Overcorrected and eisenhower was there with him. He thought that the end of colonial was a destructive hurricane. As we write the book and that helped lead to the disaster, the vietnam war, where francis was dealing with counterinsurgency for the better part of a decade since the end of World War Two. It go well. They make a lot of mistakes that the American Army will later repeat pretty frighteningly. And so by the time frank church is in the senate and he visits vietnam in 1962, its pretty clear that the saigon government is the us military has supporting and abetting them. Britain and france refused to help because there supposed to be a treaty. The geneva accords, that would have united vietnam through an election. Ho chi minh probably would have won was incredibly popular. He was a communist communists were killing rival groups. So there was already a civil war brewing. Think there was going to be blood . The united just made it worse. And thats so. Frank church visits vietnam in 1962 and he notices things are not going well. When church arrived. In 1962, president kennedy, who he was, he very close to kennedy, had wanted him and some other senators to tour vietnam and he went and he was just shocked by the corruption and the incompetence of the south vietnamese regime. And reminded him completely of the Chinese Nationalist army and the Chinese Nationalists regime of chiang kai shek. And he went back to washington and began to slowly to turn against the war. He was, since he was so close to kennedy, he was very discreet and subtle about his criticisms of the war at. He turned he would the the south vietnamese government but he wouldnt criticize his the kennedy administrations policies and it was really only when Lyndon Johnson president that began to turn openly against the us policy in vietnam and his relationship Lyndon Johnson went downhill very fast. He johnson had been Senate Majority leader when church was first elected to the senate and they had had very up and down relationship. He was in the senate very volatile but now it went completely south because church willing to be very open in his opposition to the war and he was the first major senator who johnson considered credible to openly turn against the war and he really pressured William Fulbright was the chairman of the Senate Foreign relations at the time to hold hearings on vietnam. And it was the pressure think from church that finally helped force fulbright hearings were a watershed moment the mid 1960s on vietnam and it helped opposition to the war and then later in the during war church became very frustrated that congress was having so little impact on ending the war that he became deeply depressed and. He finally began to push for congress, defund the war, and defund military operations. He started on the edges that with a series legislative moves called the Cooper Church, which began efforts stop any operations in thailand and then move to try trying to stop military operations, cambodia, and then finally trying to defund all military operations, vietnam itself, and think historians today agree that it was the Cooper Church amendments and similar Actions Congress which finally force nixon, Henry Kissinger to begin, accelerate and intensify peace negotiations with North Vietnam and, ultimately led to the peace accords of 1973. And i think that was really church doesnt get the credit that he deserved for his role in helping to end vietnam war and it as i said earlier he was he started in the 1950s when he got to congress as kind of a cold war hawk much like kennedy was. And it was it was the democratic mainstream of the late 1950s, was very hawkish. And they were trying to be more hawkish than the republic hence in the wake of the era. And church really evolved from that. It was transform armed by vietnam much more than any other senator. He became a real radical by the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he compared he began to compare the United States to the soviet union. He thought that the United States becoming a militaristic empire that was dangerous force in the world, just like the soviet union and his speeches. If read them today are just shockingly. Leftist for a senator from idaho and probably the only thing his his the main political that he received was that he had split personality. On the one side, he was becoming this radical. The other side he was deeply politically ambitious and he wanted to be president and he was extreme good at navigating how to present his radical views. Idaho to an increasingly conservative audience. And he did that in a remarkable way by just honest with them and by telling them exactly what he thought. And its kind of refreshing to see what he was saying to people in. Idaho in 1968, when he had run for reelection in the midst of the war, and he would go from county courthouse to the fremont courthouse to the other, and he would sit down with people and talk about vietnam and explain he was turning against the war and why he was afraid of what was doing to the nation. And people in idaho accepted it and they saw that as well. Hes hes explained to me, he sits down with me and he talks about it. And in simple english and it worked. Its remarkable that politicians dont try honesty. And. And yet idaho becoming more conservative over