Frank Church

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Frank Church
Former U.S. Senator from Idaho From: January 3, 1957 – January 3, 1981
Predecessor	Herman Welker
Successor	Steve Symms
Information
Party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Bethine Clark
Religion	Presbyterian

Frank Church was four-term United States Senator from Idaho, serving from 1957 to 1981.

Career

Early career and environmentalism

Frank Church was elected to the Senate in 1957. Like George McGovern, he was a liberal politician coming from a conservative state. Originally getting into conflict with then Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, Church was comforted by Senate Minority Leader William F. Knowland. He was known in the Senate for his environmental causes, as he supported and sponsored multiple pieces of environmental legislation throughout his career, such as a 1964 law that defined wilderness in the United States and a 1968 law that created the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Church voted for Everett Dirksen's proposed amendment to allow school prayer.

Church was subject to recall efforts in 1967, but a court ruled them unlawful. He then proceeded to win re-election the next year.

Church Committee

Church headed the "Church Committee", the senatorial committee that would become the the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is the Deep State's arm in the Senate. There, he uncovered the Lockheed Bribery scandal.

While on the committee, Church learned of the surprising power of the NSA to monitor people and intrude into their lives through surveillance. Speaking of the electronic monitoring power of the NSA, Church said in 1975:

“

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.

”

Because of his criticism of the Vietnam War (and perhaps the NSA), the NSA monitored him in "Project Minaret", along with Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Baker. The NSA would later say that "Project Minaret" was "disreputable if not outright illegal."

Foreign policy

Church was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1979 to 1981. He was an opponent of the Vietnam War, though he had been a supporter early on.

Later career

Church sponsored a "conscience clause" that prohibited the government from requiring church-affiliated hospitals to perform abortions.

He ran for president in 1976, but withdrew early from the race in support of Jimmy Carter.