Frank Church
 Frank Church     (Lawyer) | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | Frank Forrester Church III July 25, 1924 Boise, Idaho | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | April 7, 1984 (Age 59) Bethesda, Maryland | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Stanford University | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Presbyterian | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Parents | • Frank Forrester Church II (1889–1950) • Laura Bilderback Church (1892–1983) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | • Frank Forrester Church IV • Chase Clark Church | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Bethine Clark Church | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of | Church Committee, Phi Beta Kappa, Senate Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Victim of | premature death | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Party | Democratic | ||||||||||||||||||||
Leader of the Church Committee, which probably did more than any other organisation to expose the activities of the US intelligence agencies.
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Senator Frank Church was a key figure in American foreign policy during the 1970s, when the Church Committee was one of the few official windows into U.S. intelligence activities ever.
He was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1981. Church was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He argued that the opponents of the Vietnam War needed to prevent the corruption of the nation and its institutions.
Contents
Church Committee
- Full article: Church Committee
- Full article: Church Committee
Church gained national prominence during his service in the Senate through his chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities from 1975 through 1976, more commonly known as the Church Committee, which conducted extensive hearings investigating extra-legal FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering and covert operations. The committee investigated CIA drug smuggling activities in the Golden Triangle and secret U.S.-backed wars in Third World countries.[1][2][3][4]
Warning about the NSA
Church was stunned by what the committee learned about the mass surveillance capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA), an agency whose existence was unknown to most Americans at the time. Church stated 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."[5] He is widely quoted as also stating regarding the NSA: "I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge... I know the capacity that is 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 is no return."[5]
Glenn Greenwald praised Church for his prescient warning regarding this turning around by the NSA to monitor the American people, arguing that the NSA undertook such a turning in the years after the September 11 Attacks.[6]
Blackmail claim
Claudia Mullen has stated that Frank Church was filmed "Was filmed doing something incriminating" and that this was used to blackmail him.[7]
Later career
Church's outspoken views made him a lot of enemies. In 1967 the Victory in Vietnam Committee was formed for the purpose of recalling Church. The recall campaign backfired, and bolstered support for Church and negatively exposed a faction of Idaho's radical right.[8]
In 1980 he was defeated in his attempt to be elected to the Senate for a fifth term. The work to defeat Church was the result of a long-planned effort by new coalitions on America's political right, including the John Birch Society, and their "Anyone but Church" committee that organized Republican voters in Idaho to oust him[9]
Death
Three years after leaving the Senate, Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on January 12, 1984. Less than three months later, he died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, aged 59.
A Quote by Frank Church
| Page | Quote | Date | Source |
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| The American Deep State | “I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security 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 is no return.” | 1975 | The American Deep State |
References
- ↑ http://hnn.us/articles/380.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20061205025524/http://prospect.org/print/V12/19/mooney-c.html
- ↑ http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Oct2003/burbach1003.html
- ↑ http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/19/bush.decision.911.cnna/
- ↑ a b http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25bamford.html?pagewanted=all
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/frank-church-liberal-icon
- ↑ Document:Beyond Dutroux ties to 1950s-era CIA covert operations
- ↑ Cheri L. Andrews [https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/bv73c4458?locale=en The Victory in Vietnam Committee's Manichean Rhetoric]
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Boisestate_FCI/status/1362500043605901312
