A Remembrance of a Life Well Lived, The Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, and his Parents, Senator Frank Church and Bethine Church Fariborz S. Fatemi Former Professional Staff Member House Foreign Affairs Committee Senate Foreign Relations Committee On Christmas Day in 2005, the preeminent theologian, the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, in describing “hope” to his congregation and through them to the world, said hope “answers the depredations of power with symbols of eternal majesty, not majestic, like Herod or Caesar. Not mighty like Rome or even like America, but the majesty and dignity of a child born into the underclass, whose every utterance witnesses to a power beyond that of all the world’s principalities.” And he added, “Hope is an eternal language and one that “brings comfort to the afflicted, compassion to the needy and peace to the war-torn world.” In 2008, a year before his untimely death, in describing religion as universal he said, “the greatest of all truths is that love never dies, that every act of love that we perform in this life is carried on into another life and passed on into another life so that centuries from now, that love carries, and that is the work of religion.” Compare the previous with what passes for dialogue and discourse today. Hateful, vicious trash that divides by fear-mongering. What happened to the language that brings hope, love, optimism, that uplifts and unites? The Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, for 30 years, was the pastor of the Unitarian Church of All Souls on the Upper East Side of New York and had turned the church into one of the most influential and largest congregations in the US. He was also the author of 24 books. It was late 1962 when I joined Senator Frank Church’s Senate staff and for the first time, met his 15-year-old son Forrest Church who was destined to become the respected theologian, The Reverend Doctor. That year was a tumultuous year for the Senator. He had just been re-elected that November. This was the first time in Idaho’s history that a Democrat had been re- elected. That record continued to be broken, as Senator Church was subsequently re- elected two more times for a total of 24 years in the US Senate. The Senator was first elected to the US Senate in 1956 at the age of 32. In 1960, because of his great oratorical ability, he was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention that nominated John F. Kennedy as its candidate for the presidency of the United States. Fariborz S. Fatemi In his 24 years in the US Senate, Frank Church was often an eloquent voice for progressive policies, strongly supporting civil rights protection even though representing a state that had less than 7,000 blacks in a population of some 670,000. In fact, in 1957, having just entered the Senate he helped the Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The Senator was also a great advocate for expanding help to the elderly and fought hard for equal rights for women. In the field of foreign affairs, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he was one of America’s leading voices against America’s involvement in Vietnam. And in his last term, he became the chairman of that committee. Right from the start, I was treated by the Senator, his wife and life partner Bethine, who was affectionately referred to as “Idaho’s Third Senator,” and the staff as a member of their family. Maybe it was an Idaho custom, but I suspect it had more to do with how the Senator and Bethine lived their lives and therefore always showed their love, even to a stranger. Bethine loved to quote George Bernard Shaw, “Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got to hold for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.” And in every day of her life, she lived by that. In the Sixties, along with the Senator, the Western part of the United States had produced senators who were considered giants of the Senate. To mention a few, Wayne Morse, OR; Mike Mansfield, MT; Warren G. Magnuson, WA; Ernest Gruening, AK; and Carl Hayden, AZ, the likes of which unfortunately, have not been seen since. They were giants who when they saw wrong they wanted to right it. Always wanting to make peoples’ lives better and the life of their country better, unlike today’s bunch in the Congress that only responds to special pleadings and ideology first and their country’s interests last. As a new staffer, I had a desk in the back of the Senate office with three or four others staffers. One, Mike Moore, has been a life-long friend and he later went on to excel in the practice of law. My area of responsibility was to assist with the issues of foreign policy. Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the late Fifties and early Sixties had seen a lot of violence against civil rights activists as they worked for racial justice. Some examples: attacks on Freedom Riders by Klansmen; burnings and bombings of churches; lynchings; beatings of activists and jailing them. Further, in April of 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, AL. In May of the same year, Birmingham police sent dogs against black demonstrators and used fire hoses against them. In June, Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, MS. He was the field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. The violent acts and many deaths sent shock waves throughout the United States. And it culminated with the March on Washington. Mike, Bryce Nelson and I, and others on the staff, wanted to participate in the March and asked for time off to do so. Because of all the previous violence, there had been a lot of concern that it would be unsafe to March. President Kennedy had called on the organizers to stop the march fearing the loss of life. That did not deter the 2 Fariborz S. Fatemi Senator nor Bethine. For when they heard about our plan, they came to me and asked if their 15-year-old son, Forrest, just one month short of his 16th birthday, could go with us. Of course, we were grateful that we had been given the time to do this and Forrest would join us. On that day, the 28th of August, the sun was shining, it was hot and around noontime, we left the Old Senate Office Building (Russell Bldg.) by the Delaware Avenue exit facing Constitution Avenue. The streets were already crowded with wall-to- wall people headed towards the Lincoln Memorial. We walked across Constitution Avenue and headed toward the Senate side of the US Capitol. We then went down the hill toward the Capitol Reflecting Pool and proceeded down Jefferson Drive. All along the route, huge crowds had gathered. We passed the Washington Monument and worked our way along the left side of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to just before the Lincoln Memorial, the site of the gathering. The crush of the crowd stopped our progress. The Mall was jammed as far as the eye could see. The people, men and women, young and old, black, brown, white, from all corners of the US, were joyous and respectful. Throughout the day, there was little or no violence. And it was here, at the edge of the reflecting pool, that we heard Dr. King proclaim, in his I Have a Dream speech, “Let freedom ring.” I cannot speculate what effect that march and that speech had on Forrest, a young man who was encouraged by such loving and enlightened parents, to join with us. However, history has already spoken on that. Another remembrance worth recounting, again reflecting the Senator and Bethine’s generosity of spirit, happened at the time of President Kennedy’s death. November 22, 2016, will mark 52 years since the death of President Kennedy. I suspect everyone who was alive 53 years ago will remember exactly what they were doing on that day and what followed. First, the heart-breaking scene of the nighttime arrival of the body of the President at Andrew’s Air Force Base from Dallas. Second, the President lying in repose for 24 hours in the East Room of the White House. And then, the President’s flag-draped coffin carried by a horse-drawn caisson to the US Capitol to lie in state in the Rotunda for public viewing. I stood in line like some 250,000 others who also had come to pay their respects and sometime in the early morning hours of Monday, was able to pass by the President’s casket. After that, it was estimated that a million people lined the route of the funeral procession from the Capitol, back to the White House, to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral and then to Arlington National Cemetery for the burial ceremony. The horse- drawn caisson was followed by the Kennedy family, the staff and close friends of the family. Behind that group came leaders from all over the world showing the incredible respect they had for President Kennedy and America. 3 Fariborz S. Fatemi I was in the Senate office that morning, November 25, when the funeral procession departed the Capitol at 11 am. The Senator and Bethine were going to join other Senators on a special bus that would take them to Arlington National Cemetery.