1970's Government and Politics | Church, Frank 1924-1984

SENATOR FROM IDAHO

A Steady Investigator.

In a decade filled with congressional investigations, those conducted by Idaho senator Frank Church produced some of the most sensational and scandalous revelations. In 1973, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on multinational corporations, Church exposed the bribery of foreign officials by American companies and revealed the attempt by International Telephone and Telegraph to finance opposition to Marxist candidate Salvador Allende in the Chilean presidential elections of 1970. In 1975, as chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, he uncovered widespread abuses of power and illegal surveillance activities by the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Church's activities inspired reevaluations by the House of Representatives of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., that...