Idaho Yesterdays
vol. 53, no. 1 & 2(2012)
The Church Committee: Idaho's Reaction to Its Senator's Involvement in the Investigation of the Intelligence Community
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities concluded its investigation as two hundred years of American history passed. In 1976 this Senate committee, more commonly known as the Church Committee, revealed a growing trend in the United States intelligence community: It discovered that agencies like the CIA and the FBI had illegally violated Americans’ rights to privacy and other civil liberties, all in an attempt to uncover communist conspiracies and communist sympathizers. The Church Committee also found that the intelligence community engaged in plots to assassinate foreign leaders who were sympathetic to the communist cause—democratically elected or not. While many believed these actions directly violated the Constitution of the United States and sought accountability and surveillance of the intelligence community by the legislative branch, others, entrenched in the Cold War, believed these actions were necessary for national security.
Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho, had been selected to chair this controversial committee. Across the nation and in the state of Idaho many believed he had ulterior motives for being involved in such a high-profile case. The Idaho Statesman, Boise’s most prominent newspaper, ran an article that said, “The sudden emergence of Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, as chairman of a bipartisan committee to investigate the CIA and the FBI should generate stronger signals around the political circuit of his presidential chances.”1
Regardless of what Church’s motives were for being involved in such a high-profile investigation, these motives and the political impacts on Church’s career seem to be dwarfed by the differences between Church’s political views and his constituents’ views on investigating the intelligence community. In editorials, letters to the editor, and letters to their senior senator, Idahoans from across the state defended the intelligence agencies against Church’s campaign to reform the intelligence community. Idahoans justified the subversive actions by these executive agencies, asserting that, “you have to fight fire with fire.”2
Church’s belief in the purpose of the committee differed greatly from those held by the people in Idaho. He claimed, “We seek to identify threats to the liberty of Americans and, most importantly, to establish safeguards to protect our rights as citizens in a free land.”3 Idahoans’ response revealed the widening gap between an increasingly conservative state and a prominent national politician for the Democratic Party. Letters to Church and letters to the editors of Idaho’s newspapers showed that the differences between the two focused around distrust of Church’s motivations for investigating the committee, and issues of national security, specifically the fear of communist invasion. The disparities between Church and Idahoans might have played a role in Church’s loss for re-election in 1980. The committee played a more direct role in the Idaho senator’s run for United States president in 1976.
The debate between Church and his constituents was essentially over an age-old issue of how many civil liberties must the American people give up for their own “safety”? In order to understand the polarized ideologies that surrounded the very purpose of investigating the intelligence community, we must understand the structure and background of the committee itself.
The Church Committee was formed following one of the most controversial events in American history. Watergate had revived American feelings of distrust in their government. Also, Seymour Hersh, of the New York Times, ran an article on December 22, 1974, concerning alleged intelligence abuses by the CIA and other intelligence agencies; American suspicions grew. In an attempt to respond and alleviate American distrust, the Ford Administration and both the House of Representatives and the Senate launched investigations into the intelligence community. On January 27, 1975, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 21 with a vote of eighty-two to four. This resolution created the Church Committee, which was to accomplish two things: one, to investigate abuses; and two, to propose legislative remedies to found abuses and other shortcomings of the intelligence community.4
A large number of people believed that the intelligence community had crossed some sort of line when they read Hersh’s article. Hersh claimed that “[t]he Central Intelligence Agency, directly violated its charter, conducted a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States.” He also reported that the CIA had files on ten thousand American citizens, that the CIA had illegally broken into private property, wiretapped, and illegally inspected United States citizens’ mail.5 The intelligence activities Hersh’s story addressed were related to what William Colby, the director of the CIA during the investigation, called “the family jewels,” in a document compiled months earlier concerning “questionable” activities of the CIA. Upon seeing the so-called “family jewels,” President Gerald Ford realized his and previous administrations had a significant disclosure problem. With the purpose being to deal with these accusations before Congress did, the Ford Administration set up the Rockefeller Commission, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.6 Adhering to the belief in accountability through checks and balances and in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam, Congress did not believe Ford could objectively investigate his own branch, so both the Senate and the House of Representatives set up their own investigations into the operations of the intelligence community.