and so he he realized eventually by the mid 1970s he realized i think that the state was turning against him and he wasnt sure how long he was going to be able to continue and in the senate but and he had this dual view i think of his life one as i said he was deeply politically ambitious but becoming radical and i think thats the great tragedy of his life was he never quite figured out to resolve that in his life of being a radical who was very worried about the future of the United States as a republic. He thought it was going to become an imperial power that was unaccountable and yet he still wanted to be president of the United States, or at least chairman of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee here. And i dont think he ever resolved. How do you how do you navigate those two completely opposing thoughts . And and that climaxed in 1975, when he was he wanted to run the Church Committee, but he also wanted to run for president. And he did. And it was kind of his ultimate, uh, the ultimate problem. He quite resolved but in his mind or in his because while he ran the Church Committee, he was being criticized by many who thought that it was just he was just using it as a platform to run for president. And then when he waited because he wanted to complete the church, he waited too long to into the president ial campaign. And so he lost in primaries to jimmy carter. And so i think that was it was an interesting problem. I think a lot of politician have is never quite knowing how far to push their ideals, their ambitions. But i think the Church Committee, um, is just another whole another part of our book that is so it becomes so dramatic that his life really in a lot of ways and in 1975, when he becomes chairman of the Church Committee and its a committee that looking back, its a amazing that what they accomplished, they had their had never been, as tom said, never been oversight of the cia or the fbi or the nsa before. And the Church Committee had to decide once it was created what to look at and what to, you know, they had 30 years of past history of the cia and they had to decide what to investigate and the first thing that they decided to investigate were a series. A series of efforts by the cia to assassinate foreign. And that led very quickly as they began to investigate to a secret cia alliance with the mafia that had occurred, the late eisenhower and early kennedy. And then as they began investigate that their witnesses started getting murdered. And so tom did a great job in our Research Getting the files on two of those murders, one was sam giancana, who was the mob boss of chicago. And other was Johnny Roselli, who one of the most flamboyant mobsters from hollywood and las vegas. Why dont you talk . The murder of sam giancana. Yeah, the Church Committee investigated the five assassinations and the most one that got the most headlines was the plot between the cia and the mafia to kill fidel castro. The mafia. You may remember had casinos in havana up until castro took over. And cia thought, hey, they hate castro, too. Lets listen. List them and see what see if they can help kill him and so they reached out through a fixer of theirs. They had a former fbi agent named Robert Mayhew who one of those guys who knows everyone, including someone in the mafia. And that friend of his, Johnny Roselli, another guy who knows everyone, you know, the intelligence and crime worlds depend on people who know everyone. And pass secrets between trusted people. Johnny roselli was one of those guys and, so he brought in some giancana, Santo Trafficante. They plotted to poison castro bataan and poison and. So by the time 1975 comes along, sam giancana, subpoenaed properly, just requested to arrive because they had subpoena in the committee. But, you know, you dont always use it. People know you have it. So you show up. So sam, john, connor was about to be interviewed by a Church Committee staffers, but hes murdered in his. And to this day, no one knows who. But also to this, the Oak Park Police department is still it a cold case . I think they did dna tests in the 2000 with cigaret that were left at the scene. So theyre still looking and miami police are also still looking for johnny. Johnny roselli did survive to testify before the Church Committee and. About a year later, he was found chopped up into pieces a barrel in dumbfounding bay near, miami. So theyre still looking for who killed . Him, too. But everyone pretty much agrees. It was, uh, tony accardo was the kingmaker. He was the power behind the throne of chicago and never spent the day in prison. One of the reasons he didnt, he was able to do as he killed almost everyone who he did business with, including Johnny Roselli and sam giancana. One of the things thats so fascinating is that throughout, as tom said, these two murders have never been solved. And a lot of a lot pundits in the press at the time and other dismissed the idea they might have been murdered for talking to the Church Committee, but i think that the mob, the mafia, never, in my opinion are doing a lot of research on this. These two murders. I dont think the mafia kills people for any one reason i think theres usually a lot of reasons and i think its because people are talking too. Both, right . Giancana was talked was testifying