by the name of Sam Nunn pointed out, 
Richard Russell was a statesman.

     And these are Sam Nunn's words: He understood the simple and 
powerful truth that the best way to serve your state is to do the best 
job you can in serving your nation.

     And that is what made him a senator's senator and a president's 
senator and Georgia's senator, and a senator for the ages.

[Applause.]

     Senator Nunn. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude our program and 
acknowledge our special guests and, in particular, the Russell family, 
I would like to call on Mr. Charles Campbell.

     Charlie served on the staff of Senator Russell during the last 
six years of his life and was his administrative assistant at the time 
of Senator Russell's death. Senator Byrd will recall that Charles was 
with Senator Russell when he cast his last vote that I mentioned 
earlier and that Senator Byrd mentioned--his vote by proxy from his 
hospital bed in 1971 for Senator Byrd to be majority whip.

     It is my pleasure to introduce the chairman of the Richard B. 
Russell Foundation and someone who must have been the youngest 
administrative assistant in the history of the United States Senate, 
Mr. Charlie Campbell.

[Applause.]

                      Recognition of Special Guests
                    by Charles E. Campbell, Chairman 
                      Richard B. Russell Foundation

     Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Senator Nunn.

     Vice President Gore, Senator Byrd, Senator Stevens, Senator Nunn, 
Governor Miller, other distinguished guests, friends and family of 
Senator Russell, ladies and gentlemen.

     On behalf of the Russell Foundation, it is my pleasure to welcome 
you to the dedication and unveiling of the Russell statue and to thank 
you for your attendance.

     There are so many distinguished guests present that we cannot hope
to recognize all of them, but I know Senator Russell would be 
particularly pleased with the large number of currently serving and 
former members of Congress in the audience. And I would like to ask 
all of the currently serving and former members of Congress, both 
House and Senate in attendance, to please stand and let us recognize 
them.

[Applause.]

     I want to recognize individually the senators who are here and who
served with Senator Russell. You have already met Senator Byrd and 
Senator Stevens. The other senators who served with Senator Russell 
and who are present today and still serving in the Senate are:

     Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon,
     Senator William Roth of Delaware,
     Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina,
     Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, and
     Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.

     I'd like to ask them to please stand and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     We are also delighted to have present certain former members of 
the Senate who served with Senator Russell, some for extended periods 
of time. I would now like to recognize these senators:

     Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana,
     Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana,
     Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland,
     Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan,
     Senator Russell Long of Louisiana,
     Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana,
     Senator George McGovern of South Dakota,
     Senator Frank Moss of Utah,
     Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, and
     Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey.

     I'd like to ask these senators to stand, please, and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     As many of you know, Senator Russell was one of thirteen brothers 
and sisters, and the Russell family is an exceedingly large family. It 
is well-represented here today. I would like to ask each member of 
the Russell family in attendance to please stand.

[Applause.]

     We also have with us a number of the members of Senator Russell's 
staff or the staff of the committees which he chaired or on which he 
served, and I would like to ask the members of the Russell staff who 
are in attendance to please stand.

[Applause.]

     The Russell Foundation, of which I am honored to serve as 
chairman, is fortunate to have a dedicated board of trustees, the 
names of whom are published in your program. A number of the Russell 
trustees are in attendance today, and I would like for them to stand 
and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     Each of the donors who contributed $5,000 or more to the Russell 
statue are listed in your program, and I would like to ask the 
individual contributors or representatives of corporate contributors 
who are in attendance today to please stand and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     A project such as the Russell statue could not be accomplished 
without the assistance of a lot of people. I particularly want to 
thank Senator Sam Nunn and his staff for the many things they have 
done to bring this project to fruition, and I also can't let the 
occasion pass without saying, Senator, particularly in light of your 
retirement now, how much we appreciate your twenty-four years of 
Richard Russell-type service in the United States Senate.

[Applause.]

     Senator Paul Coverdell and his staff have been of immeasurable 
assistance to us in putting on this program, and I want to ask Senator 
Coverdell to please stand and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     Senator Russell's close friend, Senator Robert Byrd, has served 
as the official sponsor of the dedication of the Russell statue and the
reception that will follow in the Caucus Room on the third floor of the
Russell Building, to which you are each invited. I would like to thank 
Senator Byrd and his staff for all of the help they have given us with 
the Russell statue dedication.

[Applause.]

     With respect to the Russell statue itself, we are indebted to the 
stone carver and the sculptor. As you will see when the statue is 
unveiled in a few minutes, the master stone carver at the National 
Cathedral, Mr. Vincent Palumbo, who carved the Russell statue from a 
large block of white Italian marble using the model developed by the 
sculptor, did an outstanding job. I would like to ask Mr. Palumbo and 
his family to stand and be recognized.

[Applause.]

     We were particularly blessed to have a talented sculptor who had a
special interest in this project. The Russell Foundation selected 
Frederick Hart from a number of sculptors who were interviewed. 
We were particularly impressed by some of his public works, 
including the soldier figures at the Vietnam Memorial, and the 
Creation sculptures at the entrance to the National Cathedral here in 
Washington.

     Frederick Hart is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and he was already
well acquainted with Richard Russell's career before commencing his 
work on the Russell statue. In fact, his father was in the television 
business and was active in the 1952 campaign for the Democratic 
presidential nomination on behalf of the late Senator Estes Kefauver 
of Tennessee who was a candidate for president that year.

     Senator Russell was himself a candidate for president in the 1952 
Democratic presidential primaries.

     Frederick Hart is not only an excellent sculptor, but was a 
pleasure to work with on the Russell statue. I would like to ask Rick 
and his wife and two sons who are in the audience to please stand and 
be recognized at this time.

[Applause.]

     And before we unveil the Russell statue, I would like to make a 
request of three groups, if they would, to, after the dedication is 
over, come down front so we can have some photographs made of 
these groups with the statue.
The first ones are senators here who served with Senator Russell, 
both currently serving senators and former senators.

     Secondly, the Russell trustees.

     Third, the Russell staff.

     If you would come down after the dedication is over to the front 
so we can have some photographs made with the statue.

     Now, for the unveiling of the statue. I would like to ask the 
sculptor, Frederick Hart, and Senator Russell's two surviving sisters, 
Mrs. Pat Peterson and Mrs. Carolyn Nelson, who are seated over here, 
to come forward to unveil the statue.

[The statue is unveiled.]

[Sustained applause.]

     Rick, I think that Senator Russell, who was known to be quite a 
critic of portraits and likenesses, would say that it's a great job, 
and thank you so much.

     That concludes our program. Everyone is invited to the reception 
up on the third floor in the Caucus Room, and thank you very much for 
attending.

[Applause.]

[Whereupon, the ceremony was concluded.]



                        RICHARD BREVARD RUSSELL, Jr.

                               (1897-1971)

                                    by

                       Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)

             [Address delivered in the Senate, Febrary 1, 1988]

     Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in my continuing series of addresses on 
the history of the United States, I have focused from time to time on 
individual senators who have left their mark on this institution. One 
such senator is Richard Brevard Russell, Jr., of Georgia. In 1972, I 
initiated legislation that provided for naming the original Senate 
office building in his honor. Today, the thousands of people who 
work on Capitol Hill know his name, but only a few know his legacy. 

     In preparing these remarks, I have had the good fortune to be ably
assisted by Dr. Gilbert Fite. Dr. Fite served from 1976 to 1986 as the 
first Richard B. Russell professor of American history at the 
University of Georgia. From 1945 to 1971, he was a member of the 
history faculty at the University of Oklahoma, and, from 1971 to 
1976, he served as president of Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Fite's
research interests are reflected in the professional associations of 
which he has been president. They include the Western History 
Association, the Southern Historical Association, and the Agricultural 
History Society. This distinguished scholar is currently completing a 
full scale biography of Senator Russell. 

     Richard B. Russell was one of the nation's leading statesmen in 
twentieth century America. A true son of the South, he served in the 
United States Senate from January 12, 1933, until his death on 
January 21, 1971, some thirty-eight years later. During that period, 
he worked with six presidents, and, from the 1940s when he 
emerged as a leader in the Senate, he played a major role in national 
policy-making. His career spanned epochal events, including the 
Great Depression, World War II, the introduction of nuclear power, 
the Korean and Vietnam wars, the battle for civil rights, expansion of 
federal powers and responsibilities, and a host of other major 
developments. His mark can be found on most of the great questions 
that faced the country during his terms in Washington. 

     In 1963, a reporter for Newsweek magazine wrote that Senator 
Russell is "a courtly soft-spoken, cultural patrician, whose aides and 
associates treat him with deferential awe. Modest, even shy, in 
manner, devastatingly skilled in debate, he has a brilliant mind, 
encyclopedic learning, unrivaled access to pressure points of 
senatorial power and a gift for using them. He is a senator's senator, 
the head of the Senate establishment, the most influential member of 
the United States Senate." Who was this man who had won such 
respect and power? What manner of man was he?

     Russell was born in the small town of Winder, Georgia, some forty 
miles northeast of Atlanta, on November 2, 1897. He was the fourth 
child and first son of thirteen living children of Judge Richard B. 
Russell and Ina Dillard Russell. He was born into a distinguished and 
well-educated family whose roots went back to colonial times. His 
Russell ancestors had lived in South Carolina and Georgia for several 
generations and were successful planters and businessmen. Russell's 
grandmother, Rebecca Harriette Brumby, had descended from the 
Brumbys and the Brevards, two prominent South Carolina and North 
Carolina families. On both sides, it was a family of modest wealth and 
prestige. 

     Richard Brevard Russell, the senator's father, was born in 
Marietta, Georgia in 1861. He attended the University of Georgia, 
receiving a law degree in 1880. He practiced law in Athens, was 
elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1882 where he 
served for six years, and, in 1888, he was elected solicitor general 
of the western circuits of Georgia. He held that position until 
January 1, 1899, when he became judge of the superior court of the 
western judicial circuit. Judge Russell was an intensely ambitious 
man. In 1904, he made an unsuccessful race for chief justice of the 
Georgia Supreme Court, and, two years later, he entered the campaign 
for governor against the prominent Hoke Smith, a contest in which he 
was decisively defeated. In 1911, Russell failed again in a race for 
the governorship, and had no better success when he ran for Congress 
in 1916. In 1922, however, he won a campaign for chief justice of the 
Georgia Supreme Court, a position that he held until his death in 1938.

     Young Richard B. Russell, Jr., then, grew up in a large family 
that was prominent and widely known throughout the state. Also, it was 
a family that expected the children to achieve. Judge Russell believed 
deeply in at least three things--education, hard work, and personal 
ambition. Moreover, he had special ambitions for his first son and 
namesake. Both Judge and Mrs. Russell planned for, and expected, 
their eldest son to become a leader in some field, preferably public 
service. 

     To help achieve that goal, the Russells sent young Dick to Gordon 
Military Institute at Barnesville, Georgia. This was considered the 
best secondary school in the state, and one of the top such 
institutions in the South. It attracted the sons from many of Georgia's
leading families, and Judge Russell believed that the contacts Dick 
made there among his fellow students would be helpful later in a 
political career. So, in September 1911, young Dick, at age thirteen, 
was off to Gordon. 

     Although he possessed high native intelligence, Dick did not take 
his school work very seriously. He was much more attracted to the social
life, both on and off campus. Despite intense urgings from his father 
and mother to study hard, he so neglected his studies that he nearly 
flunked out of school. Judge Russell, hoping to stimulate his son by 
appealing to family pride, once wrote: "you carry my name, and I 
want you to carry it higher than I have done or can do in my few 
remaining years."1 Such fatherly urgings, however, were largely in 
vain. 

     At the end of his sophomore year, Dick had passed all of his 
courses except Latin. Believing that a different environment might 
help his son, Judge Russell decided to send Dick to the Seventh 
District A&M School near Marietta. There, the curriculum was less 
rigorous and students had to work for part of their expenses. Dick's 
father believed that a work schedule might provide the discipline 
needed to do better academic work. During that year, Dick did improve 
in his studies, and, after making up his failed Latin course at a 
University of Georgia summer session, he returned to Gordon and 
graduated with his class in May 1915. It was a close call, however, 
whether he would meet the requirements for graduation. He declared 
years later that "more through grace and pity than through knowledge," 
his teacher had given him a passing mark in calculus.2 Up to that time,
Dick had clearly failed to meet his parents' expectations in his school
work. However, just as his father had planned, he had made many 
friends who later were important in his rise to political power in 
Georgia. 

