U2 Jesse?

Could Jesse Helms have a second career in mind for 2002 when his fifth U.S. Senate term expires?

The conservative chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who turned 79 Wednesday, was reported to have misted up over the plight of children in Third World countries - especially in Africa - during a Washington meeting last month with musician Bono of U2 fame.

Helms told the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, "I told [Bono] this, and I mean it, if I can find some way that the Lord would show me how to really help these people, I’d quit the Senate and try to do it. I told Bono that. He is working hard and I’m going to try to help him the best I can."

The long-haired rocker who favors wraparound shades and leather pants got a meeting with the right-wing firebrand because he represents a coalition of nongovernmental organizations and churches who are lobbying Congress and the White House to forgive loans held by the poorest countries.

Bono told CBS's Early Show that Helms "wept talking about children starving in Africa." The New Yorker quoted a member of Bono’s entourage saying that a teary Helms promised Bono the full amount of debt relief requested by the Clinton Administration: $435 million.

We’ll know soon whether Helms delivers.

In the rush to finish congressional business (so the pols can go home for the final weeks of the campaign) the Senate may well vote by week’s end on the Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which will authorize any debt relief.

Jimmy Broughton, Helms' chief of staff, says he was in the meeting with Helms, Bono, retiring Republican congressman John Kasich, Kennedy scion and activist Bobby Shriver, and a few Foreign Relations Committee staffers.

He says that while Helms was "impressed" with Bono and may get "emotional" telling the story of their meeting, he’s not quitting the Senate. And the crying game’s been overplayed.

Helms, a major bogeyman to the left because of his opposition to gay rights, and even to civil rights earlier in his career, may not seem like a We Are the World kind of guy, but Broughton says Helms "wants to do everything he can to help Bono’s cause."

Anyone who knows Helms, the aide says, knows about his "longstanding interest and affection for children all over the world." In fact, Helms and his wife adopted a 9-year-old North Carolina boy with cerebral palsy after reading a newspaper story about him.

The debt relief issue came up in the second presidential debate, where Bush said the U.S. should forgive Third World Debt "under certain conditions" and suggested swapping debt cancellation for rain forest lands.