Frank Church

Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981.

Church was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1976 presidential election, losing to Jimmy Carter. He is known for heading the Church Committee, which investigated abuses in the U.S. intelligence agencies.

Early life
Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, Church was the younger of the two sons of Frank (II) and Laura Bilderback Church. His father co-owned a sporting goods store and took the sons on fishing, hunting, and hiking outings in the Idaho mountains. The family was Catholic and conservative, and Frank III attended St. Joseph's School as a youngster, and went by the nickname "Frosty." His older brother Richard became a career officer in the U.S. Marines Corps, and retired as a colonel.

In his youth, Church admired William E. Borah, who represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate from 1907 to 1940. Church graduated from Boise High School in 1942, where he served as student body president. As a junior in 1941, he won the American Legion National Oratorical Contest. The prize was sufficient to provide for four years at the college of the winner's choice. Church chose Stanford University, and enrolled in 1942.

In 1943, Church enlisted in the U.S. Army and attended officer candidate training in Georgia. He served as a military intelligence officer in the China-Burma-India theater. Following his discharge in 1946, he returned to Stanford to complete his education, receiving his bachelor's degree in political science in 1947.

In June 1947 he married Bethine Clark, daughter of Chase A. Clark, a former Democratic governor of Idaho. The wedding took place at the secluded Robinson Bar Ranch (44.247°N, -114.678°W), the Chase family's ranch in the mountains east of Stanley (and now owned by singer Carole King, since 1981). He entered Harvard Law School that fall and after one year at Harvard, Church transferred to Stanford Law School, when he thought the cold Massachusetts winter was the cause of a pain in his lower back. The pain did not go away and the problem was soon diagnosed as testicular cancer. After one of his testicles and glands in his lower abdomen were removed, Church was given only a few months to live. However, he rebounded from the illness after another doctor started X-ray treatments. This second chance led him to later reflect that "life itself is such a chancy proposition that the only way to live is by taking great chances." In 1950, Church graduated from Stanford Law School and returned to Boise to practice law and teach public speaking at the junior college.

Frank and Bethine had two sons, Frank Forrester Church IV, who died in 2009, and Chase Clark Church, who lives in Boise. Both boys were named for their grandfathers.

Political career
Church became an active Democrat in Idaho and after an unsuccessful try for the state legislature in 1952, he ran for the United States Senate in 1956. After a closely contested primary election against former Senator Glen H. Taylor, Church handily defeated Republican incumbent Herman Welker in the general election. At the age of 32, Church became the fifth youngest member ever to sit in the U.S. Senate. Church was reelected three times (1962, 1968 and 1974), the only Democrat ever to win reelection to the U.S. Senate from Idaho.

Upon entering the Senate in January 1957, Church made the mistake of voting on a measure against the wishes of Democratic Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, and Johnson punished Church by all but ignoring him for the next six months. Church found solace from Republican Minority Leader, William Knowland. However, Church managed to find his way into Johnson's good graces by providing key assistance in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed. LBJ was so grateful he made the young Idahoan a veritable protégé, rewarding him with plum assignments, such as a seat on the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position which allowed Church to follow in the footsteps of his idol, William Borah. Recently declassified documents show that the young veteran also challenged his mentor, behind closed doors, after the 1964 incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, making this prescient warning: “In a democracy you cannot expect the people, whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their judgment if the truth is concealed from them."

In 1967, a recall campaign was waged against Church by Ron Rankin, a Republican county commissioner in Kootenai County in northern Idaho. Rankin unsuccessfully sued Idaho's secretary of state to accept recall petitions. The U.S. District Court for Idaho ruled that the state's recall laws did not apply to U.S. senators and that such a recall would violate the U.S. Constitution. Allan Shepard, Idaho's attorney general at the time, agreed with the court's decision.

"It must be pointed out that a United States senator is not a state officer but a federal officer whose position is created by Article I, Section I of the United States Constitution," Shepard wrote in a June 17, 1967, opinion for the secretary of state. "There seems to be no provision for canvassing the votes of a recall election of a United States senator." Most commentators at the time believed that the recall attempt strengthened Church politically by allowing him to play the role of political martyr and he was reelected in the next year's election over Republican Congressman George V. Hansen 60% to 40%.

Vietnam War and Church Committee
Church was a key figure in American foreign policy during the 1970s, and served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1981. Following the instinct that led him to ask questions early on (see above), Church was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the Vietnam War in the 1960s, although he had supported the conflict earlier. He was the co-author of two legislative efforts to curtail the war: the Cooper-Church Amendment of 1970, and the Case-Church Amendment of 1973.

In September 1970, Church announced on television and in speeches across the country that "the doves had won." Author David F. Schmitz states that Church based his assertion on the fact that two key propositions of the anti-war movement, "A negotiated peace and the withdrawal of American troops," were now official policy. The only debate that remained would be over when to withdraw, not whether to withdraw, and over the meaning of the war. Church concluded:

"So the last service the doves can perform for their country, is to insist that President Nixon's withdrawal program truly leads to a "Vietnamization" of the war. It must not become a device for lowering — and then perpetuating — an American military presence in South Vietnam for the indefinite future. Our long ordeal in this mistaken war must end. The gathering crisis in our own land, the deepening divisions among our people, the festering, unattended problems here at home, bear far more importantly on the future of our Republic than anything we ever had at stake in Indochina."

Church argued that the opponents of the Vietnam War needed to prevent the corruption of the nation and its institutions. To Church, the anti-war opposition was the "highest concept of patriotism — which is not the patriotism of conformity — but the patriotism of Senator Carl Schurz, a dissenter from an earlier period, who proclaimed: 'Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right: when wrong, to be put right."

Church gained national prominence during his service in the Senate through his chairmanship of the Church Committees, which conducted extensive hearings investigating extra-legal FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering and covert operations. Together with Senator Sam Ervin's committee inquiries, the Church Committee hearings laid the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The committee also investigated CIA drug smuggling activities in the Golden Triangle and secret U.S.-backed wars in Third World countries.

Environmental record and other issues
Church is also remembered for his voting record as a strong progressive and environmental legislator, and he played a major role in the creation of the nation's system of protected wilderness areas in the 1960s. In 1964, Church was the floor sponsor of the national Wilderness Act. In 1968, he sponsored the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and gained passage of a ten-year moratorium on federal plans to transfer water from the Pacific Northwest to California. Working with other members of Congress from northwestern states, Church helped establish the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area along the Oregon-Idaho border, which protected the gorge from dam building. He was also the primary proponent in the establishment of the Sawtooth Wilderness & National Recreation Area in central Idaho in 1972.

Church also was instrumental in the creation of Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness in 1980, his final year in the Senate. This wilderness comprised the old Idaho Primitive Area, the Salmon River Breaks Primitive Area, plus additional lands. At 2.36 million acres (9,550 km²), over 3600 sqmi, it is the largest wilderness area in the nation outside of Alaska. It was renamed the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1984, shortly after the diagnosis of his pancreatic cancer. Idaho Senator Jim McClure introduced the measure in the Senate in late February, and President Reagan signed the act on March 14, less than four weeks before his death on April 7.

Frank Church was considered a progressive (remarkable considering that he represented one of the most conservative states in the nation). He, in 1979, was the first in Congress to disclose and protest the presence of Soviet combat troops in Cuba. According to the Christian Science Monitor, this stance somewhat disarmed his opponent's charge in the 1980 campaign that Church's performance on the Foreign Relations Committee had helped to weaken the US militarily. In 1974, Church joined Senator Frank Moss, D-Utah, to sponsor the first legislation to provide federal funding for hospice care programs. The bill did not have widespread support and was not brought to a vote. Congress finally included a hospice benefit in Medicare in 1982.

In late 1975 and early 1976, a sub-committee of the U.S. Senate led by Church concluded that members of the Lockheed board had paid members of friendly governments to guarantee contracts for military aircraft in a series of illegal bribes and contributions made by Lockheed officials from the late 1950s to the 1970s. In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to foreign officials in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft including the F-104 Starfighter, the so-called "Deal of the Century".

He also sponsored the "conscience clause," which prohibited the government from requiring church-affiliated hospitals to perform abortions.

Late political career
In 1976, Church belatedly sought the Democratic nomination for president and announced his candidacy on March 18 from rustic Idaho City, his father's birthplace. Although he won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, he withdrew in favor of the eventual nominee, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Church remains the only Idahoan to win a major-party presidential primary election.

By June, Carter had the nomination sufficiently locked up and could take time to interview potential vice-presidential candidates. The pundits predicted that Church would be tapped to provide balance as an experienced senator with strong liberal credentials. Church promoted himself, persuading friends to intervene with Carter in his behalf. If a quick choice had been required as in past conventions, Carter later recalled, he would probably have chosen Church. But the longer period for deliberation gave Carter time to worry about his compatibility with the publicity-seeking Church, who had a tendency to be long-winded. Instead, Carter invited Senators Edmund Muskie, John Glenn, and Walter Mondale to visit his home in Plains, Georgia, for personal interviews, while Church, Henry M. Jackson, and Adlai Stevenson III would be interviewed at the convention in New York. Of all the potential candidates, Carter found Mondale the most compatible. As a result, Carter selected Mondale as his running mate.

In the late 1970s, Church was a main congressional supporter of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which proposed to return the Panama Canal to Panama. The latter position proved to be widely unpopular in Idaho and led to the formation of the "Anybody But Church Committee" (ABC), committee created by the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), based in Washington, D.C. ABC and NCPAC had no formal connection with the 1980 Senate campaign of conservative Republican congressman Steve Symms, which permitted them, under former Federal election law, to spend as much as they could raise to defeat Church.

Church lost in his attempt for a fifth term to Symms by less than one percent of the vote. His defeat was blamed on the activities of the Anybody But Church Committee and the national media's early announcement of Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's overwhelming win in Idaho. These predictions were broadcast before polls closed statewide, specifically in the Pacific Time Zone in the north. Many believed that this caused many Democrats in the more politically moderate Idaho Panhandle to not vote at all. , Church is the last Democrat to represent Idaho in the U.S. Senate.

Election results
Following his 24 years in the Senate, Church practiced international law with the Washington, D.C., firm of Whitman and Ransom, specializing in Asian issues.

Death and legacy
Three years after leaving the Senate, Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on January 12, 1984. Less than three months later, he died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 7 at age 59. A memorial service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and then his body was flown home to Idaho, where he lay in state beneath the rotunda of the Idaho State Capitol. His funeral was held in downtown Boise at the Cathedral of the Rockies on April 12 and televised throughout Idaho. Church was buried at Morris Hill Cemetery near his boyhood hero, Senator William Borah. His parents and paternal grandparents are also buried at Morris Hill, in the St. John's Catholic section. His maternal grandparents are buried across town in the Pioneer Cemetery, as are the Bayhouse great-grandparents.

Church received an honorary doctorate from Pennsylvania's Elizabethtown College in 1983 to honor his work for the American people during his career in public office. His papers, originally given to his alma mater Stanford University in 1981, were transferred to Boise State University at his request in 1984.

Church is widely quoted in regard to the National Security Agency: "I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge... I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

Church is the last Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate from Idaho. Since his last re-election in 1974, the Republicans have won twelve consecutive U.S. Senate elections in the state, through 2012.

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