     In September 1915, Dick entered the University of Georgia Law 
School in Athens some twenty miles east of his home in Winder. 
While he continued to be active socially, courting several young 
ladies, joining the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and going to many 
parties and dances, Dick finally began to take his studies seriously. 
He did well in his law courses. Even though he was seriously ill and 
out of school in part of 1916, he received his law degree in 1918. 
Shortly after graduation, and only months before the Armistice, he 
signed up for duty in the navy. He did not leave Georgia during his 
seventy-nine days of service. However, he was proud of his service 
and joined, and became an active member in, the American Legion.

     One of Dick Russell's life-long interests was the reading and 
study of history. He was an avid reader in many fields, but history 
was his favorite subject. As early as age nine, he recorded in his 
boyhood diary that he liked to read American history as well as the 
history of other countries. Early in 1907, he wrote that he had just 
completed reading a book on the recent war between Japan and Russia. 
He also liked adventure stories. But his paramount interest was the 
history of the Civil War, and, over the years, he became an authority 
on all aspects of that bloody conflict. Moreover, Russell believed that
history had lessons for those who would learn from it, and 
considered it useful in policy-making decisions. "Look to the past as a
means of weighing the present and the future," he said in 1954.

     After being discharged from military service in December 1918, 
Russell returned home to Winder, moved in with his parents, and 
joined his father in the practice of law. A small town law business, 
however, failed to satisfy the growing ambitions of this popular 
young man. In 1920, he decided to run for the Georgia House of 
Representatives. Entering the campaign against a veteran legislator, 
Russell went from house to house seeking political support. He 
defeated his opponent nearly two to one.3 When he took his seat in 
the general assembly in 1921, he was twenty-three years old and 
one of the youngest men ever to serve in the Georgia legislature.

     In Atlanta, Russell quickly became aligned with a group of 
so-called "young turks" who were trying to reduce the control of 
special interests in state government, and advance a more progressive 
program. This group strongly favored improving the state's public 
education and building hard-surfaced highways. Education and good 
roads, Russell said, were the twin pathways to progress and 
modernization. On most issues, Russell was moderately progressive.

     Early in his political career, Russell developed the tactics and 
techniques that served him well throughout his half-century of 
leadership. He carefully cultivated key people who would support 
him, many of whom were his former classmates at Gordon Military 
Institute and the University of Georgia. Secondly, he made it a point 
to know all the rules, regulations, and traditions of the legislature, 
and, later, of the United States Senate. Knowledge, Russell rightly 
believed, was power, and he usually had more information than most 
other legislators. He also had a knack for political strategy, and he 
paid close attention to the interests of other legislators. Russell was
also skillful in identifying the popular issues of the day and making 
them his own. Furthermore, he early developed the practice of 
working behind the scenes where he could arrange compromises that 
satisfied conflicting interests. Finally, he believed that a political 
leader must be absolutely honest, straightforward, and fair to all 
people and points of view.

     Working on these principles, Russell, despite his youth, advanced 
rapidly in the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1924, with the 
support of the younger and more progressive crowd, he was elected 
speaker pro tem. In 1927, he was unanimously elected speaker of 
the house, and he was reelected in 1929. During his ten years in the 
general assembly, four of them as speaker of the house, he worked 
hard to improve education and to build more and better highways. 
He insisted on a fiscally responsible, pay-as-you-go policy to fund 
these programs. Russell also became a strong backer of reorganizing 
the state government in order to achieve greater efficiency.

     By 1930, at age thirty-two, Russell was emerging as one of 
Georgia's major political leaders. He was especially popular among 
legislators and ordinary people who believed that state government had 
been operated too much on behalf of the special interest. In April 
1930, he announced that he would run for governor on a platform of 
putting state government on a "business basis" and promising that he 
would head "an honest and economical administration." Initially, 
veteran politicians did not think that this young upstart had any 
chance in a field of seasoned candidates. However, Russell canvassed 
the state from one end to the other, visiting thousands of voters in 
their homes and at village crossroads. In this grassroots campaign, 
Russell presented himself as the peoples' candidate and sharply 
attacked the special interests. Russell was an excellent speaker and 
debater. He devastated his opponents with superior knowledge, logic, 
common sense, and, when necessary, with ridicule and wit. Georgians 
responded to Russell's call for honesty, efficiency, and fairness in 
government, and elected him by the overwhelming vote of 99,505 to 
47,157 for his opponent.

     Russell took his oath as governor in June 1931, during the depth 
of the Great Depression. In his inaugural address, he promised to 
balance the state budget and to liquidate Georgia's debts. He 
emphasized that even the poorest students, especially rural youth, 
must be given the opportunity for an education, and that a state-
funded highway system must be developed. He also stressed the 
need for governmental reorganization. During the eighteen months 
that Russell served as governor, his greatest achievement was 
reorganization of Georgia's government. Over one hundred boards, 
commissions, and departments were consolidated into eighteen new 
state agencies. One of the most successful examples of that 
reorganization was the establishment of the University System of 
Georgia for higher education which placed a single governing board 
over all of the state's colleges and universities.

     While it was assumed that Russell would run for a second term and 
be easily reelected, the death of Senator William J. Harris in April 
1932 opened up an opportunity for Russell to seek a senatorial post. 
On April 25, 1932, he announced that he would seek election to 
Senator Harris's unexpired term, which ran until 1937. At the same 
time he appointed John S. Cohen, publisher of the Atlanta Journal, to 
serve until the election of Harris's successor.

     A short time later, the veteran Georgia congressman, Charles R. 
Crisp, announced that he would seek the Senate seat. The Russell-Crisp 
campaign turned out to be a long and bitter fight. Russell attacked 
Crisp's record in Washington and successfully identified him with the 
ruinous policies that had led to the Great Depression. He also accused 
Crisp of being aligned with the "power trust" and other 
representatives of "special privilege." In contrast, Russell presented 
himself as being "the champion of the masses."4 He did have the 
support of most farmers and of organized labor. Russell spoke in 
every part of the state and aired his views in radio talks. His 
personal friends, once again, did yeoman service on his behalf. 
Despite most early predictions that he could not defeat Crisp, and 
opposition from many major newspapers, including the Atlanta 
Constitution, Russell decisively whipped Crisp by winning some 58 
percent of the popular vote, and getting a higher percentage of the 
county unit votes.

     During the summer, Russell had taken time off from campaigning to 
serve as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention. He was a 
strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Russell had become 
acquainted with Roosevelt in the 1920s when the New Yorker spent 
time at Warm Springs, Georgia. They also had several meetings when 
they served as governors of their respective states. At the 
convention, Russell made one of the seconding speeches for 
Roosevelt, and urged the delegates to nominate him because he was 
free from the "predatory interests who have long fattened at the 
trough of special privilege."5 Roosevelt, Russell declared, would be a 
great leader because he understood and sympathized with the 
problems of ordinary people. He saw himself and Roosevelt as 
favoring many of the same things. He viewed Roosevelt, too, as the 
man who could best lead the country out of the Depression. 
Roosevelt's election thrilled Russell, and he was excited about the 
prospect of working with the new president.

     Dick Russell, just past thirty-five, was sworn in on January 12, 
1933, as the youngest member of the United States Senate. With the 
arranged resignation of Senator Cohen, which permitted Russell to 
take office in January, he gained seniority over those newly elected 
senators who, in those days prior to the ratification of the Twentieth 
Amendment, would take their seats on March 4. A bachelor--some 
said one of Washington's most eligible young men--Russell moved 
into the Hamilton Hotel and began his long career in Washington.

     Knowing that the Senate did its important work in committee, 
Russell actively sought an assignment to the Appropriations Committee. 
Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas tried to 
explain to Russell that appointment to Appropriations was 
customarily reserved for senators with more experience and 
seniority. Of course, Russell knew this, but he persisted. Finally, 
because of some unfounded rumors that Russell might join a coalition 
with Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana, whom the leadership viewed 
as a troublemaker, his request for appointment to Appropriations 
was honored. He also secured a place on the Naval Affairs, 
Immigration, and Manufacturers committees. A short time later, 
Russell became chairman of the Subcommittee on Agricultural 
Appropriations. This placed him in a key position to help farmers, a 
group for whose plight he had deep sympathy.

     Russell enthusiastically supported most of the early New Deal 
legislation. He voted for the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the 
Tennessee Valley Authority, the National Recovery Act, and for other 
relief legislation. Moreover, as opposition developed to Roosevelt in 
1935 and 1936, Russell became one of the president's strongest 
defenders. He sharply criticized those who accused Roosevelt of being 
a dictator, and insisted that the president was leading the country in 
a peaceful and constructive revolution. While Russell believed firmly 
in private initiative and a capitalistic economy, he argued that the 
system had been taken off course by special, predatory, economic 
interests. The federal government must now intervene, he argued, to 
right the wrongs and help the common people.

     During his early years in Washington, Richard Russell made an 
intensive study of the Senate rules, traditions, and practices. By the 
end of the 1930s, there was no better informed senator on the 
procedures and operations of this body. His knowledge came from 
hours of reading and study. It was said that he read the entire 
Congressional Record every day. Since Russell never married he had 
no family responsibilities, and this left him extra time for Senate 
work and for special study. Also, Russell continued his policy 
developed in the Georgia legislature of working behind the scenes 
and building up personal relationships between himself and his 
colleagues. He actually made very few speeches on the Senate floor. 
He considered that most speeches were mainly for show; he believed 
in quiet, effective work in committee rooms, over lunch, or in his 
office. His only public fight on an economic issue was in support of 
his bill to restrict the imports of jute which, he claimed, competed 
unfairly with cotton bagging.

     Just as Russell was getting well established in the Senate, he 
had to make a bid for reelection in 1936. His opponent was Governor 
Eugene Talmadge, one of Georgia's best known and most flamboyant 
politicians, and father of our former colleague, Herman Talmadge. 
Although Talmadge was a highly controversial figure who had even 
called out troops to enforce some of his decrees, Russell and his 
friends recognized the governor as a formidable candidate. "Old 
Gene" with his red suspenders and folksy manner was reputed to 
have the special admiration of the state's farmers. By 1934 and 
1935, Talmadge had also become one of the New Deal's sharpest 
critics.

     Russell, however, was not daunted nor intimidated by such 
opposition. He vigorously defended the New Deal and his support for 
it, and stressed what he had done in Washington to assist farmers 
and working people. Besides defending Roosevelt and the New Deal, 
and his own work in the Senate, Russell attacked Talmadge and his 
record as governor head on. He accused the governor of forsaking the 
common people and lining up with rich Republicans. It was a rough 
and tumble campaign characterized by large and unruly crowds, fist 
fights among candidates' supporters, and charges and counter 
charges. Talmadge finally tried to capitalize on the race issue by 
accusing Russell of not being strong in support of white supremacy 
and segregation. Russell denied that he had ever compromised on the 
principle of white supremacy and called Talmadge's charge 
"despicable." Russell regretted having to discuss racial matters, but 
handled the matter skillfully and successfully. Unlike many other 
southern politicians of that period, Russell opposed bringing the race 
question into election campaigns.

     This was not the kind of campaign that Russell liked, but, when 
challenged and aroused, he was a master fighter on the campaign 
trail. When the results were in, Russell piled up a huge victory of 
256,154 votes to 134,695 for Talmadge. The county unit vote was 
even more in his favor. Russell's victory in 1936 was so 
overwhelming and decisive that no other candidate ever again 
challenged him for his Senate seat. He won five additional elections 
without opposition. There was no better testimony to his popularity 
among the people of Georgia.

     Former Senator Herman Talmadge, in his recently published memoir, 
asserts that his father was the state's most popular politician and "in
a simple one-on-one contest" he could have beaten Russell.

     ...the race was not Talmadge versus Russell so much as Talmadge 
versus Roosevelt. In Georgia in 1936, it probably would have been 
easier to run against Jesus Christ than against Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
The same people who thought that Papa was a pretty good governor 
didn't want him to go to Washington to vote against the New Deal.6

     Although by the late 1930s Russell was having some doubts about 
aspects of Roosevelt's policies and programs, in the area of 
agriculture and farm policy he was making his mark as an avid New 
Dealer and true friend of the farmer. Russell was a dedicated and 
confirmed agrarian. Like Thomas Jefferson, he believed deeply in the 
political and economic importance of an independent farming class. 
The family farm was, in his view, one of the nation's most important 
and stabilizing influences. Thus, Russell was always concerned about 
the welfare of farmers, and he became a strong advocate of help for 
the small, family-type farmers. He supported all of the basic 
agricultural legislation enacted after 1933, including the AAA, farm 
credit, and soil conservation programs. But these programs did very 
little, if anything, for the tens of thousands of poor tenants and 
sharecroppers. What could be done to help the poorest farmers, 
many of whom were located in the South?

     Beginning in 1935, Russell pushed measures that would help poor 
tenants and sharecroppers to become landowners by lending them 
money to buy land and equipment. The most important law to help 
the poorer class of farmers was the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act 
of 1937, which Russell enthusiastically supported. The problem was 
to get funds to provide the necessary loans. It was here that Russell 
played a major role in his position of chairman of the subcommittee 
on agricultural appropriations. Not only in the subcommittee but also 
in conference committee he often beat back attempts to reduce the 
meager appropriations for the Farm Security Administration. It was 
not a popular program with many senators, and Russell had to use all 
of his influence to get even modest appropriations. In the spring of 
1942, when it appeared the Congress would drastically cut money for 
the FSA, President Roosevelt called personally on Russell to save the 
program. With the cooperation of several influential colleagues, 
Russell was able to retain most of the funds requested by the 
president. When the fight was over, Roosevelt wrote Russell thanking 
him for his "legislative leadership."7 Throughout the late 1930s and 
early 1940s, farmers owed their direct parity payments, soil 
conservation payments, and loans from the FSA more to Russell than 
to any other single leader in Washington.

     In the mid-1930s, Russell began supporting the idea of a federally
funded school lunch program to help needy children and to reduce 
agricultural surpluses. After operating for several years without 
legislative authority, in 1946 Russell pushed through a bill that made 
school lunches a permanent program. He also backed the food stamp 
plan which began on an experimental basis in 1939. Russell was a 
compassionate man and believed strongly that government should 
assist those who were needy and could not help themselves.

     While Russell considered himself among the loyal New Deal 
Democrats, he was a man of independent thought and judgment. He 
would not necessarily support an issue just because it enjoyed the 
support of the president or the Democratic party. By the late 1930s, 
he frequently found that he had to oppose the president. In 1937, 
when Roosevelt attempted to restructure the Supreme Court, Russell 
did not automatically fight the proposal as many of his colleagues 
did. It was Russell's nature and inclination to seek some kind of 
compromise between the president, who wanted some basic changes 
in the court, and those who found any change whatever abhorrent. 
When the president rejected a compromise plan advanced by Russell 
and a few other senators, the Georgian joined those who defeated the 
"Court packing" bill. He also opposed the president's attempt, in the 
1938 elections, to purge some senators, one of whom was his 
colleague, Walter George.

     The emerging issue in the 1930s that caused Russell the gravest 
concern was embodied in proposed Federal legislation to guarantee 
civil rights for blacks. His views on race had been determined by the 
culture, traditions, and racial practices with which he had been 
raised. As a believer in the superiority of Anglo-Saxon culture and 
institutions, he maintained that blacks were basically inferior to 
whites. Russell did not dislike blacks and wished them well so long as 
their progress occurred within their own racial group. For example, 
he was a strong supporter of black colleges. However, he was 
vehement against what he called "race mixing," and insisted that 
both whites and blacks would be better off under strictly segregated 
conditions. He repeatedly argued that race mixing would lead to 
intermarriage and what he called "mongrelization" of the races. 
Above all, Russell believed that Congress had no right to intervene in 
race relations within a state. That, he argued, would violate states' 
rights--rights given to the states and protected by the Constitution. 
In other words, while Russell opposed racial integration his basic 
arguments against civil rights legislation were usually based on 
constitutional grounds.

     The problem, however, was that, throughout much of the country, 
there was a growing demand for Congress to enact legislation to 
protect black citizens' rights, which has been denied to them by both 
legal, and extralegal methods. An early civil rights campaign focused 
on the passage of anti-lynching legislation. When an anti-lynching 
bill was introduced in 1935, Russell and other southern senators 
easily defeated the measure with a short filibuster. But, in 1938, 
another anti-lynching measure came before the Senate. By that time, 
a group of eighteen to twenty southern senators had organized into 
what became known as the "Southern Bloc" for the purpose of 
defeating anti-lynching and other legislation designed to protect and 
enhance the rights of blacks. Senator Tom Connally of Texas was the 
nominal leader of the group, but, by 1940, these senators looked to 
Russell for genuine leadership. Because of his knowledge of Senate 
rules, his parliamentary skill, and organizational ability, Russell 
emerged as the main spokesman and defender of the South's position 
on race.

     No man in the United States Congress could speak more eloquently 
about the history, traditions, and virtues of the Old South than Dick 
Russell. He loved the South, as it had developed over generations, 
with an almost militant passion. Southern society may not be perfect, 
he once admitted, but it was nearly so. He believed that racial 
integration would destroy this ideal condition. Russell also believed 
that attacks on racial segregation were directed by what he called 
"South haters" who really did not know or understand the region or 
its people.

     Russell spoke movingly and passionately against the 1938 anti-
lynching bill in the Senate. He was no demagogue or race baiter as 
were some other southern political leaders. He presented serious 
arguments against the measure, but they were always based on his 
fundamental understanding of desirable race relations. Russell was 
as strongly against the heinous crime of lynching as was anyone else. 
What alarmed him in this instance was the belief that passage of an 
anti-lynching bill would set a pattern for additional federal 
legislation. Next, he said, there would be federal control of elections
in the southern states; then legislation to ban segregation on public 
transportation and in public places; guarantees of equal employment 
opportunities; and, finally, laws to require social equality in 
schools, health facilities, and colleges. Such a legislative agenda, 
he argued, would violate states' rights and change the nature of his 
beloved South. Up to World War II, Russell and his colleagues were 
able to turn civil rights bills, but they were unable to kill the 
president's Fair Employment Practices Committee, which, in 1941, 
began to protect employment rights of blacks. During World War II, 
and into the postwar years. Russell did everything he could to 
handicap and reduce the effectiveness of the FEPC, but without much 
success.

     As the war clouds rose in Asia and Europe in the 1930s, Russell, 
as a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, began devoting increasing 
attention to national defense and foreign affairs. Like most other 
Americans in the years after World War I, Russell held firm 
isolationist views. Speaking in opposition to joining the World Court 
in 1935, he warned his colleagues against getting drawn into 
European quarrels and conflicts. He believed that George 
Washington's admonition to be friends with all nations and allies to 
none was the correct course to follow. Surely, the United States 
should stay out of European entanglements. "My views are those of a 
nationalist," he said, and he was "for the United States of America 
first."8 While Russell wanted to avoid using American military power 
to settle other nations' problems, he was a vigorous advocate of 
keeping the United States militarily strong. He was especially 
interested in strengthening the navy. Russell strongly supported the 
two-ocean navy which his fellow Georgian, Representative Carl 
Vinson, was pushing. Russell had a special interest in developing 
aircraft carriers.

     Although Russell did not become prominently involved in the debate
over neutrality legislation of the 1930s, after World War II broke out 
in 1939, he supported the American military build-up and the 
president's plans to aid Britain. He told a 4-H group in 1940 that "our
policy of aiding Great Britain and the democracies is now the first 
national policy of our government. It is too late now to debate; it is 
our duty to support the president...."9 Besides supporting aid to 
Britain, this statement reflects Russell's acceptance of presidential 
leadership in foreign policy matters. Russell championed the 
Selective Service Act, but he took the progressive position that no 
person or corporation should profit unduly from defense or war. Men 
should not be drafted, he argued, unless industries were also forced 
to contribute to the war effort as the government needed and 
directed. He was able to enact some legislation requiring the 
cooperation of industry in the defense effort, but it was a much 
weaker law than he had hoped to enact.

     During World War II, Russell headed a committee of five senators 
who visited the world's far-flung battlefields where American troops 
were engaged. The purpose of the trip was to help Congress 
determine if American supplies and equipment were adequate and if 
they were being used effectively. The group left Washington on July 
25, 1943, and did not return until September 28. The senators went 
first to England, then to North Africa, the Persian Gulf region, India,
China, and Australia before returning home. Russell was greatly 
impressed with the quality and perform-ance of American troops, 
and, for the most part, he approved of the operations that he had an 
opportunity to observe. However, he was critical of how some 
military supplies were being used by American allies.

     Upon returning home, Russell gave a detailed report to the full 
Senate on the committee's trip. He dealt with several major issues 
that became highly important in the post-war years. Russell insisted 
that the United States should retain some of the bases and land 
parcels that had been won with the blood of American fighting men. 
Such bases and facilities, he argued, would be needed to guarantee 
American security and to preserve the peace. While some 
commentators accused him of being imperialistic, Russell claimed 
that bases would be absolutely necessary for the United States to 
help maintain world stability after the war. He also warned against 
the United States' dispersing huge amounts of relief and aid to 
countries around the world following the war. He believed that 
leaders he had met in his extensive travels had unrealistic 
expectations of what the United States should or could do.

     By the close of the war, Russell was beginning to view our wartime
ally, the Soviet Union, as untrustworthy and expansionistic. Part of 
this view stemmed from an effort by Russell in the summer of 1945 
to visit Russia after he and a Senate committee had investigated 
conditions in Western Europe. The Russians delayed issuing Russell 
an entry permit for so long that he became disgusted and returned 
home from France. He saw the Russians as unnecessarily suspicious 
and uncooperative. Russell also was frustrated with what he 
considered the kid-glove treatment given to defeated Japan. Even 
after the United States had dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese 
cities, Russell did not think that the average citizen of Japan 
realized the extent of that nation's defeat. Russell urged President 
Truman to oust the emperor and to march a large army down the streets 
of Tokyo as a means of impressing the Japanese with the American 
victory. He did not consider this vindictive; only proper punishment 
for attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

     By the end of World War II, Dick Russell had become one of the 
United States Senate's leading members. Passage of the Legislative 
Reorganization Act of 1946 left him with especially strong committee 
assignments. While he lost his chairmanship of the Immigration 
Committee, which had been absorbed by the Judiciary Committee, 
Russell retained his position on Appropriations and got a seat on the 
newly formed and powerful Armed Services Committee. When the 
Democrats regained a majority in Congress in 1949, following their 
defeat in 1946, Russell ranked second and fourth respectively on 
those two most influential panels. In 1951, he became chairman of 
Armed Services, a position that he held until 1969 when he gave it 
up for the chairmanship of Appropriations, except for the two years, 
1953-1954, when the Republicans were in control. Russell was also 
appointed to the first Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in 1946, 
and, after the Central Intelligence Agency was established in 1947, 
he became a member of the CIA's congressional oversight committee. 
Russell also served on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, which 
was formed in 1947, and, a decade later, he became a member of the 
Democratic Steering Committee. He held strategic positions at many 
points of political and legislative power. 

     In the post-World War II years, Russell spent much of his time 
trying to help and protect farmers. He was one of the major 
participants in the Farm Bloc, an informal group of farm-state 
senators who were committed to getting fuller prosperity for 
farmers. Among the senators with whom Russell worked closely on 
agricultural matters was Republican Milton Young of North Dakota. 
Russell and Young developed a kind of cotton-wheat coalition that 
fought hard for legislation to guarantee prices of 90 percent of parity
for most basic crops. Russell, Young, and their supporters were able 
to maintain the 90 percent principle well into the mid-1950s. 

     His interest in supporting federal programs and agencies which 
assist farmers never lagged. The Farm Security Administration had been 
effectively killed in 1943, but a new agency, the Farmers Home 
Adminis-tration, was created by Congress in 1945. The FHA was 
supposed to make loans to poor farmers to help them buy land and 
equipment, but Congress failed to appropriate enough funds to assist 
many of them. Russell fought hard, as chairman of the Subcommit-
tee on Agricultural Appropriations, to increase appropriations for the 
agency, but he achieved only limited success. He had better luck 
fighting against cuts for soil conservation. As one of the leading 
conservationists in the country, Russell resisted efforts by the 
Republican Eightieth Congress to reduce the amount of money for soil 
conservation to what he called a "paltry" $150 million. After a hard 
fight in 1947, he was able to add nearly $100 million to that amount. 
He was also responsible for increasing the amount spent on the 
school lunch program in the postwar years, something that gave him 
great satisfaction. Senator Russell, however, was equally proud of the 
Research and Marketing Act which he pushed through the Senate in 
1946. 

     Although Dick Russell supported much of President Truman's 
domestic program, he parted company with the chief executive over 
labor legislation. He voted for the Taft-Hartley bill in 1947, and he 
voted to override the president's veto of that measure so hateful to 
organized labor. Russell was not anti-labor or anti-union. Organized 
labor had supported him enthusiastically in his races for governor 
and senator. But Russell had concluded by the mid-1940s that some 
labor leaders were becoming too powerful and were gaining 
excessive political influence. He viewed some segments of organized 
labor's leadership as greedy, selfish, and irresponsible. He was 
especially concerned with the political activities of the Congress of 
Industrial Organization's Political Action Committee. Special interests
of this kind, Russell believed, were becoming too powerful, so 
powerful in fact that they were threatening the democratic process. 
Pressure groups were "becoming dangerous" to the independent 
thinking of House members and senators, he said. "We must retain 
the legislator's independence of thought," he argued. "It is not a good
thing when pressure groups elect a man who is forever beholden to 
them."10 Russell, however, had concerns that went beyond the 
question of general pressure groups. He was annoyed by the 
lobbying being done by some labor unions for civil rights laws. 

