Saturday, October 13, 2007
Russell E. DoughertyAir Force General
Russell Elliott Dougherty, an Air Force general who served as commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command and executive director of the Air Force Association, died of a heart attack Sept. 7 at his home in the Falcon Landing military retirement community in Potomac Falls. He was 87.
Gen. Dougherty, known as a strategic thinker, was called an air power visionary. He also was a lawyer, command pilot and master missileman.
As commander of the Strategic Air Command and director of strategic target planning at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska from 1974 to 1977, Gen. Dougherty oversaw a nuclear arsenal of bombers, tankers, reconnaissance aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
He was executive director of the Air Force Association, an independent nonprofit organization that promotes aerospace power, from 1980 to 1986. He practiced law at McGuireWoods in Tysons Corner from 1987 to 2000.
His military decorations and awards included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal and the Joint Service Commendation Medal. He received the Air Force Association Lifetime Achievement award in 2004.
He was born in Glasgow, Ky., and received a bachelor's degree from Western Kentucky University. He worked for the FBI and served in the Kentucky National Guard's 123rd Cavalry. He graduated from the University of Louisville's law school in 1946.
At the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet. In 1947, he served as a unit instructor with the Air Force Reserve at Standiford Field in Louisville, and he was a judge advocate in the late 1940s.
After the war, his Air Force assignments included joint and international operations, maintenance and administration and command duties. He retired from the Air Force in 1977.
The Strategic Planning Center at Offutt Air Force Base was renamed the Dougherty Conference Center in his honor.
His first wife, Gerry Shaaber Dougherty, died in 1978. Two children from that marriage also died, Air Force Lt. Col. Bryant Dougherty in 1990 and Clara Virginia Vadersen in 2001.
Survivors include his wife, Barbara Dougherty of Potomac Falls; two children from his first marriage, Diane Ralston of Anchorage and retired Air Force Col. Mark Dougherty of Smyrna, Ga.; three children from his second marriage, Julia Lake of Springfield, Diane Riordan of Fredrick and Julian Lake IV of Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.; 16 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb