Sen. Frank Church (D-Iowa or Idaho) didn’t really give much of a damn about “privacy”. It was more a second thought as he tried to destroy US internal and foreign security operations.
While the FBI did some possibly illegal or extralegal operations against both foreign and domestic enemies (esp. the various communist and black extremist armed movements), Church wanted to destroy their powers and their files.
Re the wiretaps on Dr. King. They were legitimate. He was a “captive” of a KGB sandwich operation in that his key advisor, financial helper, etc. was not only a secret member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), but also later admitted to being a KGB bagman for money from the Soviet Union to be used to fund the CPUSA (this is absolutely illegal). The man was attorney Stanley Levison, who gave Executive Session testify before the Church Committee, information that was very hard to get out to the public.
King’s second CPUSA/probable KGB asset was his personal secretary/administrative assistant Hunter Pitts O’Dell (Jack O’Dell to the Movement). He was also a key figure in King’s SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), along with Rev. Abernathy, Bevel, Young, Shuttlesworth, and Walker (some of whom were either former CPUSA members or significantly affiliated with CPUSA fronts).
King was under electronic surveillance because the two KGB/CPUSA operatives literally controlled his activities and the direction of SCLC, and Levison wrote King’s infamous April 1967 anti-Vietnam speech, which showed just how much control this KGB/CPer had over him.
Also, King was in a position to be blackmailed (and might have been) for some of his non-political actions. Let’s leave it at that.
Sen. Church had to be strongly persuaded NOT TO REVEAL the FBI’s top intelligence operation against the Soviets. He actually wanted to but extreme pressure was put on him not to do so.
IF he had exposed Operation Solo, he would have gotten America’s top undercover agent in the Kremlin killed. Period.
Church was a damned traitor. He didn’t need to be a communist. He did their work for them as he was, including the freedom-killing Cooper-Church aid amendment on Vietnam.
I saw this SOB shortly before he died. He looked like shit and deserved what happened to him. Just because you wear a suit and tie and are elected to Congress doesn’t mean that you are good for America and freedom.
Frank Church was living proof of that. Millions died in SE Asia and tens of millions of people, some of who I knew, lost their freedom forever thanks to his actions.
I hope he rots in Hell along with Tom Hayden, eventually Jane Fonda, Don Luce, Fred Branfman, Cora Weiss, Dave Dellinger, and the rest of the commie traitors.
Welcome to the real world, folks. Sometimes it really sucks.
For those of us who have been in the efforts to stop the reds and their stooges/dupes and sympathizers, our job is often just to make the world a little less sucky.
HEAR HEAR, MadMax, the Grinning Reaper.
THAT is spot on. Church was scum, and was in bed ideologically with 60's radicals who were just then starting to openly reveal themselves, and who since then beginning in 1993 with Clinton's inauguration, came to power in the top levels of our government and really did their damage.
Good post, thank you.
Michael king repeatedly colluded with and recieved money and orders from Russians. Why was he not charged Why is there a day named for this colluder? Remove it!!
Yes he was! Yet the people of Idaho adored him and named a Wilderness Area after him! I always thought that odd.