     By the 1940s, Russell foresaw a problem that was to become of 
national concern a generation later. That was the spending of huge 
amounts of money by political action groups on the campaigns of 
candidates who would support their special interests. Not only were 
the amounts of money corrupting, in Russell's view; but some 
representatives and senators also came to use campaign money in 
ways that made it hardly distinguishable from their private funds. 
Such use of money was abhorrent to Russell who was a stickler for 
honesty and old fashioned morality. In his own campaigns, he had 
returned to contributors money that was not needed for actual 
campaign expenses. He once sent a check for $100 back to a 
contributor with a note advising his friend that the amount was too 
generous and that he really did not need the funds. Thus, Russell saw 
the growing use of money in political campaigns, raised by whatever 
pressure groups, as endangering the democratic political process and 
threatening the nation's welfare. Russell himself, of course, had 
little need for campaign money after 1936. Funds for his filing fee 
and a few advertisements every six years was the limit of his campaign 
expenses.
 
Another issue on which Russell felt deeply was immigration. He 
strongly supported the National Origins Act of 1924 which restricted 
total immigration to about 150,000 a year and favored northern 
European immigrants through a quota system. He opposed extending 
quotas to Asian and African countries, because he felt that 
immigrants from those nations would change the national racial 
complexion and reduce the Anglo-Saxon influences of which he was 
so proud. He once boasted that Georgia had only seven-tenths of one 
percent foreign born population. Russell was one of the leaders in 
fighting President Truman's plan in 1946 to admit some 400,000 
refugees. Russell believed that the admission of thousands of 
European refugees would open the flood gates for refugees from all 
over the world. He wanted to tighten immigration laws, not loosen 
them. While Russell fought hard against the Truman policy, he could 
only delay and modify it. 

     Although Russell opposed some of Truman's domestic policies, he 
lent strong support to the president's policies to block Russian 
aggression. When the president called for economic and military aid 
for Greece and Turkey in 1947, Russell backed the plan. He also voted 
for the Marshall Plan which provided for spending billions over four 
years to help restore the economies of Western European countries. 
While initially supporting foreign aid as a means of helping countries 
regain economic and military strength to resist Communism, Russell 
soon became disillusioned over the foreign aid program. He favored 
humanitarian assistance and programs for self-help, but, by 1952, he 
had become one of the bitterest opponents of the unending flow of 
American funds to countries all around the world. He had several 
objections to the foreign aid program: its failure to win friends for 
the United States; waste; burdens to American taxpayers; and its 
open-endedness. To Russell, foreign aid became a bottomless pit into 
which hard-earned American taxpayer dollars were thrown year 
after year with little or no benefit to the United States. 
Consequently, he worked hard to defeat foreign aid bills in the 1950s 
and 1960s, but was only able to reduce the amounts appropriated. Even 
that limited achievement, he believed, was worthy of his efforts. 

     Russell considered the Soviet Union to be imperialistic and the 
source of most post-war problems throughout the world. There was no 
more ardent cold warrior in Congress than Dick Russell. He used his 
influence on the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations 
Committee to strengthen conventional military forces and to develop 
new weapons. He bitterly opposed sharing any atomic secrets with 
the Russians. He viewed the conflict between that nation and the 
United States as a worldwide battle between good and evil. When the 
North Koreans invaded South Korea in 1950, he saw that action as an 
extension of Soviet power through one of its satellites, an action 
that must be resisted.

     Overall, however, Russell was reasonably well satisfied with the 
early Truman presidency. Civil rights, however, served as the issue 
that drew him into opposition to his old Senate colleague. Truman's 
legislative program included establishment of a permanent Fair 
Employment Practices Commission, abolition of segregation in the 
armed forces, passage of anti-poll tax legislation, and other measures 
to guarantee the rights and opportunities for blacks. Following the 
president's special message on civil rights in February 1948, Russell 
wrote a constituent that the president's proposals were the "most 
outrageous affront to the people of our section that we have had to 
face since Reconstruction days."11 Russell not only opposed actions 
that might break down segregation and destroy white supremacy; he 
also believed that Truman's constant pressing for civil rights would 
split the Democratic party and lead to Republican victory in 1948. 
The Republicans had already won control of Congress as a result of 
the mid-term elections of 1946, and Russell and other prominent 
Democrats had lost their committee chairmanships.

     Regardless of adverse consequences to the Democratic party, 
Russell believed that he must fight the Truman civil rights program 
with all his power. On March 6, 1948, twenty-one southern senators met 
in Senator Harry Byrd's office to plan their strategy to resist and 
defeat the president's program. These senators named Russell as their 
leader, a position he had held informally for several years, and 
worked out plans to keep close watch in the Senate to make sure no 
civil rights bills were enacted through some unexpected 
parliamentary maneuvering. This Southern Bloc saw Truman's effort 
to eliminate Jim Crow practices as the "opening wedge in the fight to 
stop all segregation" which, in practice, meant that blacks and whites 
would "attend the same schools, swim in the same pools, eat together, 
and eventually, inter-marry."12

     So strong was the opposition to Truman's stand on civil rights, 
that many southerners opposed the president's renomination in 1948. 
But who could the anti-Truman Democrats put in the race for the 
nomination? Finally, the anti-civil rights southerners prevailed on 
Richard Russell to let his name be placed before the convention 
delegates. Russell knew that he had no chance for the nomination, 
and he wrote: "I was very reluctant to permit the use of my name, 
but decided that those who were opposed to Mr. Truman were 
entitled to have someone for whom they could vote."13 Russell 
received 263 delegate votes, but Truman won easily. Loyal Democrat 
that he was, Russell refused to join the Dixiecrats. He quietly voted 
for Truman, but did nothing to help in the Democratic campaign.

     It was not long before Russell had an opportunity to help the 
increasingly beleaguered president. Because of differences in basic 
policy and strategy in the Korean War between General Douglas 
MacArthur and the president, Truman removed MacArthur from 
command in the spring of 1951. The dismissal of a highly popular 
general by an unpopular president raised a storm of protest against 
Truman, whose administration was already under attack for being 
soft on Communism and filled with corruption.

     It was into this highly charged atmosphere that Russell entered 
the scene and calmed the political storm swirling around the president.
Russell chaired a joint committee of inquiry that looked into the 
removal of MacArthur and the general foreign policies of the United 
States in the Far East. The hearings lasted from early May until late 
June. The committee heard MacArthur and scores of other witnesses. 
Russell skillfully guided the hearings in a fair, calm, and rational 
way, and, by summer's end, the issue had largely faded from public 
consciousness. Truman was deeply grateful to Russell for the manner 
in which he had handled the entire matter and quieted the 
controversy.

     During the hearings, Russell had made one thing abundantly clear; 
he believed that some senators were too loose-lipped, and were more 
interested in making points with the press through leaks than in 
protecting the nation's security. As witnesses talked about military 
tactics and strategy in the executive sessions, Russell emphasized 
that such information must be kept absolutely confidential. He 
warned his colleagues about "a careless word, a slip of the tongue" 
that might help America's enemies. When some of General George C. 
Marshall's testimony was leaked to the press, Russell was furious and 
lectured his fellow senators on the importance of guarding against 
indiscreet statements. He added that, if such leaks endangered the 
lives of American soldiers in Korea, neither "our God nor our fellow 
citizens will ever forgive us nor would we deserve forgiveness." 
Russell believed that there was a common sense balance between 
providing the people with enough information on which to make 
proper policy decisions, and maintaining sufficient secrecy to protect 
the country's security.

     Another crucial issue that came up in the MacArthur hearings was 
that of "executive privilege." When Republican Senator Alexander 
Wiley attempted to make General Omar Bradley reveal his personal 
conversations with the president on April 6, 1950, Bradley refused to 
tell the committee what Truman had said. When Wiley persisted, 
Russell ruled that a "private conversation between the president and 
the chief of staff as to detail can be protected by the witness if he 
so desires." This was a strong statement upholding executive privilege,
and, moreover, reflected Russell's deep respect for the office of the 
presidency. Russell also had a strong commitment to the principle of 
separation of powers.14

     The MacArthur hearings gave Dick Russell a great deal of national 
exposure. He did not normally seek publicity. Indeed, he did not 
have a press secretary in his office until 1959. But, whether or not he
wanted publicity, he now was the subject of scores of articles in 
newspapers and magazines. These accounts reviewed his career and 
activities in a depth not previously known. Richard Strout wrote in 
the Christian Science Monitor that Russell was the "most powerful 
man in the Senate" and that body's de facto leader.

     In late 1950 and early 1951, many of Russell's colleagues urged 
him to accept the position of Senate majority leader. However, Russell 
refused to seek or accept the formal leadership post because he 
disagreed with too much of the administration's legislative agenda, 
especially that dealing with civil rights. As Russell put it, he wanted
to maintain "absolute independence of thought and action."15 While 
Russell did not want to be majority leader himself, no Democrat could 
gain the position without his support. In 1951, he endorsed Ernest 
McFarland of Arizona, who was elected. At the same time, as I have 
described in previous addresses, he threw his support for majority 
whip to his young Texas friend, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson had no 
claim to the position, except that he had the backing of Dick Russell. 
That was what counted! This was the beginning of the rapid rise of 
Lyndon Johnson in the Senate Democratic hierarchy. It was based on 
his close personal and political friendship with the Senate kingpin, 
Dick Russell. It was Russell, more than anyone else, who was 
responsible for making Lyndon Johnson majority leader in 1955.

     The growing influence of northern liberals in the Democratic party
during the Truman years caused Russell grave concern. From his 
perspective, the most troublesome issue was the continued demand 
for civil rights legislation. It was clear that the South's influence 
in national party affairs was declining. The uppermost question in 
Russell's mind was how to restore and increase the southern role in 
party councils. One possible avenue was to support a strong southern 
candidate for the presidential nomination in 1952. While a 
southerner probably would not be able to win the Democratic 
nomination, the strength flowing to a candidate from the South might 
influence the platform and the party's general philosophical 
direction. At least this was the hope of many southerners.
The most logical man in the South to make such a race was Dick 
Russell. As the 1952 nominating campaigns approached, many 
southerners urged Russell to actively seek the nomination. But 
Russell was reluctant. Always the realist, he told supporters that no 
southerner who opposed civil rights law had any chance to win the 
Democratic nomination for president. Despite numerous denials that 
he would seek the nomination, he came under increasing pressure to 
enter the race. Governors James Byrnes of South Carolina and 
Herman Talmadge of Georgia, and Senators Burnet Maybank and 
Harry F. Byrd were the leading advocates of a Russell candidacy. 
Finally, he gave into the desires of his friends and announced, on 
February 28, 1952, that he would be a candidate for president and 
would campaign for the nomination. Surrounded by Senators Russell 
Long, Maybank, and John Stennis, Russell told reporters that he 
would seek the position on a platform favoring states' rights, a strong
defense, and economical and honest government. Most observers 
from all sections of the country admitted that Russell was well 
qualified for the presidency, but most writers discounted his chances 
because, as columnist Doris Fleeson declared, he was "saddled with 
the traditional southern attitude on civil rights."16

     Despite this obvious handicap, Russell made a strong bid for the 
nomination. He defeated Estes Kefauver in the Florida primary, and 
then went on a nationwide tour in search of delegates. However hard 
he tried to present himself as a moderate Democrat who had 
supported most of the New Deal and much of the Fair Deal, he could 
not remove the image that he was only a regional candidate. When 
the Democrats met, he could only attract 268 delegate votes, mostly 
from the South, and the convention went on to nominate Adlai 
Stevenson. Russell had been right about his chances. As Harry 
Truman said, Russell might have been elected president if he had 
lived in Indiana, Missouri, or Kentucky, but the country was not 
ready to nominate a Georgian. Calvin W. Rawlings, Democratic 
national committeeman from Utah, wrote to Russell that, "if it were 
not for geography and by the Grace of God," he could have been 
nominated instead of Stevenson.17 Russell was offered the vice 
presidency, but that was an office in which he had no interest 
whatever. 

     Russell voted for Stevenson, but he refused to assist in the 
campaign. The Democratic platform, which had a pro-civil rights plank, 
was too distasteful to Russell. Despite his disagreement with the 
so-called liberal Democrats, Russell took no pleasure in Dwight D. 
Eisenhower's victory and the resulting control of both houses of 
Congress by the Republicans. Russell made it clear that he would fight 
to retain the New Deal and Fair Deal gains against any Republican 
onslaught. 

     During the Eisenhower presidency, Russell devoted most of his 
energies to three major issues--agriculture, defense, and civil rights.
The farm problem was never very far from Dick Russell's mind. After 
1953, large surpluses built up, prices declined, and operating 
expenses rose, placing farmers in a tough cost-price squeeze. As a 
result of hard times on the farm, tens of thousands of farmers went 
out of business each year. To Russell, this was a national tragedy and 
dangerous to American strength and stability. 

     Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, with President 
Eisenhower's blessing, set out to reduce the level of federal price 
supports on major farm commodities. Russell believed that this was a 
serious mistake, and he fought to preserve and extend price supports 
at 90 percent of parity. Some bitter battles ensued before Russell and 
his farm-state supporters lost the fight in a Congress that was 
becoming more and more consumer oriented. Beginning in 1955, 
flexible price supports were inaugurated which led to lower support 
prices for most major agricultural commodities. Russell complained 
and protested that Congress did not treat farmers fairly. He wrote 
one constituent that he could not understand the "policies of this 
[Eisenhower] Administration which are threatening to destroy rural 
America."18 He was more successful in getting funds for 
conservation, agricultural research, school lunches, and other 
purposes. 

     In all of the controversies over farm policy in which Russell 
engaged, one fact emerged that greatly disturbed him. That was the 
declining political power of agriculture. His correspondence in the 
1950s is filled with references to this situation. Part of the reason 
rural America was losing its political clout, he believed, was the 
divisions among farm spokesmen themselves. Much more important, 
however, Russell considered that farmers were being sacrificed on the 
altar of a cheap food policy that catered to consumers in the growing 
urban centers. But, however hard he tried, Russell could not change 
policies that resulted from basic demographic shifts. Despite his 
concern for farmers and his criticism of the Eisenhower administration,
federal expenditures on agricultural programs rose sharply after 1953. 
Although it could hardly be said that the federal government was 
neglecting farmers, Russell believed that he could have developed 
better farm programs. 

     Other than national defense, the issue of greatest concern to Dick
Russell in the fifteen years after 1948 was civil rights. The 
increasing demands for legislation that would end legal segregation 
required his constant attention. As leader of the Southern Bloc, he 
spent untold hours developing strategy and organizing the eighteen 
southern senators who made up the core of resistance to civil rights 
bills. 

     Up until 1953, Russell and his supporters had effectively used the
filibuster to block civil rights legislation. Attempts of civil rights 
proponents to change Senate Rule XXII, so that a majority instead of 
two-thirds of the senators could shut off debate, had been defeated 
by southerners with some conservative Republican help. Russell, 
however, not only opposed restrictions on debate to keep civil rights 
bills from coming to a vote; he also sincerely believed in the 
principle of full and free discussion on every issue. To Russell, 
unlimited debate was one of the Senate's most cherished and sacred 
practices and traditions. 

     Russell was greatly concerned over the breakdown of segregation in
federal agencies, including government departments, hospitals, and 
military posts. This was of high concern to him because it had been 
accomplished by administrative action, and there was nothing that 
segregationists in Congress could do to stop the trend. He had even 
gone so far in 1948 as to introduce legislation that would give men 
entering the military services the right to choose a segregated or 
integrated unit. The next year, he introduced a bill which would have 
encouraged blacks in the South to relocate in other parts of the 
country by subsidizing a move by black families. Russell believed 
that civil rights advocates did not know the true problems of having 
large numbers of blacks living under integrated conditions. His bill, 
he said, would expose the hypocrisy of northern integrationists. 
According to Russell, these so-called liberals were more interested in 
the black vote than in any principle of human rights. In any event, 
neither of these bills gained any significant support in Congress, but 
they did express the depth of Russell's feeling on the race issue. 
Russell also had a growing fear that segregation would be destroyed 
by the federal courts, thereby bypassing Congress. Nevertheless, he 
was hardly prepared for the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. 
Topeka Board of Education handed down in May 1954, and which 
held that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. He called
the decision a "flagrant abuse of the judicial power and a violation of
states' rights."19

     As a result of the Brown case and other civil rights developments,
Russell and a number of other southern senators drew up the 
Declaration of Constitutional Principles, better known as the 
"Southern Manifesto." Russell prepared the final draft which 
criticized the Supreme Court, and promised that southerners would 
use all lawful means to reverse the Brown decision. 

     Meanwhile, civil rights bills were being considered in Congress. 
By 1957, it was clear even to Russell that some kind of civil rights 
legislation would be enacted regardless of southern opposition. Thus, 
he turned his energies and influence to weakening a bill that had 
already passed the House in June 1957, hoping to make the measure 
as ineffective as possible in--as he viewed it--disturbing race 
relations in the South. While one of the bill's main features was to 
guarantee blacks the right to vote, Russell believed that it gave the 
attorney general far too much power to "force intermingling of the 
races in the public schools and in all places of public entertainment."
He was especially upset over the denial of a jury trial for any 
violators of civil rights legislation.

     Although some southern senators wanted to stage another 
filibuster, Russell as leader of the Southern Bloc advised otherwise. 
Working with his friend, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, he skillfully 
removed the most distasteful features of the bill. From the southern 
viewpoint, when the law passed, its worst provisions had been 
eliminated. Critic Thomas L. Stokes wrote that the bill had been 
watered down by Johnson, "the errand boy for Senator Richard 
Russell, who put Lyndon Johnson in the post of leadership."20 Time 
magazine carried Russell's picture on its cover on August 12, 1957, 
and, in an accompanying article, called his resistance to civil rights 
legislation, "one of the most notable performances in Senate history." 
Russell, himself, was proud of his efforts. He considered keeping the 
federal government "out of our schools and social order" the 
"sweetest victory of my twenty-five years as a senator." He was 
equally successful in defeating the tougher provisions of the 1960 
Civil Rights Act. In this case, he organized his eighteen-member 
Southern Bloc into teams of three and so wore down the Senate that 
only minor gains were included in the bill, and then only with 
Russell's permission. After that fight, Senator Harry F. Byrd of 
Virginia declared that under the superb leadership of Russell, 
southerners had "demonstrated the effectiveness of courageous 
massive resistance."21

     By the early 1960s, however, Russell recognized that effective and
meaningful civil rights legislation would be passed. The national 
mood had changed, southern resistance had weakened, and an 
effective political leader, Lyndon Johnson, had become president. 
After Johnson moved into the White House, Russell frankly admitted 
that nothing he and other anti-civil rights forces could do would be 
sufficient to stop civil rights legislation. After all, Russell was a 
political realist. As the 1964 Civil Rights Act was about to be passed,
Russell spoke movingly, and at length, against it. This, however, was 
to make a statement of principle with no thought of defeating the 
measure. He knew the outcome had already been determined. After 
passage of the law, he urged all people to "comply with the law of the 
land," a statement that brought praise from President Johnson. When 
Congress passed further civil rights legislation in 1965, Russell was 
too ill to resist it actively.

     Dick Russell never changed his mind on the issue of racial 
integration. He viewed civil rights laws as "force bills" designed to 
change race relations in the South. He believed, too, that much of the 
support for civil rights legislation came from what he called "South 
haters." On most issues, Russell was flexible and able to compromise, 
but, on the question of racial integration and white supremacy, he 
died holding the same views as those held by his southern ancestors. 
History, tradition, and social relations as they had developed in the 
South after slavery held an unbreakable hold on him. Indeed, he 
viewed federal legislation to guarantee equal rights for blacks as a 
repetition of intervention by national authorities in the South after 
1865.

     Senator Russell may never have adjusted to some of the country's 
social changes, but he was one of the strongest advocates of a 
powerful national defense in the post-World War II years. As 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a member of the 
Appropriations Committee, he was in a position to exert great 
influence on strengthening American military forces. He had little 
faith in the United Nations as a peacekeeping agency, and believed 
that the United States could not rely on the NATO countries to 
preserve peace and stability. He once said that if Russia should attack
Italy, all of the American arms provided to that NATO ally would 
soon be in Russian hands!

     Even after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, and what appeared 
to be less aggressive attitudes by the Soviet Union, Russell's views 
toward Russia remained the same. He did not trust the Russians, and 
declared that the only hope for peace in the world was for the United 
States to strengthen its military forces. He believed that any 
negotiations with the Soviet Union must be done "from strength 
rather than from weakness."22 Surely, Russell's highest national 
priority was to build and maintain a degree of military power that 
could not be successfully challenged by any nation in the world. 
Consequently, he favored universal military training; strengthening 
the conventional armed forces; maintaining a supply of nuclear 
weapons with the planes and missiles to deliver them; and adequate 
appropriations for the development of ever more highly 
sophisticated and technical weapons. 

     Russell had little faith in the massive retaliation theories of 
John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower's secretary of state. To 
Russell, such a policy relied too heavily on nuclear retaliation, 
which could lead to the destruction of both Russia and the United 
States. Under the Dulles policy, there would be greater reliance on 
nuclear power so that cuts could be made in conventional forces and 
money saved. Russell objected strenuously to President Eisenhower's 
recommendation to reduce appropriations for some of the regular 
military services, especially the Air Force. He believed that the 
Strategic Air Command had been the major deterrent to greater 
Soviet expansion. Russell wanted more bombers, fighter planes, and 
support services for the Air Force. When his critics talked about the 
need to cut defense costs, he replied that economy was important, 
but only after American defenses had been built up. "I want to see 
planes first and then consider the cost in dollars," he said.23 He 
recommended spending more on national defense even if other 
government programs, such as foreign aid, had to be reduced. He 
declared that "the policy of increasing the appropriations for foreign 
aid and for many domestic activities while reducing our armed 
strength is completely incomprehensible to me."24

     Russell became so unhappy over military cuts and large foreign aid
expenditures in the 1950s that he once suggested, not entirely with 
tongue in cheek, that the entire foreign aid appropriation be 
transferred to the Air Force. He told Senator Kenneth McKellar of 
Tennessee that the State Department had no answer to a foreign 
problem except "to pump in a few more millions from the pockets of 
our taxpayers into the troubled area."25 Russell and his backers 
were able to reduce foreign aid outlays some during the 1950s, but 
he was unable to get as much money for additional military 
equipment as he wished. He was distressed that more funds could 
not be appropriated for the most sophisticated weapons. By 1959, he 
believed that a serious missile gap existed between the United States 
and the Soviet Union. Criticizing the Eisenhower military budget for 
fiscal 1961, Russell declared that it was no time to "quibble over a 
couple of billion dollars."26

     Russell found in President John F. Kennedy an ally for greater 
military spending. When Kennedy asked for an increase of $2 billion, 
mostly for bombers and missiles early in 1961, Russell gave the 
request his strongest support. He was able to obtain even more funds 
for the military budget than the President had requested.

     One of Russell's reasons for wanting overwhelming military 
strength was to deal with problems such as the Cuban missile crisis of 
1962. When Kennedy called the Senate and House leaders to a conference 
on that crisis, Russell strongly urged that air power be used to wipe 
out the Soviet missiles in Cuba. But when Kennedy decided on a 
quarantine of Cuba instead, Russell announced that he would fully 
back the president. In such a situation, he said, "the only voice that 
can speak for the United States was the president."27 However, 
Russell always regretted that military action was not taken against 
Castro when a good excuse presented itself as he believed had been 
the case in 1962. To have solved that problem with forceful action, 
he argued, would have had "a salutary effect all over the entire 
world" by discouraging other brush fire revolutions and wars 
encouraged by the Soviet Union.28

     Russell's continued distrust of the Soviets was reflected in his 
vote against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in September 1963. That was 
an agonizing decision for him, but he told his colleagues that the 
treaty was flawed because it did not contain proper or verifiable 
inspection clauses to guarantee Russian compliance. He argued that the 
Soviets simply could not be trusted, and he sought to prove his point 
by listing the numerous treaties that the Russians had violated.

     From the beginning, Dick Russell was an outspoken opponent of 
American military involvement in Vietnam. He had supported the 
Korean War because it was a response to direct invasion by the North 
Koreans, but he believed the situation was different in Vietnam. He 
almost had a phobia against getting American forces involved in a 
land campaign on the continent of Asia. Consequently, when 
President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles asked congressional 
leaders about supplying American air power to help the collapsing 
French forces in Vietnam in April 1954, Russell spoke vigorously 
against such a move. He argued that sending air support to the 
French would be the first step toward greater involvement and the 
possible use of ground troops. "Once you've committed the flag," he 
declared, "you've committed the country. There's no turning back; if 
you involve the American Air Force, why, you've involved the 
nation."29 That, Russell said, would be a fatal mistake.

