The Great Mr. Helms
by Christian Josi

“Christian, you have a phone call,” said the young receptionist as I entered my office at the American Conservative Union that early September morning. “It’s, uhm, Senator Helms.”

It was 2001, just a few weeks after I met the Senator for the first time. I had admired him from afar for many years and that first meeting impacted me in ways that very few of my life experiences have.

At that very time, control of the US Senate was in the balance and the Washington media had mounted nothing less than a death watch on the aging Senator all because he had began to get around with the help of a walker or motorized cart. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had simply developed a condition that often caused him to lose the feeling in his feet. “A good thing to have if you enjoy falling on your face from time to time,” he chuckled.

The macabre media reports and gossip didn’t seem to bother him much, but it bothered me. So I put pen to paper and wrote a lighthearted column pointing out that the Senator had a foot problem, not a foot in the grave, urging the media to call off the death watch. Jesse Helms, I wrote, would be around to confound them for many years to come.

“Good morning Senator,” I said nervously.

“Christian, I want you to know that I am sitting here having breakfast with Dot Helms...”

That unmistakable voice. The funny way he always refers to his beloved wife by her first and last name…damn, it’s really him…

“Dot Helms just opened up the paper to find your beautiful article, and you have made her day. Her husband’s pretty pleased too. We just wanted to call and thank you.”

I was floored by the gesture. But as I got to know him, members of his family, and his devoted staff better in the ensuing months and years, I learned that it was nothing unusual. Much like his dear, late friend Ronald Reagan for whom he pretty much personally paved the road to the White House (it’s in the book), Helms is an uncommonly kind, generous, and thoughtful man. Not just toward friends and supporters—but toward everyone. And in every situation. This is important point—and certainly rare in a politician, and even more so than ideology it is what makes Helms quite possibly the most important US Senator ever to have served. 

The real Jesse Helms is on full display in his long-anticipated memoir Here’s Where I Stand, released just last week by Random House. It’s a great read, written in the Senator’s unmistakable frank, folksy, and humble style, with a lot of life and a lot of lessons stuffed into its 317 pages.

Reading the book provides a stark reminder that on the issues—most of them at least, he’s pretty much been right all along. (Margaret Thatcher, speaking not long ago at the dedication of the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, North Carolina was correct to remark that “the world has come his way”). 

In typical biography fashion, Helms writes of his childhood in rural Monroe, North Carolina to his early career as a journalist and broadcaster, of meeting his beloved Dorothy Coble and starting a family and of becoming the first Republican elected to the Senate from North Carolina since reconstruction.

Highlights from the Senate years come in his recollections of his early friendship with and support of Ronald Reagan to fighting the giveaway of the Panama Canal to controversial clashes with the NEA on the policy front and challengers such as Harvey Gantt on the political.

Recollections of his time as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including his historic address to the United Nations, make for perhaps the most riveting reading of all (the text of the speech, found at the back of the book, ranks among the great political speeches of all time). 

There are intense moments. Helms writes frankly and movingly throughout an entire chapter devoted to race relations. He thoughtfully explains his deep regret at having misjudged the AIDS crisis early on, his relationship with Bill Clinton and other world leaders, and his unlikely friendships with everyone from the late liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to U2’s Bono (Yes, he really did attend a U2 concert toward the end of his career, and he remains close to Bono to this day). 

But make no mistake—the Senator has not gone soft, and is as hard-line as ever in Here’s Where I Stand when it comes to core principles and defending some of his more controversial career moments. The thing is that with Helms, it just never gets personal or petty. He respects people, is deeply spiritual and humble, and he believed with all of his heart in what he was doing all along. The book is dripping with evidence of this, and it is refreshing to say the least. It is also somewhat sad, because it does remind us that we are losing men and women of this caliber in public service very rapidly.

Throughout the accomplished and distinguished life we read of in Here’s Where I Stand, readers come to realize that Jesse Helms never lost himself. Not for a second. His heart got bigger and his dedication to his country and his fellow man became more passionate the longer he served in Washington. And with politicians, it’s quite usually the other way around.

All in all, the book reminds us that as a nation, we owe this great man much. Do buy it.

Christian Josi is a Senior Vice President at Dezenhall Resources in Washington DC. He served as Executive Director of the American Conservative Union from 1999 – 2002

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