The two legislative investigations had very different styles and means of investigating. While the committees had some contact between them, Church believed “there is a tradition of two independent houses…I tried to avoid duplication. There was plenty to investigate.”7 The relationship between the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee was more complicated. The Senate gave the Church Committee nine months to complete its investigation, but when the Rockefeller Report was released there was nothing in it concerning assassination plots by the CIA on foreign leaders, which some in the Senate believed were central to the scandal. The Rockefeller Commission turned information it had obtained concerning the assassination plots over to the Church Committee members, who then decided to extend their investigation to fifteen months and include a report on the assassination plots.
According to Frank Smist, a congressional committee scholar, “in carrying out its Senate mandate, the Church committee had conducted one of the most sweeping and intensive investigations in the history of the Senate.”8 This included thirteen published reports, released in April of 1976, and an interim report. The interim report of the Church Committee, issued on November 20, 1975, revealed that there had been numerous assassination attempts on foreign leaders, particularly Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, General Rene Schneider of Chile, and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.9
The other thirteen reports revealed that the intelligence agencies had conducted activities that went beyond protecting national security. The reports also found that there was a lack of accountability and control in the intelligence community, and abuses of privacy and certain civil liberties of US citizens. Specifically, the Church Committee found that the intelligence community had opened “hundreds of thousands of letters and millions of telegrams.” They concluded that the FBI, using its counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO, which was “designed to ‘disrupt’ and ‘neutralize’ groups deemed to be threats to national security,” had infiltrated civil rights groups such as the Women’s Liberation Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—groups that had no evidence of criminal activities or communist ties. The reports revealed that the intelligence community had engaged in a campaign to illegally discredit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that the committee found that the intelligence community had investigated the political opponents of every US president since Franklin Roosevelt.10
The committee engaged in public hearings for nine months beginning in September 1975. These hearings revealed unauthorized storage of toxic agents by Nathan Gordon, a CIA scientist, who had gone against Nixon’s orders and did not destroy the entire shellfish toxin stockpile. These hearings also discovered that the Internal Revenue Service had been used by the intelligence community to punish organizations, and that from 1953 to 1973 the CIA had operated a mail watch program. Copies of these letters were then given to the FBI, the CIA’s Soviet Division, and others in the intelligence community. Church concluded the hearings exposed what he came to believe was one of the major problems with the intelligence community. He said, “I cannot think of a clearer case that illustrates the attitude that the CIA lives outside the law, beyond the law, and that although others must adhere to it, the CIA sits above it, and you cannot run a free society that way.”11
Church’s accusations did not sit well with many Idahoans. However, many of the differences between Senator Church and his constituents were due to the perception that Church was just using the investigation to run for president or for some other alternative motive. One constituent from Fruitland, Idaho, suggested that the only reason there was an investigation into the operations of the CIA and FBI was because these agencies had files on not only communists but also on Congress.12 National editorials like the one that appeared in Twin Falls’s Times-News,December 2, 1975, revealed a strain of suspicion not only of Church and Congress, but of the committee. It stated, “The probability of bias in the Senate investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hardened into certainty” upon Church’s plan “to name as committee staffer and foreign affairs expert named William G. Miller…who [took] a revisionist view of the cold war.”13
Numerous complaints like this appeared in newspapers all over the United States. Idaho was no different. While the economic circumstances of the late seventies proved to be hot topics for the opinion pages, Idaho’s newspapers often carried some interesting complaints about Church and his involvement in the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Intelligence. Letters to Church from constituents also provided some interesting disapproval and emotionally charged opinions concerning Church’s involvement in such a controversial investigation. Not everyone in Idaho opposed the investigating committee, yet it appears most Idahoans believed Church was using the committee to gain national exposure in order to run for president; some were concerned that the Church Committee was a threat to national security, and others believed the intelligence committee was somehow tied to communism.
There were those who supported the investigation, but not Church, and believed the investigation, chaired by Church, did not go far enough or move the intelligence community toward substantial reform. The New York Times ran an article on July 18, 1975, and quoted Church as saying, “the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had thus far found ‘no hard evidence’ linking any former Presidents to alleged attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate foreign heads of state…the CIA…‘may have been behaving like a rogue elephant on a rampage.’”14 However, not everyone agreed with Church’s belief that the CIA was a “rogue elephant.” The investigation of assassination plots sparked debate, and questions were raised concerning the Church Committee’s reliability and Church’s motives. The investigation of assassination plots demonstrated that the plots occurred under Democratic as well as Republican presidents, and it appeared to Church’s opponents that Church’s comparison of the CIA to a “rogue elephant on a rampage” was a less than subtle attempt to let past Democratic administrations off the hook. Statements like these implied that past administrations were not fully aware of these assassination plots or other intelligence violations. Intelligence scholar Thomas Powers claimed this would be impossible since “the CIA did not give a damn who ran Cuba or Indonesia or the Congo…in Washington the upper-level CIA officials worked for the President alone.”15 Powers believed that the recommendation proposed by the Church Committee, “that all covert operations in the future ought to be authorized in writing,” was preposterous. Powers concluded that “Presidents don’t sign orders to kill people. Only a bubblehead or a man plumping himself for higher office would even consider such a proposal.”16 Powers argued that Church and the committee did not take the investigation far enough. They let former administrations off the hook for numerous reasons.
LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Church’s biographers, believed “Church indeed wanted to be President, but he did not sacrifice the committee to his ambition.”17 Many of Church’s critical constituents believed that, for Church, the committee was just a means to an end. In a letter to Church, a constituent from Albion, Idaho, thought that Church, as chairman, did not enhance public confidence. This individual wrote to his senator his belief that to instill public confidence in the United States Government:
"first, that the public business be conducted openly and honestly, and secondly, that those who conduct public business conduct it in such a fashion so as to remove all doubt of conflicts of interest…It is this second point that, I suspect, eludes you…ask yourself, honestly, if public confidence in the committee has been maximized by placing in the chairmanship a man actively being considered for higher office?"18
In a letter to the editor that appeared in the Idaho Statesman, James B. Buchanan made a similar suggestion. He thought Church had made something out of nothing in the hope of gaining the public spotlight and ultimately the presidency. He wrote, “Mr. Church in his campaign zeal for the presidency is spurting true to form; making mountains out of molehills, and not seeing the ‘plank’ in his own eye.” The “plank” the author referred to was his belief that Church was responsible for “more than 50,000 American boys ‘murdered’ in Vietnam,” yet Church was investigating the attempted murder of one man, none other than Fidel Castro.19 Another letter to the editor represented a belief among Idahoans that Church was just using the committee “as a springboard to the presidency.” The author scribed, “It seems that if a man is foxy enough to make people wonder if the watchdogs are the wolves and the wolves maybe the watchdogs, he just might be able to weasel his way into the White House.”20
Church, of course, denied that he used the Church Committee as a “springboard” to the presidency. In an article that appeared in the Idaho State Journal on February 2, 1975, Idahoans had the opportunity to read Church’s argument that he would “not engage in any presidential campaigning while he is heading the Senate Select Committee to Investigate the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation activities.”21 In a response letter to Verl Kersey, of Boise, Church said, “I have publicly stated—repeatedly, for that matter, that I will in no way engage in Presidential politics while serving as Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities.”22 Not only did Church claim that the intelligence investigation came before a political campaign, he appeared to have mixed feelings about being involved in the controversial investigation. Forrester Church revealed of his father that “he noted realistically, that the investigation would be ‘a political mine field.’ On the one hand, liberals and radicals were very suspicious of a ‘whitewash.’ On the other, many conservatives charged such an investigation would weaken the CIA and diminish America’s global power.”23
