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Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was an American politician and lawyer. From 1957 to 1981, he served as a U.S. senator from Idaho, and is currently the last Democrat to do so. He was the longest serving Democratic senator from the state and the only Democrat from the state who served more than two terms in the Senate. Church was a prominent figure in American foreign policy and established a reputation as a member of the party's liberal wing.
Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, he enrolled at Stanford University in 1942 but left to enlist in the Army, where he served as a military intelligence officer in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. Following the end of the war, he completed his law degree from Stanford Law School and returned to Boise to practice law. Church became an active Democrat in Idaho and ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the state legislature in 1952. In 1956, he was elected to the United States Senate, defeating former Senator Glen Taylor in a closely contested primary election and incumbent Herman Welker in the general election.
As a senator, he was a protégé of then-Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, and was appointed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 1960, Church received national exposure when he gave the keynote speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Considered a strong progressive and environmental legislator, he played a major role in the creation of a system of protected wilderness areas. Church was highly critical of the Vietnam War, despite initially supporting it; he co-authored the Cooper–Church Amendment of 1970 and the Case–Church Amendment of 1973, which sought to curtail the war. In 1975, he chaired the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee, laying the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
Church belatedly sought the 1976 Democratic nomination for president, and announced his candidacy on March 18, 1976. Although he won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, he withdrew in favor of former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Church was re-elected continuously to the Senate, defeating his Republican opponents in 1962, 1968, and 1974, until his defeat during the Republican wave of 1980. Following the end of his term, he practiced international law in Washington, D.C., specializing in Asian issues. Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on January 12, 1984, and he died less than three months later at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 7, 1984.
His father co-owned a Sports equipment and took the sons on fishing, hunting, and hiking outings in the Idaho mountains. The family was reportedly very Catholicism and Conservatism, with Church attending St. Joseph's School as a youngster, where he went by the nickname "Frosty." In his youth, Church admired William Borah, who represented Idaho in the United States Senate from 1907 until his death in 1940. When Borah died, Church walked by the open coffin in the rotunda of the State Capitol. He stated that "Because he was a senator, I wanted to become one, too." 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, which resulted in him receiving sufficient funds to provide for his four-year enrollment at Stanford University in California, where he joined the Theta Xi fraternity.
In June 1947 he married Bethine Clark, daughter of Chase Clark, a former Democratic governor of Idaho and the federal judge for the state. The wedding took place at the secluded Robinson Bar Ranch (), the Clark family's ranch in the mountains east of Stanley (and now owned by singer Carole King, since 1981). The two had a happy marriage and often showed their affection in public. He entered Harvard Law School that fall and after one year, 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 Boise Junior College (now Boise State University).
Frank and Bethine Church had two sons, Forrest Church, who died in 2009, and Chase Clark Church, who lives in Boise. Both boys were named for their grandfathers.
When the primary came, Church won the Democratic nomination, with only 37.75% of the vote, narrowly edging out Taylor by 200 votes. Though Church won the nomination, Taylor refused to concede, and claimed a number of voting irregularities in the canvassing of the primary. During the general election campaign, Church and his campaign hit the road. Church shook around 75,000 hands over the entire course of the campaign. Church also conducted an astute campaign, by contrasting his Physical fitness with that of Welker. His slogan, "Idaho Will Be Proud of Frank Church", was a major asset to his campaign. Church also campaigned on an internationalist Party platform, in favor of a publicly owned Hells Canyon DamAlthough The Western Political Quarterly described his support for the high dam at Hells Canyon as "mild" (), Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert A. Caro says that this was the central issue in this election and the governor's election in the same year, and noted that Church's maiden speech was on the dam. and was conservative on money matters.
This was in stark contrast to Welker's campaign, which focused heavily on anti-Communism, a decision that proved to be a weak political foundation. The Welker campaign also ran on his record, as well as the "Herman letter", in which President Eisenhower endorsed Welker's candidacy. Glen Taylor also ran in the general election as a write-in candidate, labeling Church as a candidate of the "corporate interests". Church won the race, defeating both Welker and Taylor, with a plurality of 46,315 votes. This was despite a number of factors that might have inhibited Church's campaign, including the Republican's fundraising advantage and Eisenhower's large victory in the presidential election.
