Sen. Frank Church

When Idaho's Senator Frank Church began his first term of office at the age of thirty-two visitors around the Capitol occasionally mistook him for a page boy. Now, six years later, he looks more than six years older. His black hair has thinned slightly and is lightly flecked with grey. But much of his youthful appearance remains. Dressed in sneakers and old clothes to help put the finishing dabs on a large entry in the Quincy Holmes Arts Festival, he was mistaken more than once for an undergraduate.

In a suit, the Democratic senator could pass for an Ivy Leaguer. His pants sometimes bag a bit around the shoes, but, except for this, he hardly resembles the popular caricature of Senator Claghorn from the outlands. Church's speech is slightly nasal, but has none of the Khrushchev and the people of Idaho agree is abstract painting." But he can turn words and situations to advantage as well as amusement. When a student asked whether it was a good idea to send people like Senator Ellender to Africa, Church, reluctant to discuss the foibles of his colleagues, replied with a slight smile, "He wasn't sent" and moved on to the next question.

Standing and sitting, Senator Church uses his hands to supplement but not replace words. He has a large and versatile vocabulary; his syntax is varied and correct. Church is quite conscious of the subtleties of language and in conversation he pauses often to find the proper words before proceeding. The Senator's casual and articulate conversation here dispelled many unfavorable impressions left by his meticulously rehearsed keynote speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

Like most Congressmen, Church can say something western drawl. The vowels are sharp and precise. He uses allusions occasionally and effectively: "We've been living with Mars for twenty-two years, and we've grown accustomed to his face."

His descriptions and characterizations can leave an indelible impression on the listener: "I have great respect for Secretary McNamara. He is the first man since Forrestal to subdue the Defense Department--Forrestal committed suicide." The Senator's active wit appears in many guises. He has developed a large repertoire of anecdotes, many of them about politics and politicians, which he tells well. Some quips he intends largely to amuse: "The only subject on which Mr. about virtually every subject Congress considers, but foreign policy particularly interests him. At the beginning of his third year in the Senate he readily accepted a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which left him time to serve on only one major committee dealing in matters of tangible concern to the voters back home. Since 1957 he has traveled to South America, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. He has supported Kennedy regularly but is anxious to be free from the uniform Democratic opinions which the Administration and leadership of the Foreign Affairs Committee encourage. This requires a steady, often taxing, effort to develop and expound his own positions. Church's record on domestic legislation is spotty and difficult to classify. On most subjects his public statements have not been extensive, but his voting inclines toward the left.

He was born into the third Idaho generation of a Maine family that had moved west with the gold rush. After attending public sigh school in Boise and winning a nation-wide speaking contest, sponsored by the American Legion, he left Idaho for college and law school at Stanford. But he married the daughter of a former Idaho Governor, and returned to open a private law practice in Boise. In 1956 he entered state politics, narrowly beating former cowboy Senator Glenn Taylor in the Democratic primary and then walloping McCarthyite Republican Senator Herman Walker in the general election. Last November Church polled 55% of the vote. He was the only successful Democratic candidate for a major statewide office and the first Democratic senator over to win re-election in Idaho.

Church's victory came as a surprise to many. On some controversial issues, foreign aid, for example, he had spoken and voted contrary to the opinions of large majorities in Idaho. But personal services to his constituents and a respectable number of dams, irrigation projects, and government contracts eased the apprehensions that the Senator's interests and allegiances were outside the state.

Church's wide-ranging concerns have created one of his greatest political problems. Almost all of his predecessors, feeding on Idahoans' mild but persistent paranoia toward the Federal Gov. and big cities, have concerned themselves principally with the interests of the state, as opposed to the rest of the country. One of the hottest issues in the campaign was Church's vote for establishing a Cabinet Department of Urban Affairs. The Republican opponent charged that this showed how little Church cared about Idaho.

William E. Borah was the last Idaho Senator with the concern, ability, and security to act for the national interests as he saw it, regardless of how his constituents would react. The result of the 1962 election indicate that Church can probably stay in the Senate as long as he wants. How far he will follow the Borah example is still an open question.