The Idaho Statesman ran an article that stated, “Church had said he thought such an investigation actually might hinder political ambitions because of the number of people who he said resent congressional interference in the work of law enforcement and security agencies.”24 Apparently Church was right, at least in Idaho; the evidence demonstrates there was a large strain of Idahoans who assumed that the Church Committee investigation was damaging national security. Some wrote to Church concerned that the Senate was investigating the wrong government institution. They suggested that since people have a right to know, “why don’t they have an investigation of the individual members of congress...it’s nice to know that the CIA and the FBI are ‘checking’ here at home!”25
Numerous other letters to the editor and to Church suggested that many Idahoans believed the intelligence community could do no wrong, or that it at least was a necessity that should be given a long leash to accomplish its objectives. One Idahoan thought that “what we need now is a good, old-fashioned dose of patriotism, pull up our boot straps, and raise our country back up to the level of prestige she so richly deserves.” The author held that the way to do this was to “maintain strict secrecy in certain areas as a national security measure” and continued the letter by making a comparison: “I don’t see Russia, or any other Communist nation spreading all its national actions and policies all over the front pages of newspapers.”26
The implication that exposing the intelligence community’s illegal actions to the public would damage national security was obviously a concern for many Idaho voters. One, R. R. Phillips, wrote to Church, “I’m concerned one of the surest ways to make sure a secret becomes public knowledge is to tell a Senator!...the effectiveness of the FBI and CIA will be destroyed by your investigation.”27 Some went so far as to conclude that “if the American people succumb to the pressures of the Church committee, then soon there will be no agencies of government functioning to protect the security of our country—internal or external,”28 and that “the FBI and CIA have already proven their worth and should not now be torn down…by the full-scale investigation of Senate Democrats.”29 In the context of the Cold War many people lived in fear of a communist threat and placed secrecy in high priority, all in the name of national security. Many of these letters were no doubt written to have a dramatic effect, but they revealed deeper feelings of resentment and fear of Church’s political ideology, which some believed was “to embarrass professional employees of investigatory agencies.”30
Many Idahoans who wrote to Church or to newspapers were concerned that any damage to the intelligence community would result in the takeover of the United States by communists. The letters did not disclose any substantial sources as to where these communist theories developed. In the heat of the Cold War, theories like these were floating around, particularly in rural states like Idaho. Historian Kathryn Olmsted suggested that the people of the United States had viewed their government officials and politicians as moral, upstanding individuals and were resistant to the idea that the intelligence community could be anything else. According to Olmsted, “The American people had been fed a diet of images of heroic spies and counterspies in movies and novels for years.” She concluded that the United States was forced to use authoritarian tactics against authoritarian opponents during the Cold War, and in a democratic society those tactics needed to be kept from the American public.31
Whatever the source or reason for the beliefs, many Idahoans believed Church to be a communist, to be associated with communists, or that he allowed communists to infiltrate the country. Many believed communists were so discreet in their objective to infiltrate the United States that the only protection Americans had was provided by the intelligence community. For example, Harold G. Williams composed a letter to the Idaho Statesman claiming that “Sen. Church has succeeded in destroying the effectiveness of the CIA,…America’s first line of defense,” which “left the United States and its Western allies wide open to Soviet espionage, subversion and eventual unsignaled attack…all in the name of the ‘peoples’ right to know.”32 Another letter to Church from a man in St. Anthony, Idaho, claimed the United States needed “an agency through which we can combat the ever growing threat presented by the spread of communism, and the CIA is that agency. I feel it is wrong to put them in the spotlight.”33 Some Idahoans made the point that the bothersome actions of the CIA and others in the intelligence community were a necessary evil to combat a world filled with “communists” who operated in the same questionable manner. Jack Streeter, from Mountain Home, wrote, “If Sen. Church was investigating the Soviet counterpart of the CIA I wonder how surprised he would be with their modus operandi. All the big boys play with real guns and real money and mean real business. And if we don’t play the same way we better fold our tents and go home.”34
