Frank Church Totally Explained

Everything about Frank Church totally explained

ť For Frank Forrester Church IV, the Unitarian Universalist minister and theologian, see Forrester Church.

Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981. Church was a member of the Idaho Democratic Party.

Early life

Frank Church was raised in Boise, Idaho. In his youth, Church admired William E. Borah, who then represented Idaho in the United States Senate. 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, enrolling in 1942.
In 1943, Church enlisted in the U.S. Army and 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 1947.
Also in 1947, he married Bethine Clark, daughter of Chase A. Clark, a former Democratic governor of Idaho, and entered Harvard Law School. 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 didn't go away and the doctors soon diagnosed the problem as testicular cancer (External Link

). After removing one of his testicles and glands in his lower abdomen, he 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.
Frank and Bethine had two sons, Frank Forrester Church IV, who currently lives in New York City, and Chase Clark Church, who lives in Boise.

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 the 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 in the state's history.
   Upon entering the Senate in January of 1957, Church made the error 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. But Church managed to find his way into Johnson's good graces by providing key assistance in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed, and 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, Borah.
   A recall campaign was waged against Church in 1967 by N. Idaho Republican Kootenai County Commissioner Ron Rankin. Rankin unsuccessfully sued Idaho's Secretary of State to accept recall petitions for then-U.S. Sen. Frank Church.
   The Idaho district court ruled that the recall laws of Idaho don't apply to U.S. senators and they'd violate the U.S. Constitution. The Idaho Attorney General at the time, Allan Shepard, agreed with the court's decision.
   "It must be pointed out that a United States senator isn't 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.

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. He was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the Vietnam War in the 1960s, although he'd 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:
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 liberal 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.
He was also 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 square miles, it's the largest wilderness area in the nation outside of Alaska. It was renamed the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in March 1984, weeks before his death, and is known regionally as "The Frank Church."
Frank Church was considered a liberal (remarkable considering that he represented one of the most conservative states in the nation), however, not all of Church's positions were liberal. Throughout his tenure in the Senate, he was an opponent of gun control legislation. Church was also the first in Congress in 1979 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 that Church's performance on the Foreign Relations Committee has helped to weaken the US militarily.

Late political career

In 1976, Church sought the Democratic nomination for president. Although he won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon and Montana, he withdrew in favor of the eventual nominee, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Carter considered naming Church as his running mate but ultimately chose Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota. Church remains the only Idahoan to win a major party presidential primary election.
   In the late 1970s he was a main Congressional supporter of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which proposed to return the Panama Canal Zone 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 conservative Washington National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). ABC and NCPAC resolutely denied any connection with the Symms campaign — a legalism that permitted these groups, under former Federal election law, to spend as much as they could raise to defeat Church.
   Church was defeated for re-election to the Senate by conservative Republican congressman Steve Symms in 1980 by less than one percent of the vote. His defeat was blamed on the activities of the Anybody But Church Committee (which strongly supported Symms) and the announcement of Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's overwhelming win in Idaho before polls closed statewide, which some believe caused many Democrats in northern Idaho to not vote. As of 2008, Church is the last Democrat to have represented Idaho in the Senate.
   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

In January 1984, Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor and died at home in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 7, 1984, at the age of 59. His funeral was held in Boise and televised throughout Idaho. Church was buried at Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise. (External Link

) His papers, originally given to Stanford University in 1981, were transferred to Boise State University at his request in 1984. Church received an honorary doctorate from Elizabethtown College in 1983 to honor his work for the American people during his career in public office.
Church is widely quoted in regards to the National Security Agency: "I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge... I know the capacity that's 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's no return."

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