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N.C. Senator's Hard-Line Conservatism Helped Craft Republican Social Agenda
In five terms, Jesse Helms attracted a national following, supporting what he called "decency, honor and spiritual and moral cleanliness in America."
(By Ray Lustig -- The Washington Post)
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Originally a Democrat, he switched to the Republican Party in 1970. Two years later, when he upset Democratic Rep. Nick Galifianakis, Helms became the first Republican elected to the Senate from North Carolina in the 20th century.
In the Senate, Helms rose to become chairman of the Agriculture Committee and invoked seniority to push aside Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) to become chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He was a powerful defender of North Carolina's tobacco industry and used the Foreign Relations Committee as a platform for his anti-communist views.
Helms was a master parliamentary tactician who promoted his conservative agenda by putting holds on bills in committee, stalling nominations and attaching strings to amendments. He was generally more effective at blocking legislation than in getting it passed. He was an early supporter of Reagan, who, after being elected president in 1980, would call Helms "a thorn in my side."
Throughout his career, Helms often took stands that isolated him from the left and the right. In 1990, he refused to attend South African leader Nelson Mandela's speech to a joint session of Congress. He railed against research on AIDS, calling it a disease of homosexuals, but late in his career he co-sponsored a bill to provide $500 million to AIDS sufferers in Africa.
He opposed a 1987 United Nations treaty banning torture and in 1997 blocked President Bill Clinton's nomination of former Massachusetts governor William F. Weld, a liberal Republican, to be ambassador to Mexico.
"I did not come to Washington to win a popularity contest," Helms once said.
During his final term in office, Helms, a longtime smoker, had open-heart surgery and showed the effects of various other illnesses. After leaving office in 2003, he retired to his home state. He had been in a nursing home for the past two years.
Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Dorothy Coble Helms of Raleigh; three children, Jane Knox of Raleigh, Nancy Grigg of Chapel Hill, N.C., and Charles Helms of Winston-Salem, N.C.; seven grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
Bart Barnes is a former Washington Post staff writer.
