Jesse Helms

Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician, a journalist, and Navy veteran. A leader in the conservative and nationalist movement, he represented North Carolina in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001, he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates.

On domestic social issues, Helms opposed civil rights, disability rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, access to abortions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism and nationalism, as in his rhetoric against abortion and homosexuality. The Almanac of American Politics wrote that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others, than Jesse Helms".

As chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he demanded an anti-communist foreign policy. His relations with the State Department were often acrimonious, and he blocked numerous presidential appointees.

Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected senator in North Carolina's history. He was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state. He advocated the movement of conservatives from the Democratic Party – which he deemed too liberal – to the Republican Party. The Helms-controlled National Congressional Club's state-of-the-art direct mail operation raised millions of dollars for Helms and other conservative candidates, allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns. Helms was considered the most stridently conservative American politician of the post-1960s era, especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs (including legislating integration via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and enforcing suffrage through the Voting Rights Act of 1965).

Helms was born in 1921 in Monroe, North Carolina, where his father, nicknamed "Big Jesse", served as both fire chief and chief of police; his mother, Ethel Mae Helms, was a homemaker. Helms described Monroe as a community surrounded by farmland and with a population of about three thousand where "you knew just about everybody and just about everybody knew you." The Helms family was poor during the Great Depression, resulting in each of the children working from an early age. Helms acquired his first job sweeping floors at The Monroe Enquirer at age nine. The family attended services each Sunday at First Baptist, Helms later saying he would never forget being served chickens raised in the family's backyard by his mother, following their weekly services. He recalled initially being bothered by their chickens becoming their food, but abandoned this view to allow himself to concentrate on his mother's cooking. Helms recalled that his family rarely spoke about politics, reasoning that the political climate did not call for discussions as most of the people the family were acquainted with were members of the Democratic Party.

Link described Helms's father as having a domineering influence on the child's development, describing the pair as being similar in having the traits of being extrovert, effusive, and enjoying the company of others while both favored constancy, loyalty, and respect for order. The elder Helms asserted to his son that ambition was good, and accomplishments and achievements would come his way through following a strict work ethic. Years later, Helms retained fond memories of his father's involvement with his youth: "I shall forever have wonderful memories of a caring, loving father who took the time to listen and to explain things to his wide-eyed son." In high school, Helms was voted "Most Obnoxious" in his senior yearbook.

Helms briefly attended Wingate Junior College, now Wingate University, near Monroe, before leaving for Wake Forest College. He left Wingate after a year to begin a career as a journalist, working for the next eleven years as a newspaper and radio reporter, first as a sportswriter and news reporter for Raleigh's The News & Observer, and also as assistant city editor for The Raleigh Times. Helms retained a positive view of Wingate into his later years, saying the school was filled with individuals that treated him with kindness and that he had made it an objective to repay the institution for what it had done for him. While attending Wake Forest, Helms left work early and ran a few blocks to catch a train every morning to ensure he was on time to his classes. Helms stated that his goal in attending was never to get a diploma but instead form the skills needed for forms of employment he was seeking at a time when he aspired to become a journalist.

Helms met Dorothy "Dot" Coble, editor of the society page at The News & Observer, and they married in 1942. Helms's first interest in politics came from conversations with his conservative father-in-law. In 1945, his and Dot's first child Jane was born.

Helms's first full-time job after college was as a sports reporter with the Raleigh Times. During World War II, Helms served stateside as a recruiter in the United States Navy.

After the war, he pursued his twin interests of journalism and Democratic Party politics. Helms became the city news editor of the Raleigh Times. He later became a radio and television newscaster and commentator for WRAL-TV, where he hired Armistead Maupin as a reporter.

In 1950, Helms played a critical role as campaign publicity director for Willis Smith in the U.S. Senate campaign against a prominent liberal, Frank Porter Graham. Smith (a conservative Democratic lawyer and former president of the American Bar Association) portrayed Graham, who supported school desegregation, as a "dupe of communists" and a proponent of the "mingling of the races". Smith's fliers said, "Wake Up, White People", in the campaign for the virtually all-white primaries. Blacks were still mostly disfranchised in the state, because its 1900 constitutional amendment had been passed by white Democrats with restrictive voter registration and electoral provisions that effectively and severely reduced their role in electoral politics.

Smith won and hired Helms as his administrative assistant in Washington. In 1952, Helms worked on the presidential campaign of Georgia Senator Richard Russell Jr. After Russell dropped out of the presidential race, Helms returned to working for Smith. When Smith died in 1953, Helms returned to Raleigh.

From 1953 to 1960, Helms was executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association. He and his wife set up their home on Caswell Street in the Hayes Barton Historic District, where he lived the rest of his life.

