Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church

by LeRoy Ashby, Rod Gramer

Fifteen years in the making, Fighting the Odds is a milestone in western political biography. Authors LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer take readers on a dramatic tour of post-World War II America, as experienced in Frank Church's twenty-four years in the Senate. From 1957 to 1981, Church stood at the center of searing national debates, emerging as one of the twentieth century's most respected and influential senators. Ashby and Gramer illuminate the battle for the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the emergence of the Senate's anti-Vietnam coalition, conflicts over environmental legislation in the 1960s and 1970s, the fight over the Panama Canal treaties, and Church's highly publicized investigations of the CIA, FBI, and multinational corporations. Interspersed is the gripping tale of the 1976 presidential campaign when Church, the "late, late candidate, " upset frontrunner Jimmy Carter in several key primaries. Throughout his life, Frank Church fought formidable odds. Almost dying of cancer at age twenty-four, he viewed the rest of his life as borrowed time. In 1956 he won a Senate seat, though he had never before held elective office. At thirty-two he became one of the youngest persons ever to take a seat in the U. S. Senate. He served four terms in the Senate - the only Idaho Democrat to ever serve more than one. Defeated in the Republican landslide election of 1980, Frank Church died of cancer in 1984. Fighting the Odds is "a meticulously researched, comprehensive, eminently fair biography, " according to award-winning historian William L. O'Neill. It is destined to become a classic of American political writing.

Genres: Biography, History

749 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1994

About the author

Leroy Ashby is emeritus faculty in the Department of History at Washington State University.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank Forrester Church of Idaho stepped on the national political scene in 1956 out of nowhere except
maybe central casting. He was the perfect boy scout image as a US Senator he could have modeled
himself on Jimmy Stewart's Jefferson Smith. He is the only Idaho Democrat to serve four terms in
the Senate, a feat unto itself.

He was like so many GIs from World War 2 hoping to make a contribution. He was born in 1924 and
went to Stanford University and became an attorney. He served in World War 2 in the China-Burma-
India theater with Army Intelligence.

His career almost ended before it started. In 1951 he survived testicular cancer and it was touch and
go for awhile. He made a run for the Idaho legislature and lost in 1952.

In 1956 Church pulled off a Jefferson Smith like move with a Jefferson Smith like campaign. Idaho
Democrats were searching for a candidate to go against one of Joe McCarthy's running buddies Herman Welker. Church took the nomination and in a year where Ike carried Idaho quite handily,
Idahoans split their tickets and voted Church in.

Church was lucky enough to latch on to the Kennedy family and in 1960 he was a Kennedy favorite when JFK became president. But when Lyndon Johnson became president Church walked on egg
shells as many Democrats did at the time. He liked LBJ's Great Society domestic program, but I
daresay his own experiences made him a skeptic on the Vietnam War.

When Republican Richard Nixon came to the White House Church came into his own. He was a
leader in environmental legislation. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee he conducted investigations into the Vietnam War and into the policies of the Central Intelligence
Agency. He sponsored both the Cooper-Church and Case-Church amendments to limit the executive war making powers.

In 1976 Church made a run for the White House. It was an entry made too late and while he won
some primaries it was too late to stop Jimmy Carter from getting the nomination.

Church bedeviled and perplexed the right wing. How could this guy keep getting elected in a rural
state like Idaho? He survived three nasty re-election fights. But in 1980 with the stars aligned for
conservatives and Ronald Reagan doing the realigning, Church lost a bid for a 5th term to Republican Steve Symms. Idaho hasn't sent a Democrat since to the Senate.

This is one fine man portrayed in this book. We need a lot more Frank Churches in public life.

[Mary Kluczycki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent - we can only hope and pray for politicians with the heart and soul that this man possessed.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems improbable today that the state of Idaho once elected a man like Frank Church to the United States Senate. A committed liberal whose positions were often at odds with those of his conservative constituents, he nonetheless won four terms to the United States Senate and lost his bid for reelection to a fifth term by only a few thousand votes. LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer's biography offers a thorough study of his public career, noting his numerous achievements over the course of his time in the Senate. Unlike some prominent Senate liberals of his era, he sought concrete legislative achievements in a number of areas, including the environment and care for the elderly. It was Church's position on the Vietnam War, however, which secured for him a place in the spotlight, and which led to the Church hearings in the mid-1970s which exposed to the public the transgressions of American intelligence agencies. Though much of this legacy is receding into the past, Ashby and Gramer's biography is a suitable monument to the man, one that should be read by anyone seeking to learn about the life of this fascinating figure and the long shadow he cast over his times.