name	Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr.
order	United States Senatorfrom North Carolina
term start	January 3, 1973
term end	January 3, 2003
predecessor	B. Everett Jordan
successor	Elizabeth Dole
order2	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
term start2	January 20, 2001
term end2	June 6, 2001
predecessor2	Joe Biden
successor2	Joe Biden
term start3	January 3, 1995
term end3	January 3, 2001
predecessor3	Claiborne Pell
successor3	Joe Biden
order4	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
term start4	January 3, 1981
term end4	January 3, 1987
predecessor4	Herman Talmadge
successor4	Patrick Leahy
birth date	October 18, 1921
birth place	Monroe, North Carolina
death date	July 04, 2008
death place	Raleigh, North Carolina
restingplace	Historic Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, North Carolina
nationality	American
party	Republican (1970–2008)Democratic (1942–1970)
spouse	Dorothy "Dot" Helms
children	Jane, Nancy, Charles
occupation	Journalist
religion	Baptist
allegiance	United States
branch	United States Navy
serviceyears	1942–1945 }}

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001. A leading conservative, he helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, aiding Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House and helping many local and regional candidates.

A journalist by training, Helms was the longest-serving popularly-elected Senator in North Carolina's history, and was widely credited with shifting the one-party state dominated by the Democrats into a competitive two-party state. The Helms-controlled National Congressional Club's state-of-the-art direct mail operation raised millions for Helms and other conservative candidates allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns.

An unreconstructed Southern conservative, he began his political career in the Democratic Party in the days when white Southern politicians championed racial segregation. He moved to the Republican party in the 1970s. Helms was the most stridently conservative politician of the post 1960 era, especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs (integration, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act). Helms tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

Helms was credited even by his most vociferous opponents with providing excellent constituent services through his Senate office.

As long-time chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he demanded a staunchly anti-communist foreign policy that would reward America's friends abroad, and punish its enemies. His relations with the State Department were often acrimonious, and he blocked numerous presidential appointees. However, he worked smoothly with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In domestic affairs, Helms promoted industrial development in the South, seeking low taxes and few labor unions so as to attract northern and international corporations to relocate in North Carolina.

On social issues, Helms was a traditionalist. He was a "master obstructionist" who relished his nickname, "Senator No." He opposed, at various times, civil rights, disability rights, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, abortion, and government support for modern art with nudity. Helms brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against homosexuality, and employed racially charged language in his campaigns and editorials. He combined cultural, social and economic conservatism which often helped his legislation win overwhelming support. The Almanac of American Politics once wrote that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others, than Jesse Helms."

Childhood and education (1921–1940)

Helms was born in Monroe, North Carolina, where his father, called 'Big Jesse', served as both chief of police and fire chief; his mother, Ethel Mae Helms, was a homemaker.

Helms briefly attended Wingate Junior College, now Wingate University, near Monroe, before leaving for Wake Forest College. He dropped out after a year to begin a career as a journalist, working for the next 11 years as a newspaper and radio reporter: first as a sportswriter and news reporter for ''The News & Observer'', and also as assistant city editor and city editor for ''The Raleigh Times''. Helms met Dorothy "Dot" Coble, editor of the society page at ''The News & Observer'', and they married in 1942. Helms first interest in politics came from conversations with his father-in-law, who was a conservative.

Early career (1940–1972)

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. In 1945, his first child, Jane, was born. After the war, he pursued his twin interests of journalism and Democratic party politics. Helms became the city news editor of ''The Raleigh Times'', and later became a radio and television newscaster and commentator with a large statewide audience.

Entry into politics

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. Graham, who supported school desegregation, was labelled by Smith (a conservative Democratic lawyer and former president of the American Bar Association) as a "dupe of communists" and a proponent of the "mingling of the races", as a played out on fliers including the phrase "Wake Up, White People" in the virtually all-white Democratic primaries. Smith won and hired Helms to be his administrative assistant in Washington. In 1952, Helms worked on the presidential campaign of Georgia Senator Richard Russell. After Russell dropped out of the presidential race, Helms returned to working for Smith. When Smith died in 1953, Helms returned to Raleigh and, from 1953 to 1960, was executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association. He set up a home on Caswell Street in the Hayes Barton Historic District, where he lived until he died.