In a world where give-and-take is the key to success, Helms refused to play the game of compromise. Rather than get together with opponents to work out their differences, Helms preferred to stand his ground in defeat.

Helms quickly became a "star" of the conservative movement, and was particularly vociferous on the issue of abortion. In 1974, in the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, Helms introduced a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited abortion in all circumstances, by conferring due process rights upon every fetus. However, the Senate hearing into the proposed amendments heard that neither Helms', nor James L. Buckley's similar amendment, would achieve their stated goal, and shelved them for the session. Both Helms and Buckley proposed amendments again in 1975, with Helms's amendment allowing states leeway in their implementation of an enshrined constitutional "right to life" from the "moment of fertilization".

Helms was also a prominent advocate of free enterprise and favored cutting the budget. He was a strong advocate of a global return to the gold standard, which he would push at numerous points throughout his Senate career; in October 1977, Helms proposed a successful amendment that allowed United States citizens to sign contracts linked to gold, overturning a 44-year ban on gold-indexed contracts, reflecting fears of inflation. Helms supported the tobacco industry, which contributed more than 6% of the state's GSP until the 1990s (the highest in the country); he argued that federal price support programs should be maintained, as they did not constitute a subsidy but insurance. Helms offered an amendment that would have denied food stamps to strikers when the Senate approved increasing federal contributions to food stamp and school lunch programs in May 1974.

In 1973, the United States Congress passed the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act. It states that, "no foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions."

In January 1973, along with Democrats James Abourezk and Floyd Haskell, Helms was one of three senators to vote against the confirmation of Peter J. Brennan as Secretary of Labor.

On January 3, 1979, the first day of the new Congress, Helms introduced a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, on which he led the conservative senators. Senator Helms was one of several Republican senators who in 1981 called into the White House to express his discontent over the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court; their opposition hinged over the issue of O'Connor's presumed unwillingness to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling. Helms was also the Senate conservatives' leader on school prayer. An amendment proposed by Helms allowing voluntary prayer was passed by the Senate, but died in the House committee. To that act, Helms also proposed an amendment banning sex education without written parental consent. In 1979, Helms and Democrat Patrick Leahy supported a federal Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

He joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, being one of four men critical of Carter who were new to the committee. Leader of the pro-Taiwan congressional lobby, Helms demanded that the People's Republic of China reject the use of force against the Republic of China, but, much to his shock, the Carter administration did not ask them to rule it out.

Helms also criticized the government over Zimbabwe Rhodesia, leading support for the Internal Settlement government under Abel Muzorewa, and campaigned along with Samuel Hayakawa for the immediate lifting of sanctions on Muzorewa's government. Helms complained that it was inconsistent to lift sanctions on Uganda immediately after Idi Amin's departure, but not Zimbabwe Rhodesia after Ian Smith's. Helms hosted Muzorewa when he visited Washington and met with Carter in July 1979. He sent two aides to the Lancaster House Conference because he did not "trust the State Department on this issue", thereby provoking British diplomatic complaints. His aide John Carbaugh was accused of encouraging Smith to "hang on" and take a harder line, implying that there was enough support in the US Senate to lift sanctions without a settlement. Helms introduced legislation that demanded immediate lifting of the sanctions; as negotiations progressed, Helms complied more with the administration's line, although Senator Ted Kennedy accused Carter of conceding the construction of a new aircraft carrier in return for Helms's acquiescence on Zimbabwe Rhodesia, which both parties denied. Helms's support for lifting sanctions on Zimbabwe Rhodesia may have been grounded in North Carolina's tobacco traders, who would have been the main group benefiting from unilaterally lifting sanctions on tobacco-exporting Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

In 1979, Helms was touted as a potential contender for the Republican nomination for the 1980 presidential election, but had poor voter recognition, and he lagged far behind the front-runners. He was the only candidate to file for the New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary. Going into 1980, he was suggested as a potential running mate for Reagan, and said he'd accept if he could "be his own man". He was one of three conservative candidates running for the nomination. However, his ideological agreement with Reagan risked losing moderates' votes, particularly due to the independent candidacy of Rep. John B. Anderson, and the Reagan camp was split: eventually designating George H. W. Bush as his preferred candidate. At the convention, Helms toyed with the idea of running for vice-president despite Reagan's choice, but let it go in exchange for Bush's endorsing the party platform and allowing Helms to address the convention. As expected, Helms was drafted by conservatives anyway, and won 54 votes, coming second. Helms was the "spiritual leader of the conservative convention", and led the movement that successfully reversed the Republican Party's 36-year platform support for an Equal Rights Amendment.

