WINGATE, N.C., July 4, 2008
Former Sen. Jesse Helms Dies At 86
Firebrand North Carolina Republican Served As Voice For The Right For Five Terms
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A Look Back At Jesse Helms
"Face The Nation" host Bob Schieffer examines the life and impact of the influential former North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a promoter of Southern conservative principles.
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Photo
Former Senator Jesse Helms, R-N.C,, seen here in a 1999 file photo, was known for his firebrand style that ensured both popularity among his constituents and controversy on Capitol Hill. (AP)
Helms died in Raleigh at 1:15 this morning, according to the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, North Carolina.
Helms built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during his decades in Congress. He was slowed in later age by a variety of illnesses, including a bone disorder, prostate cancer and heart problems.
"He was very comfortable," said former chief of staff Jimmy Broughton, who added Helms died of natural causes.
Helms retired from the Senate in 2003.
"Watching Jesse Helms move through a crowd reminded you of a tin lizzy - old-fashioned, cranky, proud of it. He never tried to avoid the potholes of American politics. He just lurched through them," said CBS News Chief Washington correspondent and "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer.
CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss called Helms a politician who knew no middle ground, one of the most conservative men to ever sit in the Senate - and proud of it. Bigger than life in his native North Carolina, he sometimes seemed that way to his political enemies in Washington, too.
Born in Monroe, N.C. in 1921, Helms worked as a reporter and a Navy recruiter before entering politics after World War II, when he worked for North Carolina Senator Willis Smith in Washington.
He returned to Raleigh where he won a seat on the city council, but became best known when he joined Capitol Broadcasting Company, the owner of WRAL (which is now a CBS affiliate), in 1960.
Over the next decade, Helms offered editorial messages, broadcast after the nightly newscasts, which were decidedly ideological - in one, he proposed building a wall around UNC-Chapel Hill (which he dubbed "the University of Negroes and Communists") to contain its "liberal" influence.
In 1972, Helms - who had switched from the Democratic Party to the Republicans because of differences over civil rights legislation - ran for the U.S. Senate, winning on the coat-tails of President Nixon's landslide re-election. He was the first Republican Senator from North Carolina in decades.
Like most Southern politicians of his era, Helms began as a segregationist but later tried to reach out to African Americans.
But on most issues, he never gave an inch.
For 30 years Helms was the voice of the right in the Senate, battling communism, feminism and affirmative action. "Senator No," as he was sometimes known, cut funding for the United Nations and for what he considered "dirty art."
He led opposition to making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.
Helms served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committees when the Republicans held the Senate majority, using his posts to protect his state's tobacco growers and other farmers and place his stamp on foreign policy.
Helms never lost a race for the Senate, but he never won one by much, either, a reflection of his divisive political profile in his native Southern state.
In 1990 his Senate campaign aired a controversial commercial in which a white man crumples up a rejection letter, having lost out on a job to a less-qualified minority "because of a racial quota." Helms defeated Harvey Gantt, an African American and former mayor of Charlotte.
"The tension that he creates, the fear he creates in people, is how he's won campaigns," Gantt said several years later.
Helms also played a role in national Republican politics - supporting Ronald Reagan in 1976 in a presidential primary challenge to then-President Gerald R. Ford. Reagan's candidacy was near collapse when it came time for the North Carolina primary. Helms was in charge of the effort, and Reagan won a startling upset that resurrected his challenge.
Helms reached the height of his power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 1994, where his distrust extended from the Russians to our own State Department.
He took a dim view of many arms control treaties, opposed Fidel Castro at every turn, and supported the contras in Nicaragua as well as the right-wing government of El Salvador.
The U.N.-basher was never shy about wielding power.
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under President Clinton, said of Helms, "I have seen him kill nominations. I've seen him kill treaties. But all I can say is he is true to his principles."
Helms spent years fighting to keep the Panama Canal, and was notorious for blocking ambassadorial appointments of people he didn't approve of … and it didn't matter if they were nominated by a Republican president.
Former Senate leader Bob Dole described Helms' style: "He sticks to his guns and he doesn't mind firing them, either."
During the 1990s, Helms clashed frequently with President Bill Clinton, whom he deemed unqualified to be commander in chief.
Asked to gauge Clinton's performance overall, Helms said in 1995: "He's a nice guy. He's very pleasant. But ... (as) Ronald Reagan used to say about another politician, 'Deep down, he's shallow.'"
Helms also clashed with fellow Republicans over the years, and he was unafraid of inconveniencing his fellow senators - sometimes all of them at once.
"I did not come to Washington to win a popularity contest," he once said while holding the Senate in session with a stalling tactic that delayed the beginning of a Christmas break.
Helms occasionally opted for compromise in later years in the Senate, working with Democrats on legislation to restructure the foreign policy bureaucracy and pay back debts to the United Nations, an organization be disdained for most of his career.
And he softened his views on AIDS after years of clashes with gay activists, advocating greater federal funding to fight the disease in Africa and elsewhere overseas.
As he aged, Helms was slowed by a variety of illnesses, including a bone disorder, prostate cancer and heart problems, and he made his way through the Capitol on a motorized scooter as his career neared an end.
Helms' public appearances dwindled as his health deteriorated. When his memoirs were published in August 2005, he appeared at a Raleigh book store to sign copies but did not make a speech.
In April 2006, his family announced that he had been moved into a convalescent center after being diagnosed with vascular dementia, in which repeated minor strokes damage the brain.
Towards the end of his Senate career, Helms was asked how he'd like to be remembered:
"I would like for them to say, 'Well, he did the best he could.' If they say that, that'd be enough."