In 1957, Helms won his first election for a Raleigh City Council seat, and served two terms and earned a reputation as a conservative gadfly who "fought against everything from putting a median strip on Downtown Boulevard to an urban renewal project". In 1960, Helms worked on the unsuccessful primary gubernatorial campaign of I. Beverly Lake, Sr., who ran on a platform of racial segregation. The U.S Supreme Court had recently handed down the ''Cooper v. Aaron'' decision insisting on the dismantling of segregated school systems, and that, combined with the lunch-counter demonstrations in Greensboro, compelled him to run. Lake lost to Terry Sanford, who ran as a racial moderate willing to implement the federal policy of school integration. Helms felt forced busing and forced racial integration caused animosity on both sides and "proved to be unwise".

Capitol Broadcasting Company

In 1960, Helms joined the Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) as the executive vice-president, vice chairman of the board, and assistant chief executive officer. His daily CBC editorials on WRAL-TV, given at the end of each night's local news broadcast in Raleigh, made Helms famous as a conservative commentator throughout eastern North Carolina.

Helms's editorials featured folksy anecdotes interwoven with conservative views against, amongst others, "the civil rights movement, the liberal news media, and anti-war churches". He referred to ''The News and Observer'', his former employer, as the "Nuisance and Disturber" for its promotion of liberal views and support for civil rights activity. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which had a reputation for liberalism, was also a frequent target of Helms's criticism. He referred to the university as "The University of Niggers and Communists", and suggested a wall be erected around the campus to prevent the university's liberal views from "infecting" the rest of the state. Helms said the civil rights movement was infested by communists and "moral degenerates", and described Medicaid as a "step over into the swampy field of socialized medicine".

On the 1963 civil rights protests, Helms stated, "The negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." He later wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among negroes are a fact of life which must be faced".

Although his editorials created controversy, they also made him popular with conservative voters, helping him to win re-election to the Raleigh City Council. He served for four years. He was at Capitol Broadcasting Company until he was elected to the Senate in 1972.

Senate campaign of 1972

Helms announced his candidacy for a seat in the United States Senate in 1972. His Republican primary campaign was managed by Thomas F. Ellis, who would later be instrumental in Ronald Reagan's 1976 campaign and also become the chair of the National Congressional Club. Helms took the Republican primary, winning 92,496 votes, or 60.1%, in a three-candidate field. Meanwhile, Democrats retired the ailing Senator B. Everett Jordan, who lost his primary to Congressman Nick Galifianakis, who represented the "new politics" of the young, the African-Americans, and the anti-establishment, based around the urban Research Triangle and Piedmont Triad. Although Galifianakis was a "liberal" by North Carolina standards, he opposed busing.

Polls put Galifianakis well ahead until late in the campaign, but Helms, facing all but certain defeat, hired a professional campaign manager, F. Clifton White, giving him dictatorial control over campaign strategy. While Galifianakis avoided mention of his party's presidential candidate, the liberal George McGovern, Helms employed the slogans "McGovernGalifianakis – one and the same," "Vote for Jesse. Nixon Needs Him" and "Jesse: He's One of Us," an implicit play on his opponent's Greek heritage.

In a taste of things to come, money poured into the race. Helms spent a record $654,000, much of it going toward carefully crafted television commercials portraying the candidate as a soft-spoken mainstream conservative. In the final six weeks of the campaign Helms outspent Galifianakis three-to-one. Though the year was marked by Democratic gains in the Senate, Helms won 54 percent of the vote to Galifianakis's 46 percent and became the first Republican senator from the state since 1903: before senators were directly elected. Helms was helped by Richard Nixon's gigantic landslide victory in that year's presidential election; Nixon carried North Carolina by 40 points.

First Senate term (1973–79)

Entering the Senate

Helms quickly became a 'star' of the conservative movement, and was particularly vociferous on the issue of abortion. In 1974, in the wake of ''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's, nor James L. Buckley's similar amendment, would achieve their stated goal, shelving them for the session. However, both Helms and Buckley proposed amendments again in 1975, with Helms's allowing states leeway in their implementation of an enshrined constitutional "right to life" from the "moment of fertilization".

