- As longtime director of the National Committee for an Effective Congress, he was a natural choice for the List.

- Founded in 1948 by Eleanor Roosevelt, the Committee fought everything Republicans supported: McCarthyism [Joe not Gene], civil rights legislation, American involvement in Vietnam, tax breaks for oil companies, the arms race, and especially Nixon himself.

- He claimed the NCEC was a non-partisan reform group because it had backed some pre-Reagan liberal Republicans.

- In the 1950's, he worked to finally oust the corrupt Tammany Hall Democrats in New York (100 years after the heyday under Boss Tweed), so his reform work was nonpartisan in that instance.

- His political activism got started by working for the Adlai Stevenson campaigns in 1952, 1956, and even Stevenson's brief 1960 attempt.

- Apparently did not have any personal aspiration to elected office.

- Served with the Navy in the Pacific during WW II.

- Was admired by all for his ability to raise political money and spend it strategically.

- The Washington Post mentions the Enemies List in the obituary about halfway through. The NY Times makes no mention.

- As a behind-the-scenes guy, he had ties to other prominent names on the Enemies List. The NY Times obituary included a photo of him with Allard K. Lowenstein and Bella Abzug in 1978. The Post notes his association with Arthur Schlesinger and Hans Morgenthau and also that Stewart Mott made him chairman of the Fund for Constitutional Government.

- At the time of his death, he was one of only 7 names on the First List that did not have a Wikipedia entry.

- not to be confused with Russell D. Hemingway, the late one-time City Commissioner of Munising, Michigan OR Russell Hemings, the clinical and cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist in the U.K.