     As Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson gradually extended 
American military power into Vietnam, Russell grew increasingly 
uneasy. It was bad policy, he believed, because the Vietnamese were 
not doing much to help themselves, and American allies refused to 
provide any meaningful help. It was wrong to try to go it alone, he 
said. However, believing deeply that only the president could be the 
spokesman for America's foreign policy, he supported the ends of 
American objectives in Vietnam, if not the means to achieve them. 
Russell insisted that, once the United States was in Vietnam, much 
more military power should be brought to bear on the North 
Vietnamese. By 1966, he was advocating the use of a battleship to 
bombard the coast of Vietnam, the bombing of military and 
industrial targets around Hanoi, blockading the port of Haiphong, and 
other measures that would either defeat the North Vietnamese or 
force the Communists into meaningful negotiations. But President 
Johnson ignored his old mentor's advice. Russell went to his grave 
still frustrated and critical of what he considered America's halfway 
military measures in Vietnam. 

     Senator Russell disagreed with most of America's major foreign 
policies after World War II. He placed most of his confidence in a 
strong national defense, both nuclear and non-nuclear. He believed in 
using military force only when American national interests were 
directly at stake. In the case of Cuba, he would have used force 
because he believed Soviet intrusion ninety miles from the Florida 
coast was a direct threat to the nation's vital interest. On the other 
hand, there was no overriding reason, in his view, to intervene in 
Vietnam. He raised the key question of how could Communism in far 
away Vietnam be worthy of American military resistance when the 
United States refused to dislodge a Communist state close to home. To 
Russell, this was not only mistaken policy, but it cast aside common 
sense as well. On foreign aid, he was one of the nation's sharpest and 
most persistent critics of a policy that he believed was wasteful, 
expensive, and largely ineffectual from the viewpoint of American 
national interest. Despite his disagreement with much of American 
foreign policy after 1945, he was a loyal, patriotic leader who fought 
hard for what he believed was in the country's best interest. He was 
a strong nationalist in every sense of that term. In 1969, he gave up 
the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee and became 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee. 

     By early 1971, at the end of thirty-eight years in the U.S. 
Senate, Dick Russell had left his indelible mark on national affairs. 
No major legislation bore his name, mainly because he had worked 
quietly behind the scenes and had not sought credit or courted 
publicity. But he had made numerous permanent contributions. These 
included agricultural legislation, the Food Stamp and School Lunch 
Programs, the conservation of natural resources, a strong national 
defense, research and scientific achievement, and many more. 

     Most of all, Russell understood, appreciated, and protected the 
institution of the U.S. Senate. As Jack Valenti wrote in the 
Washington Post on January 12, 1963, Senator Russell was the 
"embodiment of the Senate's constitutional tradition. The senator 
understands the Senate;...he knows its moods and its dignity. He 
guards its honor. He nourishes its heritage." Russell, Valenti 
continued, "never swerves from the history of the Senate as a 
structure undiminished by time, undisturbed by the moment, 
unbudgeable in crisis and controversy." 

     Senator Russell's Senate colleagues were among his most ardent 
admirers. They respected him for his intellect, his integrity, his 
fairness, his courage, and his ability to cut to the heart of any 
problem. Special accolades from fellow senators were common, but 
they were almost embarrassing to Senator Russell at the time of his 
thirtieth anniversary in the Senate in January 1963. Senator Mike 
Mansfield referred to his "calmness and kindness," his "reason and 
deliberation," and his "scrupulous fairness." Everett Dirksen 
emphasized Russell's "rare fidelity to the traditions and institutions 
of this country," while Frank Carlson believed that Russell was "the 
most influential and substantial leader in the U.S. Senate."30

     Writer William S. White was one of the many observers outside the 
Senate who were impressed with Russell's character and ability. 
White called him one of the "greatest senators of his era." While 
Russell suffered from being a southerner, White explained, "no 
politician in his time has more clearly and more repeatedly earned 
consideration for the highest office of them all."31 Senator Sam Ervin 
agreed that, after viewing all national leaders, Russell was the best 
qualified man to be president of the United States.32 When the 
publication, Pageant, asked senators to rank the five top members of 
that body in 1964, Russell was listed by those of us who were his 
colleagues as number one.33

     One trait or habit that Russell possessed, and which his 
colleagues greatly admired, was the consideration which he extended to 
new senators. Freshmen senators often achieved more than they expected 
because of Russell's help. On September 14, 1959, Senator Howard A. 
Cannon of Nevada wrote Russell expressing his appreciation "for your 
outstanding leadership...and for the help and consideration you have 
given to me as a junior senator." I wrote to Senator Russell at about 
the same time saying that it had been a "glorious experience" to have 
served with him during my first year in the Senate. A few months 
later, I wrote again that Russell typified "the character, the poise, 
the brilliance that are associated with true greatness." I continued, 
"You shall never know the profundity of the impression you have made 
upon me as a new senator."34 I concluded that it was my greatest 
hope to "become a senator with the stature of Richard B. Russell." 

     Dick Russell was a southern patrician of the old school. He was 
courteous, charming, polite, and considerate. He was generally 
tolerant and understanding, but he could be devastating in debate 
and comment, as many discovered who were the targets of his sharp 
tongue and quick wit. He once called Drew Pearson a skunk, and 
referred to Joseph Alsop's column as "allslop."

     As Dick Russell never married, he lived in Washington hotels from 
1933 until 1962 when he purchased an apartment at the Potomac 
Plaza. During his early years in Washington, he enjoyed an active 
social life, attending movies, sporting events, meeting friends in the 
late afternoon, or taking a lady friend to dinner. He disliked cocktail
parties and receptions, so popular in Washington, and, after a few 
years, he turned down most of the many invitations he received. He 
preferred to spend the evenings in his room working on Senate 
business or reading history. He did greatly enjoy socializing with 
fellow senators. He frequently had dinner with Lyndon and Lady 
Bird Johnson, and Senator Harry Byrd's Apple Blossom Festival was 
one of Russell's annual highlights. He sometimes went fishing with 
Senator Willis Robertson. His strong interest in sports never 
diminished, and he attended baseball and football games as long as 
his health permitted. Football Coach Vince Dooley at the University of 
Georgia said that he had never known anyone outside the coaching 
staff who knew so much about Georgia football players, their talents, 
and strengths as Russell did.

     Russell started to have health problems in the mid-1950s. He had 
begun to smoke heavily as a teenager, and, by the 1950s, he suffered 
from the early stages of emphysema. He finally stopped smoking, but 
his respiratory problems continued to get worse in the 1960s. He was 
so ill in early 1965 that he had to be absent from the Senate for 
several months. He also had lung cancer which was treated 
successfully, but his lungs were so permanently damaged that he 
could never recover. Returning to Walter Reed Army Medical Center 
in January 1971, he struggled with his respiratory difficulties until 
his death on the afternoon of January 21. He was buried in the 
family cemetery behind the Russell home at the edge of Winder.

     Richard B. Russell, Jr., served his state and nation for fifty 
years, and spent more than half of his life in the U.S. Senate. At the 
time of his death, he held two positions of great prestige in this 
body--president pro tempore and chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee. He left a mark that will always be prominent in the history 
of the U.S. Senate, and one that will always be prominent in the 
memories of those, like myself, who served with him for so long in the 
Senate of the United States.

     Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to include footnotes to 
"Richard Brevard Russell."

     There being no objection, the footnotes were ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

     Notes to Richard Brevard Russell, Jr.

      1 For sources on Russell's early life see, Gilbert C. Fite. "The 
Education of a Senator: Richard B. Russell, Jr. in School," The Atlanta
Historical Journal, 30 (Summer 1986), pp. 19-31; and Karen Kelly, 
"Richard B. Russell: Democrat from Georgia," Ph.D. dissertation, 
University of North Carolina, 1979, ch. I. See also John H. Willey, "A 
Study of the Political Mind of Richard B. Russell, Jr., 1930-36," M.A. 
thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1974.

      2 Speech given at Barnesville, GA, Nov. 11, 1928. Russell 
Collection, speech file. All subsequent references to Russell speeches 
and correspondence are found in the Russell Collection, University of 
Georgia Library,  Athens, GA.

      3 Winder (GA) News, Sept. 9, 1920.

      4 Southern Cultivator 90 (Sept. 1, 1932), p. 7.

      5 Atlanta Journal, June 29 and July 1, 1932.

      6 Herman E. Talmadge, Talmadge: A Political Legacy, A 
Politician's Life (Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1987), p. 36.

      7 Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard B. Russell, Roosevelt papers, 
Hyde Park, PPF 3869.

      8 Congressional Record, 74th Congress, 1st sess., Jan. 29, 1935, 
pp. 1054 and 1147.

      9 Russell speech at Berry College, GA, 1940.

     10 Atlanta Journal, Apr. 14, 1946.

     11 Richard B. Russell, Jr. to Mr. O'Hardy, Feb. 10, 1948.
12 Undated clipping in Ina Russell's scrapbook, 1947-49.

     13 Richard B. Russell to Mrs. Elizabeth Caldwalder-Noyes, Aug. 
31, 1948.

     14 Military Situation in the Far East. Hearings before the 
Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
U.S. Senate, 82d Congress, 1st sess. (Washington, 1951), 5 parts. 
Pt. II, pp. 681-83, 758, and 784-829.

     15 Richard B. Russell to Senator Pat McCarran, Nov. 13, 1950, and 
to Senator Dennis Chavez, Nov. 14, 1950.

     16 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 29, 1952.

     17 Calvin W. Rawlings to Richard B. Russell, July 31, 1952.

     18 Richard B. Russell to Erwin Sibley, May 6, 1957.

     19 Congressional Record, 83d Congress, 2d sess., May 18, 1954, 
pp. 6748-50.

     20 Washington Evening Star, Aug. 5, 1957. The best study of 
Russell and the civil rights issue is David D. Potenziani, "Look to 
the Past, Richard B. Russell and the Defense of Southern White 
Supremacy," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, 1981.

     21 Congressional Record, 85th Congress, 1st sess., August 30, 
1957, pp. 16659-61, 85th Congress, 2d sess., April 8, 1960, p. 7814.

     22 Atlanta Constitution, December 2, 1955.
23 Congressional Record, 84th Congress, 1st sess., June 26, 1956, p. 
10973.

     24 Richard B. Russell to Senator Josiah Sibley, March 2, 1956.

     25 Richard B. Russell to Senator Kenneth McKellar, February 18, 
1957.

     26 New York Times, January 27 and May 19, 1960.

     27 Richard B. Russell's handwritten notes of the White House 
conference on Cuban crisis, October 23, 1962.

     28 U.S. News and World Report 59 (September 6, 1957), p. 57.

     29 Quoted by Senator William F. Knowland, June 22, 1967. Columbia 
University Oral History.

     30 Congressional Record, 88th Congress, 1st sess., January 10, 
1963, pp. 137-39.

     31 Washington Post, March 24, 1969.

     32 Dick Dabney, The Life of Sam Ervin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 
1976), p. 168.

     33 Pageant 20 (November, 1964), p. 6.

     34 Senator Howard W. Cannon to Richard B. Russell, September 14, 
1959; and Senator Robert C. Byrd to Russell, September 9, 1

     From U.S. Congress. Senate. Congressional Record. 100th Congress, 
2d sess., Feb. 1, 1988. (See pp. 499-509).



                             S. RES. 296

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 25, 1972

   Mr. Robert C. Byrd submitted the following resolution; which was 
       referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration (by 
                            unanimous consent)

                           September 18, 1972

       Reported by Mr. Jordan of North Carolina, with amendments

                             October 11, 1972

                   Considered, amended, and agreed to


                                Resolution

        To designate the Old Senate Office Building as the "Richard 
                      Brevard Russell Office Building".

     Resolved, That insofar as concerns the Senate, the Senate Office 
Building constructed under authority of the Act of April 28, 1904 (33 
Stat. 452, 481), is hereby designated and shall be known as the 
"Richard Brevard Russell Office Building".
     Sec. 2. Any rule, regulation, document, or record of the Senate, 
in which reference is made to the building referred to in the first 
section of this resolution, shall be held and considered to be a 
reference to such building by the name designated for such building 
by the first section of this resolution.
     Sec. 3. The Committee on Rules and Administration is hereby 
authorized and directed to place an appropriate marker or 
inscription at a suitable location or locations within the Old Senate 
Office Building to commemorate and designate such building as 
provided herein. Expenses incurred in connection therewith shall be 
paid from the contingent fund of the Senate upon vouchers approved 
by the chairman of said committee.


