[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4595-4596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO FRANK AND BETHINE CHURCH

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, when I first came to the Senate, I had the 
great privilege of serving with Senator Frank Church of Idaho. Marcelle 
and I were also privileged to spend time with both Frank and his 
wonderful wife Bethine. The two of them were extraordinarily helpful to 
this 34-year-old Senator from Vermont.
  Frank Church was a Senator in the very best sense of the word. He 
thought of the Senate as a place where one should, first and foremost, 
stand for our country and make it a better place. Certainly his 
brilliance, conscience, and patriotism made his service here one that 
benefited not only the Senate, but the Nation.
  Last year, the Idaho Statesman published an article that so reflected 
Bethine Church that I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the 
Record so that those in the Senate who served with Senator Church and 
knew him and Bethine, as well as those who did not have the opportunity 
to know them, can have this glimpse into their lives.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the IdahoStatesman.com, Oct. 13, 2006]

       Bethine Church is the widow of four-term U.S. Sen. Frank 
     Church. Get a narrated tour of her life and times as she 
     describes collected photographs from the couple's public and 
     private lives. See photos of Castro, Brando, Jackie Kennedy 
     and more.
       In a game room in Boise's East End, the walls really do 
     talk.
       Bethine Church, the widow of four-term U.S. Sen. Frank 
     Church, has collected photographs from the couple's public 
     and private

[[Page 4596]]

     lives. Every image has a story--of world travel on behalf of 
     the government, of encounters with celebrities, of heads of 
     state and high political drama, of love and loss and family, 
     of home in the Idaho mountains.
       Frank Church was the most influential Idaho politician 
     ever. He served 24 years in the U.S. Senate, the lone Idaho 
     Democrat to win more than one term. He chaired the Senate 
     Foreign Relations Committee. In 1976 he was a serious 
     candidate for president, looking briefly like the only man 
     able to deny Jimmy Carter the Democratic nomination. He 
     helped pass the Wilderness Act in 1964. He was an early 
     critic of the Vietnam War, and investigated CIA and FBI 
     abuses, forcing reforms that some now question in the post-9/
     11 era.
       I'd seen the pictures over the years, when Church hosted 
     events for Democratic luminaries like Tipper Gore. The walls 
     are chockablock with presidents (FDR, JFK and LBJ), prime 
     ministers (Golda Meir of Israel), kings (Juan Carlos of 
     Spain), dictators (Fidel Castro of Cuba and Deng Xiaoping of 
     China) and celebrities (Jimmy Durante, Marlon Brando, John 
     Wayne). There are family snaps of the Robinson Bar Ranch, the 
     Middle Fork Salmon River and the grand home at 109 W. Idaho 
     St., where Bethine lived when her father, Chase Clark, was 
     governor in the 1940s.
       But I hadn't heard her inimitable narration. I finally got 
     the chance when my editor asked me to gather string for an 
     obituary on the grandame of Idaho politics. Church, 83, 
     happily gave the E Ticket tour to me and photographer Darin 
     Oswald. No waiting lines, but the ride took four hours.
       Several days later, she called, saying, ``I'd so like to 
     see what you're up to. Do we really have to wait until I'm 
     dead?'' My editors chewed on that, deciding she was right: 
     There was no good reason to delay. Today, at 
     IdahoStatesman.com, Church brings the pictures to life in an 
     audio-visual presentation designed by Oswald's colleague, 
     Chris Butler. We chose today because at 11:45 a.m., the U.S. 
     Forest Service is holding a renaming ceremony at the Galena 
     Overlook in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The 
     viewpoint is one of Idaho's great vistas. From today on, it 
     will honor Bethine and Frank Church, both of whom had the 
     vision to protect the Sawtooths.
       Driving to Robinson Bar over Galena Summit more than 30 
     years ago, the Churches looked down on a subdivision. ``This 
     can't happen,'' said Sen. Church. Working with his Republican 
     colleagues, Sen. Len Jordan and Reps. Jim McClure and Orval 
     Hansen, Church got the bill creating the Sawtooth National 
     Recreation Area through Congress in 1972. Had they failed, 
     the Sawtooth valley would be dotted with vacation mansions.
       Frank Church has been out of office 25 years, dead 22. 
     Bethine contemplated suicide while watching him die of 
     cancer, but he told her she had responsibilities. He was 
     right. She founded the Sawtooth Society, which has led 
     private conservation efforts in the SNRA; her support of Rep. 
     Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has aided his push to expand SNRA 
     wilderness into the Boulder and White Cloud mountains; she 
     helped create the Frank Church Institute at BSU that supports 
     a scholar and hosts a world-class annual conference.
       Church took a fall recently that put her in the hospital 
     one night. But she still entertains, negotiating her kitchen 
     in a cane and sitting on a step stool to cook. She lustily 
     talks of a life devoted to making Idaho and the world better.
       Bethine grew up in Mackay and Idaho Falls, where her lawyer 
     father represented copper mining companies and criminal 
     defendants.
       From her parents she learned a novel way of speaking, 
     including her mother's strongest curse, ``It just freezes my 
     preserves,'' and her Pop's putdown, ``He's as worthless as 
     teats on a boar.''
       From there she went to the salons of Washington, D.C., and 
     the far reaches of the globe. But they didn't take the Idaho 
     out of Bethine. After a reception for French President 
     Charles De Gaulle, the Churches gathered at the home of a 
     Senate colleague, Joe Clark, with Adlai Stevenson, the U.N. 
     Ambassador, a former governor and the Democratic presidential 
     nominee in 1952 and 1956.
       Stevenson's intellectual heft was legend; he was mocked by 
     Richard Nixon as an ``egghead,'' and voters twice chose 
     Dwight Eisenhower. But Bethine showed no reluctance to say 
     what was on her champagne-sparkled mind: She discussed the 
     relative preponderance of outhouses in Idaho and West 
     Virginia. ``I guess I sounded like I sound now,'' she said, 
     laughing. ``I said exactly what came into my head and somehow 
     Frank survived it.''
       Bethine Church was a true partner to her politician 
     husband, not simply a prop. She has a knack for remembering 
     names, something she learned from her dad. ``Pop taught me 
     that everybody, from the waitress to the people working in 
     the kitchen, is as important as the people sitting on the 
     dais.''
       She often prompted the senator's memory, and was his most 
     valued confidant. Had Church won his last-minute race for 
     president in 1976 in the wake of Watergate, Bethine would 
     have been an involved First Lady. ``If there had been 
     tapes,'' she crowed, ``I would have been on them!''

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