he lobbied mike mansfield for the position. he saw it as a continuation of some of the earlier work that he had been doing on some special investigatory committees. and importantly, he had been an 18 year at that point member of the senate foreign relations committee. he had been one of the first public voices of dissent in the united states senate about us vietnam war policy. and he was someone who really wanted to take on these issues. the issues related to national intel, the national intelligence commune ity and the ways in which it may have the ways in which it may have violated american's constitutional liberties. what was uncovered by these hearings? well, the hearings uncovered a few important things. they were meant in some ways to be a second watergate investigation. in that the watergate committee had revealed that national intelligence agencies, specifically the cia and the fbi, had been used by the nixon administration for political purposes. and so church was interested in investigating those prior allegations in