                  THE RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING

     On October 11, 1972, the Senate officially dedicated the oldest 
of the three Senate office buildings in honor of one of the 
institution's most distinguished leaders, Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. 
of Georgia. Located at Constitution and Delaware Avenues, NE, the 
building has served as office space for the members of the Senate 
since 1909. 

     Throughout the nineteenth century, senators had no official 
office building, but instead met in committee rooms of the Capitol 
or in their private residences. Fifty members had office space in the 
old Maltby building, located on New Jersey and Constitution Avenues, 
NW, but the condition of the building had greatly deteriorated by the 
turn of the century. In 1904, the Senate authorized construction of a 
fireproof office building to meet the pressing need for working space. 

     Along with the House, whose members faced the same office space 
predicament, the Senate awarded the architectural contract to the 
esteemed firm of Carrere and Hastings. One of the most successful 
architectural companies in the country during the early twentieth 
century, their work included resort hotels in St. Augustine, Florida; 
the Frick Art Museum in Boston; and, in New York City, the 
Manhattan Bridge, the Standard Oil Building, and the New York 
Public Library.

     John Merven Carrere and Thomas Hastings received their 
professional education at the architecture school of the Ecole des 
Beaux-Arts in Paris, where they were trained in the traditional 
academic and classical manner. In designing the Senate office 
building, Carrere and Hastings turned primarily to French classical 
sources; the grand exterior of the building recalls the eighteenth 
century facade of the Colonade du Louvre. Yet the firm remained 
modernists in their plans for the building. They efficiently equipped 
the structure with ample entrances, exits, elevators, stairwells, 
toilet facilities with hot and cold running water, a forced-air 
ventilation system, steam heat, and storage and office space, so that 
the interior conformed to the standards of early twentieth century 
buildings.

     When first occupied in March of 1909, only three sides of the 
planned four-sided structure had been completed. Ninety-four office 
suites of two rooms, four suites of three rooms, ten single rooms, 
eight committee rooms, and the Conference Room (Caucus Room) 
provided much needed office and meeting areas. Additional space 
was designated for a dining room, barber shop, post office, bathing 
room, telephone and telegraph offices, and also a gymnasium on the 
first floor. Eventually, even this space became crowded, leading to 
the completion of the structure's fourth side in 1933. 

     Included in the new office building was a grand and elegant 
meeting room, today known as the Caucus Room (room 325). The space 
reflects Carrere and Hastings' European-derived style. For the marble 
floor design, they turned to French classical sources such as 
Fountainbleau and Hotel des Invalides, while other interior features 
follow the tradition of Versailles. Twelve heroic Corinthian columns 
flank the longitudinal walls, and support a classical architrave and 
frieze. Perhaps the most elegant feature is the ceiling, with its 
gilded rosettes, rows of acanthus leaves, and Greek key borders. The 
distinctive furniture seen in the room today, commissioned in 1910 
from the Francis Bacon Furniture Company of Boston, includes the 
original six mahogany benches and two settles capped with carved 
eagles. Although originally intended for party caucuses, the size and 
grandeur of the room made it a likely site for major public hearings. 
For the past eighty years, the Caucus Room has served as a stage for 
some of the most dramatic Senate investigations, including the 
sinking of the Titanic, the Teapot Dome scandal, Pearl Harbor, the 
Kefauver Crime Committee, Army vs. McCarthy, the Vietnam War, 
Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Supreme Court nomination of 
Clarence Thomas.

     Throughout his career, Senator Richard Russell maintained a suite 
of rooms in this oldest Senate office building. Originally located on 
the fourth floor, he moved to the second floor in 1953 to room 205 
(now 203, 205, 207, and 209). Russell maintained this suite until his 
death in 1971. His rooms were furnished with the standard "set" of 
office furniture originally ordered for the building'a flat-top or 
"battleship" desk, a desk chair, easy chair, small chair, two arm 
chairs, a davenport, and a bookcase. Russell usually arrived at his 
office about 9:00 a.m., working until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. He typically 
worked on Saturday until noon or later. Senator Russell also spent 
much time in the building as chairman of the Committee on Armed 
Services, a position he held from 1951 to 1953, and from 1955 to 
1969. The committee's rooms are appropriately located adjacent to 
the Russell rotunda, the site of the new Richard B. Russell, Jr. 
statue. 

     The Russell rotunda reflects the classical tradition of 
architects Carrere and Hastings. Eighteen Corinthian columns in a 
marble arcade support a richly detailed entablature and coffered dome. 
The oculus of the dome is glazed to flood the space with natural light.
Behind the statue, twin marble staircases lead to the imposing Caucus 
Room. While used for receptions, exhibitions, and other ceremonial 
events, the rotunda is the main thoroughfare into the building, and the
statue of Richard Russell faces southwest towards the grand 
entryway. 


                           FREDERICK E. HART

     Sculptor Frederick Hart is best known for his monumental public 
commissions and his graceful, figurative sculptures. Born in Atlanta, 
Georgia, the artist grew up in Washington, DC, and studied at the 
University of South Carolina, the Corcoran School of Art, and 
American University.

     Hart began to learn the skill of stonecutting in 1967 at the 
National Cathedral in Washington. By 1974 he had won the international 
competition and was awarded the commission to create a series of 
sculptures for the main entrance of the cathedral. The works 
comprise three life-size statues, Adam, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul, 
and three relief panels, The Creation of Night, The Creation of Day, 
and Ex Nihilo (Out of Nothing). In 1984, Hart's bronze figurative 
sculpture entitled Three Soldiers was dedicated as part of the 
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Other notable works by 
the artist include: The Cross of the Millennium, a clear acrylic resin 
sculpture, simultaneously representing the birth, death, and 
resurrection of Christ; the Fauquier County Veterans Memorial, 
Virginia; the James Earl Carter Presidential Statue, a larger-than-
life-size bronze on the grounds of the state capitol in Atlanta, 
Georgia; and a bronze portrait bust of James Webb at the Smithsonian 
Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. 

     The artist has worked extensively in clear acrylic resin since 
the early 1980s, and has patented a process by which he embeds one 
clear acrylic sculpture within another, a technique he calls 
"sculpting with light." These pioneering figurative works best express 
Hart's artistic philosophy--his spiritual and humanist ideals. 

     Frederick Hart's honors include: the National Sculpture Society's 
Henry Hering Award, shared with architect Philip Frohman, for the 
Creation sculptures; the Presidential Award for Design Excellence for 
Three Soldiers; the George Alexander Memorial Award from the 
Blinded American Veterans Foundation; an honorary degree of Doctor 
of Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina; appointment to 
the Sacred Arts Commission for the Catholic Archdiocese of 
Washington; appointment to the Commission of Fine Arts by 
President Ronald Reagan; and consultant for the proposed World War 
II memorial in Washington, DC.

     In 1994 Hudson Hill press published Frederick Hart, Sculptor, a 
comprehensive book on the artist, his work, and his philosophy. In 
the publication, J. Carter Brown, Director Emeritus of the National 
Gallery of Art, comments: "It is breathtaking to see an artist with the
technical abilities and devotion to craft of Frederick Hart combine 
these gifts with an ability to go to the brink with them, but somehow 
to keep dominant the inner, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual 
force of the work."

     Frederick Hart lives on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of 
Virginia with his wife and two sons. He continues to work on 
sculpture in stone, bronze, and clear acrylic resin.


                            Sculptor's Notes

     Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. exemplified a tradition in American 
politics, particularly in the South, of the classical model of 
gentleman and public servant. This tradition flowered in the 
eighteenth century; the farmer-statesman-soldier, as personified by 
southerners such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, George Mason, 
and James Monroe whose ideals of civic responsibility and leadership 
were framed by classical heroes such as Cincinnatus of ancient Rome.

     It is fitting that the setting for a statue of Richard B. 
Russell, Jr. should be the beautiful neo-classical rotunda of the 
Russell Senate Office Building designed by Carrere and Hastings, and 
that the stylistic inspiration for the statue be in the great 
tradition of Roman portrait statuary. The Russell statue is in white 
marble, from the same quarries as the Roman statues of two-thousand 
years ago.

     The portrait statues of Roman statesmen and patricians are 
typically very life-like. The likenesses are not idealized but are 
true characterizations of the individual; yet, the overall styling and 
modeling of the statues achieve an august monumentality that 
speaks eloquently of the authority, the dignity, and stateliness of 
the individual portrayed.

     In the same spirit, the statue of Richard B. Russell, Jr. is 
meant to convey both his personable and gracious courtliness as well 
as evoke the dignified aura of a distinguished public servant.

                                                      Frederick E. Hart


                             Vincent Palumbo

     Vincent Palumbo, master stone carver at the National Cathedral in 
Washington, DC, translated artist Frederick Hart's model of Richard 
Russell, Jr. into Carrera marble. Born in Italy, Palumbo learned 
stonecutting from his father and grandfather, following a tradition of 
five generations. He immigrated to America in 1961, where he joined 
his father and a team of a dozen other stone carvers working on the 
National Cathedral. He continued to sculpt the religious and secular 
figures that adorn the cathedral, and the intricate gargoyles, for the 
next thirty-five years. Palumbo's association with artist Frederick 
Hart was established in the late 1970s when he began the task of 
translating Hart's monumental Creation series for the main entrance 
of the cathedral. Palumbo and his work were featured prominently 
in the award winning documentary "The Stone Carvers." 

     Vincent Palumbo also sculpted the busts of Gerald Ford and Nelson 
Rockefeller in the Senate's vice presidential bust collection; a 
monument plaque at Arlington National Cemetery, dedicated to 
American correspondents killed in World War II; and a bust of 
Ronald Reagan at the Reagan Library. He recently worked on the 
restoration of the facade of the White House.


                              Appendix I

                   Remarks by Charles E. Campbell,
               Chairman, Richard B. Russell Foundation

                       Russell Statue Luncheon
                Governor's Mansion, Atlanta, Georgia
                          October 23, 1995

     Thank you, Governor Miller. First, I would like to express the 
appreciation of the Russell Foundation to Governor Miller and 
Senator Nunn for hosting this luncheon today. Zell Miller and Sam 
Nunn have long been friends of Richard Russell and of the Russell 
Foundation.

     I had the privilege of working for the last six years of Senator 
Russell's life as a member of his staff in Washington. Today, I have 
the honor to serve as chairman of the Richard Russell Foundation. 
The Russell Foundation is a non-profit corporation established by 
admirers of Senator Russell in Georgia. It supports numerous 
activities related to the preservation of the senator's memory, his 
records and discussion of public policy questions in which Senator 
Russell had a particular interest.

     Next January will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Richard 
Russell's death. At that time, we will have an opportunity to 
participate in an event that will not only bring great credit to 
Senator Russell but to our state as well. I refer to the dedication of 
the Richard B. Russell statue. The Russell statue is a seven-foot 
marble statue that will be placed in the rotunda area of the Russell 
Senate Office Building. The Russell Senate Office Building is the 
oldest and most prestigious of the three Senate office buildings in 
Washington. In 1972--the year after Senator Russell died--the Congress, 
through joint resolution, renamed what had been known as the "Old 
Senate Office Building" as the "Richard Brevard Russell Office 
Building." The Russell Senate Office Building is one of the most 
important buildings in our nation's capital. It was there that such 
momentous events in the history of our country took place as the 
hearings to inquire into President Truman's dismissal of General 
Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War (hearings which Senator 
Russell chaired, incidentally), the announcement of John F. Kennedy's 
presidential campaign, the Senate Watergate hearings (of which Senator 
Talmadge was such an important part), and, more recently, the 
Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.

     The dedication of the Russell statue at 4 p.m. on January 24, 
1996 will focus on three distinct aspects of Senator Russell's Senate 
career: (1) Richard B. Russell--A President's Senator, (2) Richard B. 
Russell--A Senator's Senator and (3) Richard B. Russell--Georgia's 
Senator.

     The president of the United States has been invited to speak on 
the first topic and, while he has made no final commitment, the 
initial indications are positive for his participation. Senator Robert 
Byrd, the former majority leader of the Senate, and Senator Robert 
Dole, the present majority leader of the Senate, have both agreed to 
speak on "Richard B. Russell--a Senator's Senator." Our governor will 
speak on the topic of "Richard B. Russell--Georgia's Senator." Senator 
Sam Nunn will serve as master of ceremonies.

     Many of you in this room knew Richard Russell personally and many 
others of you know him by reputation. His career was one of the 
most outstanding in our nation's history. He served fifty continuous 
years in public office. He served ten years in the Georgia House of 
Representatives, including the last four as speaker. He became 
speaker of the Georgia house in 1926 before he was even thirty 
years of age. He became Georgia's youngest governor in 1930 at age 
thirty-two during the depths of the Great Depression. The 
administration of Governor Russell was one of decisive change in our 
state--he cut the number of state agencies from 102 to 17 and cut the 
cost of government by 20 percent. At the same time, there were 
numerous progressive achievements of the Russell administration 
including the creation of a unified system of higher education under 
a Board of Regents insulated from politics. That system survives 
today.

