The Last Honest Man

“James Risen is one of our country’s greatest investigative reporters, and Frank Church, the senator at the heart of this book, is an American icon—a man of supreme confidence, integrity, and wisdom. The dark truths he exposed about America’s spy agencies are shocking even by today’s standards. A gripping book, The Last Honest Man is a spectacular piece of reporting that reads like a spy novel with the eloquence of great history.”

“A detailed, impassioned and admiring biography."

“You might be aware that Marlene Dietrich slept with JFK, but did you know about Bing Crosby’s role in a CIA plot to blackmail the president of Indonesia? James Risen’s The Last Honest Man contains this and other volcanic gossip that might never have scorched the congressional record had it not been for the eponymous Sen. Frank Church… Church emerges in this readable, fast-paced biography as a politician of rare integrity…if you’re there for the politicking and the scandals, The Last Honest Man crackles.”

“Vigorous… a welcome restoration of a largely forgotten politician who navigated issues that continue to reverberate.”

“A book that takes us back to a time when intellect and integrity won out .... Not enough has been written about those moments in recent history when profiles in courage arose from the thicket of partisanship and abuse of power. James Risen has done just that by chronicling the inside story of Frank Church’s successful effort to rein in agencies of national security that were out of control.”

“Church was that rarity among elected representatives: an ideologue fully prepared to sacrifice his career to a great cause… [The Last Honest Man] pairs the gripping pace of an espionage thriller with the intense research of a comprehensive and timely account of government oversight.”

"Both paean and lament... The Last Honest Man is a gem, marbled with scoop, laden with interviews."

“The Last Honest Man is a vitally important, timely story about how our elected politicians—few of them perfect—can protect us from tyranny by insisting that presidents, spies, and generals follow the law. It is also a ripping good read: a Washington thriller that reliably sorts fact from myth about the Mafia, JFK, and the CIA, while re-investigating improbable episodes of a tumultuous era.”

“James Risen's engrossing book is more than a biography of a hugely significant senator, more than the resurrection of one of the most influential congressional committees of the 20th century, and more than a colorful tour of the CIA's assassination plots, mafia ties and outrageous mind control experiments. It's a vivid reminder that American democracy is always fragile.”

“This new biography of one of the Senate's most principled and effectual bulwarks against America's warfare state, by one of America's greatest investigative reporters, couldn't be more engrossing. And as we finally come up for air after a generation of disastrous war, it couldn't be more important.”

“The Last Honest Man is an urgent reminder about the power of telling the truth in a world increasingly filled with lies. We have never needed Frank Church—or James Risen—more.”

"With The Last Honest Man, James Risen has proven himself to be not just one of America’s greatest investigative reporters but also a great modern historian. And his cast of characters in this page-turner could not be any richer: from its protagonist, Senator Frank Church, one of the most consequential lawmakers of the 20th century, to Kennedy, Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover and from Martin Luther King to mobster Sam Giancana to the CIA’s notorious 'poisoner in chief,' the sinister Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. Above all else, Risen documents the outrageous abuses of government power that the Church Committee exposed, especially at the CIA and FBI—crimes, and disclosures, that continue to shape our world today."

“In a time when our entire American legislative apparatus has been swallowed whole into a gaping maw of partisan venality and metastasizing ignorance, it is astonishing to encounter a narrative in which a United States senator uses actual oversight of an actual, fundamental problem to make us a better nation. But once upon a time, Frank Church did precisely that. In The Last Honest Man, James Risen tells the tale with precision and insight.”

“A timely and long overdue reassessment of perhaps the most important congressional investigation of the last century, The Last Honest Man resurrects Frank Church and reveals his quest to expose and remedy the overreach of US intelligence agencies before 1975. This book should be required reading for any elected official seeking to pick up where Church & Co. left off nearly fifty years ago.”

“James Risen has at last brought us the richly reported biography that Frank Church, one of the most consequential senators of the 20th century, deserves. At a time when so many lawmakers are predictably partisan and deferential to the executive branch, Risen reminds us of another era: when a liberal could represent Idaho, a Democrat could challenge his own party's presidents, and a senator could assert Congress's role in national security.”