(1897 – 1971) Richard Russell, a long-serving US senator from Georgia and a conservative Democrat, was Chairperson of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1952 and from 1955 to 1968, where he oversaw government defense and intelligence operations. A mentor to Senator, then President, Lyndon Johnson, Russell was a confirmed segregationist and resisted Johnson’s efforts to pass the comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson forcefully persuaded Russell to serve on the Warren Commission, but Russell refused to sign the Commission’s report until a clause was added that a conspiracy to assassinate President John Kennedy was still a possibility.