Frank Church was a senator from Idaho from 1957-1981.   He is perhaps best known for The Church Committee which, in the aftermath of Watergate, investigated intelligence gathering by the CIA, NSA, and FBI.  The findings weren’t pretty.

Chris Mooney in The American Prospect in December 2001:

Church… gets accused of devaluing and misunderstanding intelligence, even though he was himself an army intelligence officer in World War II. All these innuendos threaten to obscure the core lessons of Church’s investigation. According to the Washington State University historian Leroy Ashby, coauthor (with Rod Gramer) of the Church biography Fighting the Odds, the committee provided the American public with “a kind of education about the hidden side of government. And that hidden side very much affected what happened abroad, with unintended consequences.” At a time when we will need to strengthen and rely on the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon intelligence agencies like never before, we can’t afford to lose this sobering perspective.

(Thanks to poster Skjellifetti on Brad DeLong’s blog for reminding me of Church’s work.)