from the Space Shuttle. McAuliffe died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (STS-51-L) on January 28, 1986. Legacy and post-Senate life Mathias held a retirement party at the Baltimore Convention Center on July 14, 1986, which had over 1,200 attendees. The proceeds from the event, at $150 per person, were used to establish a foreign studies program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in his name. Mathias planned to teach at Johns Hopkins following his departure from the Senate. Donald P. Baker of The Washington Post commented that Mathias' lasting reputation would be that of a maverick. Though he was elected to the House in 1960 as a moderate/conservative, his life in the Congress moved him to the center, and he frequently deviated from the party line and sided with Democrats. The fact that he "went out of his way to disassociate himself from [Ronald Reagan]" in the 1980 elections had hindered his chances at a chairmanship. Mathias also established a record on civil rights, having played an important role in passing a fair housing bill while he was in the House, and also in establishing a national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. He held liberal views on abortion, defense spending, and the Equal Rights Amendment, and, along with Senator John Warner of Virginia, was one of the sponsors of a bill to authorize the construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In discussing Mathias' retirement, Tom Wicker of The New York Times commented that "he was fair, flexible, concerned, able to rise above partisanship but not above responsibility". When Wicker asked him which senators he respected the most, Mathias listed J. William Fulbright (D), Jacob Javits (R), John Sherman Cooper (R), Cliff Case (R), Phil Hart (D), Mike Mansfield (D), and George Aiken (R), because "each one of those people would take an issue on his own responsibility... They'd simply come to the conclusion that this was the right thing for the country." Mathias was very troubled by the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Senator Robert Kennedy. He was a member of the U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee). He played an important role in the Final Report, Book Five, "The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy : Performance of the Intelligence Agencies, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, 1976".