The notion that the intelligence community should not be questioned, but the people investigating the committee could or should be was a theme prevalent in a number of letters. For instance, Roger Robinson of Twin Falls defended the intelligence community and attacked Church and the Church Committee’s investigation, yet wrote statements like this one: “surely in these times of turmoil and tribulation the motives of our politicians and others in high places should be the most questionable of all.”35 Lorene E. Brainard from Idaho Falls believed that members of Congress should be investigated due to corruption. However, she wrote to Church, “My husband and I both feel there should be some arm of the [g]overnment which is ‘sacred’ to the public and we object to having everything exposed.” She continued, “So who do you think you are to question every aspect of our [g]overnment[?]”36
Church responded to accusations like these publicly and often, and the differences between his constituents’ views and his views on the purpose and principles of the committee indicated a widening gap between most Idahoans and himself. Intelligence scholar Mary De Rosa claimed, “Mistrust of a powerful government is part of the U.S. heritage.”37 Church would probably agree, and according to Ashby and Gramer would add the “health of a democratic culture depends on public access to information.”38 Being involved in the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Intelligence gave Church the opportunity to work with something he believed in very strongly. Ashby and Gramer explained, “Philosophically, Church recognized the tensions within American history between nationalism and the constitutional guarantees regarding justice, personal freedom, and government under the law.”39 Church believed that one of the basic principles of America’s democracy is the idea that the people need to know when their government made a mistake, so mistakes can be corrected and avoided in the future. He also believed that foreign people will eventually grow to admire the United States for its ability to hold true to its democratic ideals, thus strengthening American interests abroad.40 In a letter to a constituent in Thornton, Idaho, Church wrote, “A body with a cancerous growth is made healthier by its removal; so, too, will the elimination of the misguided practices of our intelligence agencies make them healthier and stronger.”41
With these philosophies in mind Church intended to conduct “a thorough investigation of the entire intelligence community as it works inside and outside the United States.”42 However, other members of the Senate were not so ambitious. Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield said, “The select committee’s task is precise.” It was to be neither a “witch hunt nor whitewash” nor a purposeful “dismantling of the intelligence community.” He wanted the committee to analyze the intelligence agencies against “current laws, practices, and policies in the intelligence community.”43
On February 3, 1975, Church appeared on Face the Nation as chairman of the Church Committee. He laid out his and the committee’s purpose and intentions for the investigation. He began by explaining why the committee was established in the first place, especially since the Rockefeller Commission already existed. He said:
If there is any evidence of wrongdoing anywhere along the way, we will want to make that public in the appropriate way. I would expect that since the President’s commission is in a sense investigating itself…it’s an executive commission looking into charges against executive agencies, that there is a real necessity for an independent branch of the government to conduct a more thorough and far-reaching investigation, and that’s the purpose for which the Select Committee of the Senate has been established.44
Concerning the intelligence agencies, Church alleged, “we are not seeking to undermine these organizations, we are seeking to understand what’s going on. Our ultimate objective is not to wreck them, but, if necessary, to reform them. In a free society, nothing is more crucial than to maintain intelligence activities and police activities in accordance with a very high and strict standard.” In this public appearance Church also explained his belief that a balance must be maintained between individual freedoms and “good order.” He made the effective analogy of an equilibrium and said that if it “ever tips too far in one direction, it results in tyranny. If it tips too far in the other, it results in anarchy.”45