before a federal grand jury and roselli also was talking to a separate grand jury when when they were killed, they were all but they were also talking to the Church Committee. And so i think the issue is that they were talking too much in general. And part of who were talking to was the Church Committee. So i think the idea you can dismiss the fact that they were murdered because they were talking, the Church Committee is not true. And one thing that we found that no one else we disclose in the book for the first time was that there was a third witness murdered and that orlando letelier, who was the with my neighbor oh, he was the chilean dissident who had fled chile, salvador allende. The government was overturned, was overthrown, and the pinochet government him. But what wasnt known until our book was that he was secretly being interviewed by the church, which did a Major Investigation of u. S. The covert action in in chile. And so to have three witnesses all murdered is i think a congressional record and and i think it its amazing of the things at the time the Justice Department and the fbi did not want to investigate the giancana murder or the roselli murder. They wanted to leave it up to local police in cases. And one of the members of the Church Committee, gary hart, decided that was that he was shocked that the justice wasnt doing anything about it. So he and a few other staffers went to miami to try to investigate the roselli on their own, and they met with the miamidade police, put them in touch with the cia, and gave them as much help they could. But i think but the roselli murder was never solved. One of the interesting things was that the two homicide detectives for Miami Dade Police force were later charged in a in a very complex Drug Trafficking corruption case. And tom was able to talk to both of them about whether that had any effect on their willingness or eagerness to solve the roselli murder. Yeah, it seems like it was, you know, the seventies and early in miami. And, you know, far from the First Police Officers to get involved in the coke trade back then, was it so much . And another thing we discovered, Santo Trafficante got a phone call from payphone that was down the street from Johnny Roselli the day he disappeared. That doesnt look good. I think the fbi clearly believes and i think the Miami Dade Police clearly believe that Santo Trafficante was behind johnny or sallys murder and trafficante is the only mob figure who was involved in the alliance with the cia to kill castro, who never testified, was never killed it was a big deal with the investigation of the Police Officers because was a drug kingpin in florida. The cartels really you know, became huge. So we were if there was a connection there, it turns there wasnt. But it was it was still. You got to wonder whether corrupt cops were the best people to investigate. A mob hit. So should we move to questions or should we keep going for a while to ask you about that the main . You mentioned, bob mayhew or something . Bob mayhew. Yeah, hes the one that put the bomb underneath celias car. No no, that was somebody else. Really . Yeah. He was busy with Howard Hughes by now. Yeah. Yeah. Say something. The impact of. Sure, yeah. And the committees. Yeah, sure. The i think the the Church Committee had i think a real legacy and it was very consequential. Think theres a lot of historians who now recognize that it was probably the most important investigation in American History its it had a water was a watershed moment for american intelligence it brought the cia and the fbi the nsa under the of law it that because of the investigation actions of the past abuses by the cia, the fbi and the nsa, new laws were were passed, especially during the Carter Administration and when the democrats controlled the house and the senate and the white house and the theres a number of laws that are now on that remain on the books that reign in the power of the Intelligence Community. Those are flawed and not as good as they should be but they are the only but but prior to the Church Committee none of those rules existed. One example is the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, the what we now call which is widely criticized today for all of its failures, but it didnt it was the law that ever limited the power of the Intelligence Community to eavesdrop on american citizens and other laws like the foreign corrupt practices act was passed as a result of churches of Martin National bribery of foreign governments. And there were the creation of Permanent Senate and House Intelligence Committee committees was a direct result of the Church Committee. We wouldnt there was no oversight prior to the Church Committee and, really. Frank church saw his goal his objective was the Church Committee to set the stage for creation of a Permanent Oversight Committee in the senate because he knew he had to lead this committee in a way was would be broadly acceptable to both parties and to white house and to the Intelligence Community in order to set the stage for the creation of a permanent oversight and the senate Intelligence Committee was created just a couple of months after. The completion of the Church Committees work, and there were a number of other executive orders and, administrative changes, both at t