     When a Senate seat became vacant in 1932, Governor Russell ran 
successfully and took office at the age of thirty-four on January 12, 
1933. He was the nation's youngest senator.

     Richard Russell served thirty-eight years in the U.S. Senate, 
becoming the first person in the history of the United States to serve 
over half their life in the Senate. During this time--from 1933 
through 1970--he never missed a single opening session of Congress. 
You might call him the Cal Ripken of the Senate.

     Senator Russell's Senate career was perhaps unique in the history 
of our country. No senator, at least in modern times, has amassed the 
power and influence that Richard Russell enjoyed both in the Senate 
itself and at the White House.

     When we refer to Richard Russell as a "president's senator" we 
are referring to the fact that he enjoyed an extremely close 
relationship with every American president from Franklin Roosevelt 
through Richard Nixon, and was a confidential advisor of every one of 
them.

     Four of the presidents with whom Senator Russell served--Harry 
Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon--had 
previously served in the Senate where Richard Russell was the 
preeminent senator. He knew them all well and they all knew before 
they arrived at the White House that Richard Russell was the 
foremost congressional authority on national security and a senator 
who was good to his word in all matters. The other two presidents'
Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower--also had extensive prior 
relationships with Senator Russell. Franklin Roosevelt and Richard 
Russell became friends as young men when they were both serving 
as governor of their states--Franklin Roosevelt in New York and 
Richard Russell here in Georgia.

     In fact, at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, Richard 
Russell made a nominating speech for Franklin Roosevelt in the first 
of Roosevelt's four successful campaigns for the White House. Even 
though he was a new senator at the time, Richard Russell had a 
significant leadership role in the Senate in passing New Deal farm 
legislation that created the Farmer's Home Administration and 
established farm price supports and soil conservation protection 
measures. During this time, he authored the National School Lunch 
Program.

     Senator Russell, as a result of his position of influence on the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, dealt extensively with Dwight 
Eisenhower when General Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied 
Commander in World War II. They had become close friends before 
1952 when General Eisenhower was elected presi-dent. Their 
friendship continued and grew during the Eisenhower presidency.

     One characteristic that was dominant in Senator Russell's 
relationship not only with presidents but with everyone else was his 
staunch independence. No matter how close a friend he was of a 
president, nor how much political pressure was brought to bear on 
him, he steadfastly refused to support any measure in which he did not 
personally believe. Probably the two presidents who were the closest 
personally to Richard Russell were Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon 
Johnson. However, in both instances, Richard Russell could not 
support important legislative matters pursued by them. He was one 
of four senators to provide the decisive votes against President 
Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Supreme Court after it declared 
several of the New Deal programs unconstitutional. His independence 
also caused strains in his relationship with Lyndon Johnson thirty 
years later when he opposed certain provisions in the president's 
civil rights legislation, the social programs of the "Great Society," 
and the way in which the war in Vietnam was conducted.

     In all things, Richard Russell remained true to his view of what 
was best for the country.

     If Senator Russell's friendship with presidents was unusual, his 
standing in the Senate itself was perhaps unique. His power was such 
that he could have become majority leader or minority leader on any 
number of occasions. However, he declined because of his desire to 
maintain independence of thought and voting, making it impossible 
for him to agree in advance to support the program of any 
administration. Instead of becoming majority or minority leader of 
the Senate, he largely selected several such leaders and became the 
Senate's mentor. Senators of both parties, of all political 
persuasions, and from all parts of the country turned to Richard 
Russell more than anyone else for guidance and for help in the 
discharge of their Senate duties. They knew he was a man of integrity, 
independence, and good faith.

     Richard Russell was, indeed, a senator's senator.

     He was also Georgia's senator. Many times, it seems that one who 
achieves the position of national prominence and power as did 
Richard Russell, forgets his or her home state constituents because of 
the press of what are viewed as more important duties. Such was not 
the case with Richard Russell. Up until the very end, he considered 
among his most important duties that of faithfully representing the 
people of Georgia in Washington. He was fond of saying, "I have been 
elected to represent and work for Georgia's interest in Washington 
and not Washington's interest in Georgia."

     Georgians have benefited immensely and continue to benefit from 
Richard Russell's public service career. Benefits directly traceable 
to his representation of Georgia in the Senate include Lockheed--
Georgia as a prime military contractor and a principal employer in 
this state, the National Communicable Disease Center here in Atlanta, 
the Richard Russell Federal Building that houses our federal court 
system, the numerous Corps of Engineers lake developments on 
Georgia's rivers, and too many outstanding military bases to even 
mention.

     I relate two brief stories to illustrate the importance serving 
Georgia had to Richard Russell up until the very end. Several years 
before he died, Senator Russell became the president pro tempore of 
the Senate--which is in some ways roughly equivalent to the Speaker of 
the House of Representatives. As president pro tempore, he was the 
titular head of the Senate and third in line of succession to the 
presidency. A part of the job as president pro tempore was to make 
appointments to various national commissions or boards where the 
president had an appointment, the Speaker of the House had an 
appointment, and the president pro tempore of the Senate had an 
appointment.

     After routinely approving recommended appointments for a couple 
of weeks, Senator Russell called me into his office one day and had 
on his desk a proposed appointment to a national commission. He 
asked me: "Isn't there anyone in Georgia qualified for any of these 
positions?" We got to looking around and found out that the 
particular appointment in question was in a discipline in which a 
professor at Georgia State University here in Atlanta was a nationally 
recognized expert. Senator Russell deleted the name of the 
recommended appointee and inserted the Georgia State professor 
instead. Amazingly, thereafter the names of qualified Georgians 
started appearing with greater frequency on the lists.

     A second true story I would relate involves Senator Russell's 
decision regarding activities relating to his death. Before he died, 
he specified that his body was to be returned to Georgia immediately 
upon his death. This is because he wanted his body to lie in state at 
Georgia's capitol here in Atlanta as opposed to in Washington. It is 
ironic that when the president's senator and the senator's senator 
died, there were only three official activities marking his death in 
Washington: (1) the president of the United States ordered American 
flags to half staff; (2) the president paused in his State of the 
Union Address for a moment of silent prayer; and (3) the hearse 
carrying Senator Russell's body was viewed by the entire Senate 
standing on the Capitol steps on its way to Andrews Air Force Base to 
be returned via Air Force One to Georgia.

     Richard Russell, was, indeed, Georgia's senator. The inscription 
selected by the Russell Foundation to be placed on the Russell statue 
will read simply as follows:

     "Richard B. Russell, Jr.--Senator from Georgia--1933-1971."

     From U.S. Congress. Senate. Congressional Record. 104th Congress, 
2d sess., Feb. 23, 1996 (See pp. S1302-03).



                              Appendix II

                      Richard B. Russell Chronology


Born November 2, 1897, Winder, Georgia
Graduated Seventh District Agricultural and Mechanical School, 
  Powder Springs, Georgia, 1914
Graduated Gordon Military Institute, Barnesville, Georgia, 1915
Graduated University of Georgia Law School, Athens, Georgia, 1918
Served in United States Naval Reserve, 1918
Member, Georgia House of Representatives, 1921-1931
Speaker, Georgia House of Representatives, 1927-1931
Governor of Georgia, 1931-1933
Sworn in as United States Senator from Georgia, January 12, 1933
Reelected to United States Senate 1936, 1942, 1948, 1954, 1960, 
1966
Chairman, Hearings on the Military Situation in the Far East [General
  Douglas MacArthur hearings], 1951
Member, President's Commission on the Assassination of President 
John F. 
  Kennedy [Warren Commission], 1963-1964
Chairman, 
    Committee on Immigration, 1937-1947
    Committee on Manufactures, 1945-1947
    Committee on Armed Services, 1951-1953,  1955-1969
    Committee on Appropriations, 1969-1971
President pro tempore, 1969-1971
Died January 21, 1971 in Washington, DC



                               Appendix III

                     Bibliography of Richard B. Russell 

Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and his 
Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 
1994.

Boney, F. N. "`The Senator's Senator': Richard Brevard Russell, Jr., 
of Georgia." Georgia Historical Quarterly 71 (Fall 1987): 477-90.

Bradford, Gary Paul. "A Rhetorical Analysis of Richard B. Russell's 
1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Speech." Master's thesis, University of 
Georgia, 1966.

Fite, Gilbert C. "The Education of a Senator: Richard B. Russell, Jr., 
in School." Atlanta Historical Journal 30 (Summer 1986): 19-31.

-----. Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia. Chapel Hill: 
University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

-----. "The Richard B. Russell Library: From Idea to Working 
Collection." Georgia Historical Quarterly 64 (Spring 1980): 22-34.

-----. "Richard B. Russell and Lyndon B. Johnson: The Story of a 
Strange Friendship." Missouri Historical Review 83 (January 1989): 
125-38.

Gay, James Thomas. "Richard B. Russell and the National School Lunch 
Program." Georgia Historical Quarterly 80 (Winter 1996): 859-872.

Goldsmith, John A. Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, 
Lyndon B. Johnson. Washington: Seven Locks Press, 1993.

Grant, Philip A. "Editorial Reaction to the 1952 Candidacy of Richard 
B. Russell." Georgia Historical Quarterly 57 (Summer 1973): 167-78.

Hale, F. Sheffield. "Richard B. Russell's Election to the Senate: The 
Watershed of Two Political Careers." Atlanta Historical Journal 28 
(Spring 1984): 5-21.

Kelly, Karen Kalmar. "Richard B. Russell: Democrat from Georgia." 
Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1979.

Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert 
Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New 
York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Mead, Howard N. "Russell vs. Talmadge: Southern Politics and the 
New Deal." Georgia Historical Quarterly 65 (Spring 1981): 28-45.

Mellichamp, Josephine. "Richard B. Russell, Jr." in Senators from 
Georgia, pp. 245-60. Huntsville, AL: Strode Publishers, 1976.

Morita, Hideyuki. "Atlanta Constitution and the Occupation of Japan'
A Background of the Russell Speech." Seinan Journal of Cultures 11 
(September 1996): 127-160.

Potenziani, David Daniel. "Look to the Past: Richard B. Russell and 
the Defense of Southern White Supremacy." Ph.D. dissertation, 
University of Georgia, 1981.

-----. "Striking Back: Richard B. Russell and Racial Relocation." 
Georgia Historical Quarterly 65 (Fall 1981): 263-77.

Stern, Mark. "Lyndon Johnson and Richard Russell: Institutions, 
Ambitions, and Civil Rights." Presidential Studies Quarterly 21 (Fall 
1991): 687-704.

U.S. Congress. Memorial Services in the Congress of the United States 
and Tributes in Eulogy of Richard Brevard Russell, Late a Senator 
from the State of Georgia. 92d Cong., 1st sess., 1971. Washington: 
Government Printing Office, 1971.

Ziemke, Caroline F. "Senator Richard B. Russell and the `Lost Cause' 
in Vietnam, 1954-1968." Georgia Historical Quarterly 72 (Spring 1988): 
30-71.



                              APPENDIX IV

                            Acknowledgments


The United States Senate Commission on Art and the Richard B. Russell 
     Foundation wish to thank the following individuals and 
     organizations for their support and assistance with this project:

Principal contributors to the Richard B. Russell, Jr. statue:

The Honorable Ivan Allen, Jr.
The Coca-Cola Company

Alston & Bird
The Honorable Griffin B. Bell
The Honorable and Mrs. Howard H. (Bo) Callaway
Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Campbell
Mr. Bradley Currey, Jr.
Delta Air Lines, Inc.
The Honorable David H. Gambrell
Georgia Power Foundation, Inc.
Mr. and Mrs. Earl T. Leonard, Jr.
Adalaide G. Norton
The Honorable William L. Norton, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. James L. Pannell
Mr. J. Mack Robinson
Bobby, Erlene & Janet Smith
Standard Telephone Company
Thomaston Mills, Inc.
Mr. R.E. (Ted) Turner
The Honorable and Mrs. S. Ernest Vandiver

With special appreciation:

Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)
Senator Paul Coverdell (R-GA)
Vice President Al Gore
Mr. Frederick Hart
Governor Zell Miller
Mrs. Carolyn Nelson
Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA)
Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie
Mr. Vincent Palumbo
Mrs. Pat Peterson
The Russell Family
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Ms. Sheryl Vogt
and
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, 
The University of Georgia Libraries


Title page photograph courtesy Richard B. Russell Library for Political 
Research and Studies.
Frontispiece @1996 Cindy Mahan.