As shown, the separation between Church and his constituents’ beliefs is very evident in the letters to Church where the writer was concerned that investigating the intelligence community would allow communists to infiltrate the United States. Church responded to concerns like these by claiming the Church Committee realized the importance of an intelligence community. He reassured the nation before the National Press Club in February 1975 that “[o]ur government must keep itself fully and currently informed on developments abroad; it must also take those security measures necessary to counteract espionage within this country.”46 Maintaining the equilibrium between tyranny and anarchy seemed to be Church’s central concern. Unconstitutional intelligence activities and assassination plots tipped the scales toward tyranny, leaving oversight and examination of the intelligence community the counterbalance. In the months following the investigation Church wrote, “The remedy is clear. American foreign policy, whether openly or secretly pursued, must be made to conform once more to our historic belief in freedom and popular government that once made us a beacon of hope for the downtrodden and oppressed throughout the world.”47 Church believed it was ironic that the intelligence community, who, due to the nature of their business, should be overseen and examined with the most scrutiny, yet had traditionally received the least or no scrutiny at all from elected officials.48
Church reported the progress of the committee to the Senate on October 10, 1975. He told the Senate that the investigation had exposed “a theme of lawlessness and lack of accountability in the intelligence services. Our findings reflect not isolated occurrences but a pattern in which the Constitution, the statutes of the land, and the orders of the President have been ignored.”49 As a result, Church and the committee later recommended “a new Standing Committee of the Senate to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the US Government.” He claimed the recommendation “places in proper balance the responsibilities that need to be exercised under the Constitution” and a standing committee would need “legislative authority” to have effective oversight of “the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, the National Intelligence Components in the Department of Defense and the intelligence activities of the FBI.”50 Among others, the committee made five major recommendations, which included that “all political assassinations were to be banned…, no efforts were to be undertaken to subvert democratic governments…, no support was to be given to the police or international security forces of any country that violated human rights.” The committee also recommended that journalist and clergy could not be used for intelligence gathering, nor could drug testing be performed on people without their consent.51
Some of Church’s recommendations were taken seriously, and in a letter to an Idaho woman from Mountain Home, Church boasted “that the efforts of the Intelligence Committee have resulted in the formation of a permanent oversight committee with budgetary and legislative authority over the various intelligence agencies.”52 In fact, Smist, the congressional committee scholar, believed that the Church Committee was relatively successful. Not only did it accomplish the tasks set out by the Senate, but the committee had a large impact in creating awareness among the public and the media concerning the intelligence agency’s practices, legal and illegal. He also thought that accountability by the legislative branch and standards were imposed on the intelligence community, and the investigation also proved that the Senate could conduct a sensitive investigation without having too many leaks and other problems of national security53. Church concluded that the committee was productive and commented in 1983 on the effectiveness of the Church Committee by saying, “Permanent committees were established. Today, continuing congressional surveillance is built into the woodwork…Political will can’t be guaranteed.&rdquo54;
While most of the letters Idaho newspapers and Church received revealed a difference in the ideas of Church and Idahoans, some people in Idaho agreed with Church and were very pleased with the investigation and its outcomes. One such constituent from Twin Falls wrote to Church, “I do appreciate your efforts in bringing the CIA, FBI, etc. under control before some day they may control us through another more successful corrupt administration.”55 Most of Church’s positive letters were filled with general compliments or congratulations on being named chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Some letters offered advice on how to conduct the investigation or even who to investigate. For example, a man from Pocatello said, “be assured that we are in Idaho rooting for you,” and suggested that Church should conduct an investigation into the IRS.56 Others, like a gentleman from Buhl, offered compliments and encouragement on investigating the intelligence community and inquired about a position as a committee staff member.57
Letters of encouragement or letters filled with suggestions were probably very welcome to Church, while letters like the one from a gentleman living in Mack’s Inn, Idaho, were not so welcome. Melvin Harris said, “I do not know whether you are aspiring to the Presidential Candidacy or not, but let me tell you that I have talked to many people at home and they are all dissatisfied with the grandiose way in which you have handled the CIA matter.”58 While letters such as this one point to the growing distance between Church and his constituents and far outnumbered the supportive letters Church received, this letter begged the question: What political ramifications did Church’s involvement have on his political career?
