Frank Forrester Church, served from 1956 to 1981

Frank Church was born in Boise, Ada County, Idaho, July 25, 1924. He graduated from Stanford (Calif.) University in 1947 and from Stanford Law School in 1950. During the Second World War he served in the United States Army and was assigned to Military Intelligence in India, Burma, and China in 1942-1946. He was admitted to the bar in 1950 and commenced the practice of law in Boise, Idaho.

He was later elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1956 then reelected in 1962, 1968, and again in 1974 and served from January 3, 1957, to January 3, 1981. He was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection in 1980.

In the Senate, he served as chairman for Special Committee on Aging, Special Committee on Termination of the National Emergency, Select Committee on Government Intelligence Activities, and the Committee on Foreign Relations.

He was chosen as the United States delegate to the twenty-first General Assembly of the United Nations. He resumed the practice of law in Bethesda, Md., until his death there on April 7, 1984. He is buried in Morris Hill Cemetery, Boise, Idaho.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Ashby, LeRoy, and Rod Gramer. Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1994; Church, F. Forrester. Father and Son: A Personal Biography of Senator Frank Church of Idaho. New York: Harper Row, 1985.

Photos provided by the Idaho State Historical Society.  Biographical information compiled by Congressional Research Service.