In the fall of 1980, Helms proposed another bill denying the Supreme Court jurisdiction over school prayer, but this found little support in committee. It was strongly opposed by mainline Protestant churches, and its counterpart was defeated in the House. Senators Helms and James A. McClure blocked Ted Kennedy's comprehensive criminal code that did not relax federal firearms restrictions, inserted capital punishment procedures, and reinstated current statutory law on pornography, prostitution, and drug possession. Following from his success at reintroducing gold-indexed contracts in 1977, in October 1980, Helms proposed a return to the gold standard, and successfully passed an amendment setting up a commission to look into gold-backed currency. After the presidential election, Helms and Strom Thurmond sponsored a Senate amendment to a Department of Justice appropriations bill denying the Department the power to participate in busing, due to objections over federal involvement, but, although passed by Congress, was vetoed by a lame duck Carter. Helms pledged to introduce an even stronger anti-busing bill as soon as Reagan took office.

In 1989, Helms hired James Meredith, most famous as the first African American ever admitted to the University of Mississippi, as a domestic policy adviser to his Senate office staff. Meredith noted that Helms was the only member of the Senate to respond to his offer.

In 1989, Helms successfully lobbied for an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation protecting disability rights that exempted pedophilia, schizophrenia, and kleptomania from the conditions against which discrimination was barred. Additionally, Helms proposed an amendment to exempt transvestism, which the Senate adopted. Even though the Helms amendments were kept in the final ADA bill that passed Congress in 1990, Helms twice voted against the bill.

Although Helms was returned to office, and became the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana became its chair, after Helms and Lugar cut a deal to keep liberals out of top committee posts. Despite pressure to claim the Foreign Relations chair, Helms kept the Agriculture chair, as he had pledged in his campaign.

A "purge" of the State Department by George P. Shultz in early 1985, replacing conservatives with moderates, was heavily opposed by the Helms-led conservatives. They unsuccessfully attempted to block the appointment of Rozanne L. Ridgway, Richard Burt, and Edwin G. Corr as ambassadors, arguing that Shultz was appointing diplomats who were not loyal to President Reagan's philosophy, particularly in Latin America. In August 1985, Helms threatened to lead a filibuster against a bill imposing sanctions on South Africa, delaying it until after summer recess.

In early 1986, Panamanian dissident Winston Spadafora visited Helms and requested that the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs hold hearings on Panama. Ignoring Elliott Abrams' request for a softer line towards Panama, Helms—a long-time critic of Noriega—agreed, and the hearings uncovered the large degree of leeway that the U.S. government, and particularly the Central Intelligence Agency, had been giving to Noriega. After the Drug Enforcement Administration encountered opposition from Oliver North in investigating Noriega's role in drug trafficking, Helms teamed up with John Kerry to introduce an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act demanding that the CIA investigate the Panama Defense Forces' potential involvement. In 1988, after Noriega was indicted on charges including drug trafficking, a former Panamanian consul general and chief of political intelligence testified to the subcommittee, detailing Panama's compiling of evidence on its political opponents in the United States, including Senators Helms and Ted Kennedy, with the assistance of the CIA and National Security Council. Helms proposed that the government suspend the Carter-Torrijos treaties unless Noriega were extradited within thirty days.

In the early 1990s, Helms was a vocal opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In August 1991, Helms became one of six Republicans on the Select Senate Committee on POW-MIA Affairs that would investigate the number of Americans still missing in the aftermath of the Vietnam War following renewed interest.

During this term, Helms was one of three senators to vote against the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court.

In 1989, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded grants for a retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, some of which containing homosexual themes, in addition to a museum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, supporting an exhibition that featured an image by Andres Serrano of a crucifix suspended in urine. These images caused an uproar and marked the National Endowment for the Arts becoming "a favorite target for Mr. Helms and other conservative senators who have objected to the work of some of the artists who have received Government grants." In September 1989, Helms met with John E. Frohnmayer, President Bush's appointee for Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. While neither spoke publicly about the meeting, Helms reportedly made it clear that he considered his opposition to certain N.E.A. grants to be an election issue, and his opposition would continue after the next election.

In September 1991, Helms charged the National Endowment for the Arts with financing art that would turn "the stomach of any normal person" while proposing an amendment to an appropriations bill forbidding the usage of the grants for the N.E.A. in promoting material that would be deemed as depicting "sexual or excretory activities or organs" in an "offensive way". On September 20, the Senate voted 68 to 28 in favor of the amendment. The same night, Helms withdrew another amendment that changed the financing formula of the N.E.A. to funneling over half of its grant money through states as opposed to the Washington headquarters and would see a reduction in the New York fiscal year appropriation from its 26 million to just over 7 million.