Church was not up for reelection until 1980, an election he lost. The difference in political opinion between Church and Idahoans concerning the Church Committee, its objectives, and its outcomes might have played a part in this loss. Ashby and Gramer concluded, “In some respects his role as chair of the committee may have undercut his senatorial base in Idaho, where the investigation was hardly popular among the growing number of conservatives.”59 Bethine Church, Church’s wife, believed that the association with communists during the committee investigation and a John Birch Society campaign against Church harmed her husband’s 1980 campaign.60 It is impossible to blame Church’s senatorial election loss in 1980 fully on the Church Committee, but the letters to Church and to Idaho newspapers suggest the committee could have been a factor.
Church’s involvement in the committee more clearly played a part in Church’s loss of the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976, and can be largely credited for Church being overlooked as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Ashby and Gramer believed that the Church’s involvement in the committee directly before and during a presidential campaign “trapped him in several ways.” First, it delayed his announcement as an official candidate. Second, it allowed his critics to claim he was using the Church Committee as a springboard to advance his political career to the next level. Third, Church’s critics were allowed to question his patriotism and claimed that he “jeopardized national security.”61 Church did not finish the investigation of the intelligence community until deep into the primary election campaign of 1976. According to Church he did this because he believed, “The recommendations to be made by the committee are so important. I have decided I cannot walk away from them.”62
Scholars and historians tend to agree that this delay was a factor in Church losing the nomination, but Jimmy Carter also considered making Church his vice president. Bethine Church believed that the CIA had started rumors, which the Economist was going to publish, claiming that the KGB had infiltrated the Church Committee.63 Of course, as Church put it, “can you imagine any rumor more certain to spook a presidential candidate than that his prospective Vice President has overseen an operation which was infiltrated by the KGB?” Church knew his vice presidential prospects were gone when he said, “I’ve got enemies in high places…I was on a committee that exposed corruption and wrongdoing.”64
Ironically, the Church Committee gave Church hope of becoming president, while at the same time dashed those hopes. The Church Committee demonstrated that Idahoans had moved farther to the right and were concerned that an investigation into the intelligence community would harm national security, while Church had moved toward being a national politician. Church put the investigation before his presidential campaign. While he still had presidential ambitions, which probably enticed him to be involved in such a controversial committee, his strong belief in reforming US foreign policy and in protecting the civil liberties of Americans played just as much or more of a role in Church’s involvement. The discrepancies between Idahoans’ and Senator Frank Church’s ideals stem from age-old debates over separation of powers, checks and balances, national security vs. civil liberties, and the philosophical nature of democratic government. Church said, “The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy…Means are as important as ends. Crisis makes it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free; but each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong, our inner strength which makes us free, is lessened.”65
Mitchel L. Askew teaches World and American History at Flagstaff High School in Flagstaff, Arizona. In December he will receive a Masters of History from Northern Arizona University with focuses in U.S. West/Borderlands History, Comparative World History, and Latin American History.
Notes
1 John E. Simonds, “Church Prospects Gain with New Job,” Idaho Statesman, February 2, 1975.
2 Jack Streeter to Frank Church, July 4, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers, Boise State University Special Collections Department, Albertsons Library, Boise, ID.
3 Senator Frank Church, “Report to the Senate: October 10, 1975,” Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers.
4 Frank J. Smist Jr., Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, 1947-1989 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1990), 28.
5 Seymour Hersh, “Huge CIA Operation Reported in U.S. against Anti-war Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, December 22, 1974.
6 Thomas Powers, Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Queda (New York: New York Books Review, 2002), xii.
7 Quoted in Smist, Congress Oversees, 53.
8 Smist, Congress Oversees, 10.
9 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976), 4-5.
10 Mary De Rosa, “Privacy in the Age of Terror,” The Washington Quarterly 26, no. 3 (2003): 29.
11 Quoted in Smist, Congress Oversees, 71-73.
12 Claude Andrews to Frank Church, January 31, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
13 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “CIA Probe Bias Looms,” Times-News, December 2, 1975.
