Frank Church
Frank Forrester Church III 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.
Early life
Youth, family, and early education
Frank Forrester Church III was born on July 25, 1924, in Boise, Idaho. He traced his ancestry from the East Coast of the United States, with his grandfather, Frank Forrester Church I, moving to Idaho during the height of the gold rush that followed the end of the Civil War. Church III was the younger of two sons of Frank Forrester Church II and Laura Bilderback Church. His older brother Richard Church became a career officer in the United States Marine Corps, and retired as a colonel.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 reportedly very Catholic and conservative, 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.
Military service and education
Church left Stanford in 1942, at the age of 18, and enlisted in the Army following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was called up the following year and attended officer candidate training at Fort Benning in Georgia. He trained at Camp Ritchie, as one of the Ritchie Boys, and was commissioned a lieutenant on his 20th birthday. In the army, he served as a military intelligence officer in the China Burma India Theater. He was inducted to the Infantry Hall of Fame at Fort Benning. Following the end of the war, he was discharged in 1946.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. 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.
Frank and Bethine Church 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.
Career
1956 election
Following his return to Idaho, he became active in Democratic Party politics, and he became the chairman of the Young Democrats of Idaho. In 1952, he ran for a seat in the then-Republican dominated Idaho state legislature, but lost the election. In 1956, Church ran for the Class-3 Senate seat held by Herman Welker, who had alienated many Republicans for his opposition to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's programs and his alleged affiliation with McCarthyism. Church entered the primary race, which was described as "the most colorful primary in the history of the state". He faced a number of opponents, including Ricks College professor Claude Burtenshaw, bureaucrat Alvin McCormack, and former senator Glen H. Taylor.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 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 plank, in favor of a publicly owned Hells Canyon 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.
First term (1957–1963)
Upon entering the Senate in January 1957, Church voted against a procedural motion on the Civil Rights Act of 1957 against the wishes of Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. This angered Johnson, who punished Church by all but ignoring him for the next six months. However, Church managed to find his way into Johnson's good graces by voting for an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 that would grant the right to a trial by jury to anyone charged with violating the act. Church also added a provision to that amendment requiring that juries in such cases be desegregated. Johnson 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 Gulf of Tonkin incident, 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."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.
Attempted recall and election of 1968
In 1967, a recall campaign was waged against Church by Ron Rankin, a Republican county commissioner in the northern Idaho county Kootenai who co-founded the Victory in Vietnam Committee to coordinate the recall. 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. State attorney general Allan Shepard, a future chief justice of the state supreme court, agreed with the court's decision.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."