Church was reelected in 1962, defeating former state representative Jack Hawley. To date, he is the only Idaho Democrat to be popularly elected for more than one term in the Senate.
In the 1968 Senate election, Church won with over 60 percent of the vote against Republican challenger and U.S. Representative George V. Hansen, in contrast with the concurrent presidential election where Republican candidate Richard Nixon got nearly 57 percent of the popular vote in Idaho. James Risen attributes Church's victory to the 1967 recall effort backfiring: "Most Idaho voters were angered by the recall effort, and it generated sympathy for Church throughout the state."
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:
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." p. 121. Schmitz uses the example of "The Doves Have Won and Don't Know It" September 6, 1970 on CBS television, 2.2/32/IS, FCP; "The Doves Have Won," September 11, 1970 (Source of the "highest concept of patriotism..." quote), speech at Mills College of Education; "The Doves are Winning — Don't Despair," September 26, 1970, speech at Colorado State University and "The Unsung Victory of the Doves," December 1970, 10.6/8/8 FCP.
Church gained national prominence during his service in the Senate through his chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities from 1975 through 1976, more commonly known as the Church Committee, which conducted extensive hearings investigating extra-legal FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering and covert operations. The committee investigated CIA drug smuggling activities in the Golden Triangle and secret U.S.-backed wars in Third World countries. Together with Senator Sam Ervin's committee inquiries, the Church Committee hearings laid the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
Daniel Ellsberg quoted Church as speaking of the NSA as follows: "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." More specifically on August 17, 1975, Senator Frank Church stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" without mentioning the name of the NSA about this agency:
Church also was instrumental in the creation of Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness Area 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 , 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 Ronald Reagan signed the act on March 14, less than four weeks before Frank Church's death on April 7.
Frank Church was considered a progressive (remarkable considering that he represented one of the most conservative states in the nation), though he was a strong opponent of gun control and was pro-life. In 1979, he 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 bribery 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."
Church also sponsored, along with Pennsylvania Republican John Heinz, the "conscience clause," which prohibited the government from requiring church-affiliated hospitals to perform abortions.
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 on 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 leading congressional supporter of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which proposed to return the Panama Canal to Panama. The scheme proved to be widely unpopular in Idaho, and led to the formation of the "Anybody But Church" (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 his bid 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 in Idaho of Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's overwhelming win. 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.
| + U.S. Senate elections in Idaho (Class III): Results 1956–1980 ! | Year ! ! | Democrat ! | Votes ! | Pct ! ! | Republican ! | Votes ! | Pct ! ! | 3rd Party ! | Party ! | Votes ! | Pct | ||
| 1956]] | Frank Church | 149,096 | 56.2% | Herman Welker (inc.) | 102,781 | 38.7% | Glen H. Taylor | Write-In | 13,415 | 5.1% | |||
| 1962 | Frank Church (inc.) | 141,657 | 54.7% | Jack Hawley | 117,129 | 45.3% | |||||||
| 1968 | Frank Church (inc.) | 173,482 | 60.3% | George V. Hansen | 114,394 | 39.7% | |||||||
| 1974 | Frank Church (inc.) | 145,140 | 56.1% | Bob Smith | 109,072 | 42.1% | Jean L. Stoddard | American | 4,635 | 1.8% | |||
| 1980 | Frank Church (inc.) | 214,439 | 48.8% | Steve Symms | 218,701 | 49.7% | Larry Fullmer | Libertarian | 6,507 | 1.5% |
Following his 24 years in the Senate, Church practiced international law with the Washington, D.C., firm of Whitman and Ransom, specializing in issues.
, Church remains the last Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate from Idaho; his final election victory was in 1974, .
That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
He is widely quoted as also stating regarding the NSA:
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.
Commentators such as Glenn Greenwald have praised Church for his prescient warning regarding this turning around by the NSA to monitor the American people, arguing that the NSA undertook such a turn in the years after the September 11 attacks.
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