14 John M. Crewdson, “Church Doubts Plot Links to President,” New York Times, July 18, 1975.
15 Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Alfred A. Knopt, 1979), 119.
16 Powers, Richard Helms, 7.
17 LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church, (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1994), 486.
18 Constituent from Albion, Idaho, to Frank Church, February 23, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
19 James B. Buchanan, “Church’s Zeal Ignores Plank in His Own Eye,” Idaho Statesman, June 19, 1975.
20 Roger Robinson, “Questions about Motives,” Times-News, December 17, 1975.
21 Bob Leeright, “Church Looking More and More Like Candidate,” Idaho State Journal, February 2, 1975.
22 Frank Church to Verl Kersey, February 6, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
23 Forrester Church, Father and Son: A Personal Biography of Senator Frank Church of Idaho, (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 102.
24 Simonds, “Church Prospects.”
25 Helen and John Bryngelson to Frank Church, January 20, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
26 Joni Fields, “Keep Documents Secret, Reader Urges,” Idaho Statesman, November 29, 1975
27 R. R. Phillips to Frank Church, May 16, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers.
28 Teressa D. Hendry, “CIA Ran Rampant Under Demos, Too,” Times-News, December 8, 1975.
29 F. R. Hill to Frank Church, January 29, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
30 William Safire, “Church Indignation ‘All too Selective,’” Times-News, November 24, 1975.
31 Kathryn Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 6, 99.
32 Harold G. Williams, “Church Destroyed CIA; Idaho Should Defeat Him,” Idaho Statesman, November 26, 1975.
33 Paul Birch to Frank Church, December 24, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 4, The Frank Church Papers.
34 Jack Streeter, “Church Reveals Naivete In ‘Amazement’ Over CIA,” undated newspaper clipping, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers.
35 Robinson, “Questions about Motives.”
36 Lorene Brainard to Frank Church, February 3, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers.
37 De Rosa, “Privacy in the Age of Terror,” 28.
38 Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 453.
39 Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 472.
40 Church, Father and Son, 104-105.
41 Frank Church to E. C. Brindle, April 30, 1976, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 3, The Frank Church Papers.
42 Quoted in Smist, Congress Oversees, 34.
43 Quoted in Smist, Congress Oversees, 50.
44 Transcript from CBS News, Face the Nation, February 2, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
45 Ibid.
46 Frank Church, “Neither a Vendetta Nor a Whitewash,” February 27, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 3, The Frank Church Papers.
47 Frank Church, “The Covert Operations,” Center Magazine 9, no.2 (1976): 25.
48 Church, “Neither a Vendetta Nor a Whitewash.”
49 Frank Church, “Report to the Senate,” October 10, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 2, The Frank Church Papers.
50 Frank Church, “Statement by Senator Frank Church (D-IDA) on the Floor of the Senate,” January 29, 1976, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 3, The Frank Church Papers.
51 Smist, Congress Oversees, 78.
52 Frank Church to Everett R. Simpson, May 25, 1976, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 4, The Frank Church Papers.
53 Smist, Congress Oversees, 80-81.
54 Smist, Congress Oversees, 81.
55 Wayne Modlin to Frank Church, December 16, 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 4, The Frank Church Papers.
56 Rampton Barlow to Frank Church, February 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
57 Grady Spalding to Frank Church, February 1975, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 1, The Frank Church Papers.
58 Melvin Harris to Frank Church, January 10, 1976, Series 2.6, Box 1, Folder 4, The Frank Church Papers.
59 Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 487.
60 Bethine Church, A Lifelong Affair: My Passion for People and Politics (Washington, DC: Francis Press, 2003), 262.
61 Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 496.
62 Quoted in Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 499.
63 Bethine Church, A Lifelong Affair, 245.
64 Forrester Church, Father and Son, 121, 122.
65 Quoted in Forrester Church, Father and Son, 105.