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Posted by Vortex1011 at 11:24 AM : Jul 04, 2008
+ report abuse
I second that, Vortex1011. I doubt that he''ll be missed by anyone other than Big Tobacco execs, Klansmen, and the few unfortunate individuals who are related to him
Posted by jeff92706
He may have been, but I''ll still say rest in peace. After seeing the filth that was posted about Ted Kennedy''s brain tumor, I''ll never wish any ill will towards a political opponent.
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Posted by ontheleft at 11:45 AM : Jul 04, 2008
Don''t forget about Darth Cheney being there to chaperone LOL
If you were "Black" during his heyday, you would say that he did the worst he could.
The difference is that ther is public record to show how this person deserved every bit of it, while the "regressives" love to spew hate at those who never did anything to them.
SATAN???
Every "Black" person who has had to endure continued racism (roughly speaking, that means all of us) is a victim of Mr Helms'' support of American apartheid. Every extra second it enjoyed his support is a victimization of "Black" people.
But I guess if you are a segregationist, that it is all good to you.
We need more in DC with his testicular fortitude and convictions to stand up for what they believe.
We need more in DC with his testicular fortitude and convictions to stand up for what they believe.
Posted by partssman
And what if what they "believe" is flat out wrong? We''ve just suffered eight years of a disastrous presidency based on "staying the course", no matter what the facts say.
Helms is no loss. A carbuncle on the as_shole of humanity.
But I guess ''every "Black" person'' like brianbwb (his word/use of quotes, not mine) chose to categorically reject any and all of Helms'' overtures and efforts to reach out. Is it because he was a conservative? I don''t remember Robert Byrd''s (D-W Va) association with the KKK being such a sore point with liberals. I didn''t know racism was exclusively a province of conservatives.
I also live in North Carolina and won''t miss him one bit. He was a moral coward and bigot who only cared about his own power.
Name one thing he ever did for the citizens of North Carolina.
It doesn''t take one bit of intestinal fortitude to support dictators and death squads and racists. It would take intestinal fortitude to stand up to those people. But Jesse was their chief lapdog in Washington.
He made North Carolina a national embarrassment. North Carolina and America are both a far better place without him.
The world is a safer place,..a TRUE BIGOT is GONE !
If you were a Jew, would you reach out to a Nazi who said, "I won''t try to kill all of you anymore, as long as you accept my prejudice as being correct"?
"Is it because he was a conservative?" Posted by erichsh
Precisely, as conservatives try to "conserve" those aspects of the past that we don''t want, need.
"I don''''t remember Robert Byrd''''s (D-W Va) association with the KKK being such a sore point with liberals." Posted by erichsh
You never spoke to this one, I will rejoice just as loudly and with the same alacrity when this other monster bites it.
"I didn''''t know racism was exclusively a province of conservatives." Posted by erichsh
It is not, but the conservatives have come to wear it as a badge of honor, whereas most "Liberals" at least try to contain it.
Oh, Boo-Hoo!
I''m white, so my disgust for the man doesn''t constitute racism and brian''s disgust is a reaction to Helm''s racism not racists in any way.
Whatever "overtures" he made were made after he left politics and didn''t do any good for anyone. The North carolina Republican party has released a statement lauding his work on AiDs in Africa. Please!! Exactly what did he do besides insinuate the people with aids got what they deserved.
Forgive me if I think Jesse got waht he deserved today.
I''m sort of hoping he will come back as the "Black" guy in New York that was sodomized with a plunger handle while in NYPD custody, then had his teeth broken as the cops shoved it into his mouth.
has outlasted the bigot.
As Jesse said "we will never let the [n-word] into our homes, we will never let the [n-word] into our schools, we will never let the [n-word] into our churches; segregation now, segregation forever."
To his regret, Jesse discovered that St. Peter is Black, and had to turn away from Heaven to fulfill his promises.
Have a nice time in he11, Jesse!
...and the evil that was in the world diminishes, part of it has passed, never to return.
Posted by vietnam21 at 11:37 AM
The southern states aren''t really known for tolerance or embracing diversity. The confederacy has died, but the heart of it lives on in millions of southerners.
It''s a sad, embarrassing fact, but it''s true.
Since I did not know former Senator Helms personally and did not agree with him politically, I will not be an apologist for his stance on many issues. That being said, everyone has to answer to GOD for his/her actions while here on earth. So those of you with the nasty, snide remarks about this man, be careful what you say - you too will have to answer for what you do and say.
posted by WALKER 1209
Yes, I AM above and beyond the "creator" because if this creator actually existed and had the power that christians say "he" has, then our world would be a better place. Because he''s a loving god, right? A 4 yr old could tell you that if someone loves him, they protect him from harm...Your loving god doesn''t exist because this world is a cesspool of ph uck up...if i were god, i''d fix the world not help christians destroy it. God is a lie, religion is a lie...but it helps some people sleep better at night...kinda like tylenol pm...maybe god is tylenol pm...who knows? you''ll be dust someday and it will simply be your end, nothing more.
Please take a deep breath and your medication! I don''t remember berating anyone with what I posted but if that is your take on so be it!! You are entitled to believe/not believe whatever you please (that is how it works here in America). Just because we find someone despicable, disagreeable, not to our liking, etc. does not mean we have to be nasty; but if that is how you get your jollies, have at it!!!
People of North Carolina,
pleeze make sure he is dead.
Then bury him downwind of the
rest of the nation.
Thank you
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Actually, I think the dementia started about the time he was elected to the Senate...maybe even before.
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