Frank Church

Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 - April 7, 1984) was a Democratic senator from Idaho who served from 1957 to 1981. He is primarily known for chairing the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee) in 1975-1976, the most comprehensive congressional investigation of U.S. intelligence abuses ever conducted.¹

Early Career

Church was born in Boise, Idaho. He served in U.S. Army Military Intelligence during World War II, rising to the rank of Captain. He received his law degree from Stanford in 1950 and was elected to the U.S. Senate from Idaho in 1956 at age 32, one of the youngest senators in history at that time. He became known as a foreign policy critic, opposing the Vietnam War from an early period and chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1979 to 1981.¹

The Church Committee

In January 1975, the Senate created the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities in the aftermath of Seymour Hersh's December 1974 New York Times reporting on Operation CHAOS. Church was appointed chairman. The committee ran through April 1976 and produced a final report (S. Rept. 94-755) and fourteen volumes of supplementary staff reports documenting:

• Operation CHAOS: the CIA's domestic surveillance program targeting antiwar organizations, found to be unlawful
• COINTELPRO: the FBI's systematic campaign against political organizations, including programs resulting in the death of activists such as Fred Hampton
• Assassination plots against foreign leaders including Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, and others
• NSA programs monitoring American citizens' international communications
• IRS harassment of political opponents
• Illegal mail opening programs

Church's most quoted statement from the investigation was his warning that the NSA's surveillance technology, if turned inward against the domestic population, could create "a capacity for tyranny." The observation preceded by decades the documents eventually revealed by Edward Snowden about the NSA's domestic surveillance programs.¹

Presidential Campaign and Later Career

Church ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, entering the primaries late and winning several states, but ultimately lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter. He was defeated for Senate reelection in 1980 by Republican Steve Symms in what was partly characterized as a backlash against his intelligence committee work. He died of pancreatic cancer on April 7, 1984, in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 59.¹