Helms was also prominent as a champion 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 was a supporter of the tobacco industry, which contributed over 6% of the state's GSP until the 1990s (the highest in the country), arguing that price support programs should be maintained, as they did not constitute a subsidy but insurance. Hubert Humphrey once said, "I'll trade Jesse Helms his tobacco vote for my wheat support any day." Tobacco companies such as R. J. Reynolds and Philip Morris had supported him, both directly and through donations to the Jesse Helms Center.

Foreign affairs

From the start, he marked himself out as a prominent anti-communist. He proposed an act in 1974 that authorized the President to grant honorary citizenship to Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He remained close to Solzhenitsyn's cause, and linked his fight to that of freedom throughout the world. In 1975, as North Vietnamese forces approached Saigon, he was foremost amongst those urging an evacuation of all Vietnamese demanding evacuation, which he believed could be "two million or more within seven days". When the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to suppress a report critical of the U.S.'s strategic position in the arms race, Helms read the entire report out, requiring it to be published in the Congressional Record.

Helms was not originally a supporter of Israel, proposing in 1973 a resolution demanding Israel return the West Bank to Jordan, and, in 1975, demanding that the Palestinian Arabs receive a "just settlement of their grievances". In 1977, Helms was the sole senator to vote against prohibiting American companies from joining the Arab League boycott of Israel, although this was primarily because the bill also relaxed discrimination against communist countries. In 1982, Helms even called for the U.S. to break diplomatic relations with Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War. He favored prohibiting foreign aid to countries that had recently detonated nuclear weapons: aimed squarely at India, but also affecting Israel should it conduct a nuclear test. He then worked to support the supply of arms to the United States' Arab allies under Carter and Reagan, until his views on Israel shifted significantly in 1984.

1976 presidential election

Helms supported Ronald Reagan for the presidential nomination in 1976, even before Reagan had announced his candidacy, and his contribution was crucial in the North Carolina primary victory that paved the way for Reagan's presidential election in 1980. The support of Helms, alongside Raleigh-based campaign operative Tom Ellis, was instrumental in Reagan winning the North Carolina primary and later presenting a major challenge to incumbent President Gerald Ford at the 1976 Republican National Convention. According to author Craig Shirley, the two men deserve credit "for breathing life into the dying Reagan campaign". Going into the primary, Reagan had lost all the primaries, including in New Hampshire, where he had been favored, and was two million dollars in debt, with a growing number of Republican leaders calling for his exit. The Ford campaign was predicting a victory in North Carolina, but assessed Reagan's strength in the state simply: Helms's support. Whilst Ford had the backing of Governor James Holshouser, the grassroots movement formed in North Carolina by Ellis and backed by Helms delivered an upset victory by 53% to 47%. The momentum generated in North Carolina carried Ronald Reagan to landslide primary wins in Texas, California, and other critical states, evening the contest between Reagan and Ford, and thus forcing undeclared delegates to choose at the 1976 convention.

Later, Helms was not pleased by the announcement that Reagan would ask the 1976 Republican National Convention to, if nominated, make moderate Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker his running mate for the general election, but kept his objections to himself at the time. According to Helms, after being told by Ronald Reagan of the decision, he noted the hour because, "I wanted to record for posterity the exact time I received the shock of my life." Helms and Strom Thurmond tried to make Reagan drop Schweiker for a conservative, perhaps either James Buckley or his brother William F. Buckley, and rumors surfaced that Helms might run for Vice-President himself, but Schweiker remained. In the end, Reagan lost narrowly to Ford, whilst Helms received only token support at the Convention for the Vice-Presidential nomination, albeit enough to place him second, far behind Ford's choice of Bob Dole. Nonetheless, the platform adopted was a broadly conservative one, and the conservative faction came out acting like the winners; except Jesse Helms.

Helms vowed to campaign actively for Ford across the South, regarding the conservative platform adopted at the Convention to be a 'mandate' on which Ford was pledging to run. However, he did target Henry Kissinger, demanding that he embrace the platform or resign immediately, after Kissinger issued a statement calling Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn a "threat to world peace". Helms continued to back Reagan, and the two remained close friends and political allies, although not uncritical ones, throughout Reagan's political career. Despite Reagan's defeat at the convention, the intervention of Helms and Ellis arguably led to the most important conservative primary victory in the history of the Republican Party. This victory enabled Reagan to contest the 1976 Republican Presidential nomination, and later to win the next nomination at the 1980 Republican National Convention and ultimately the Presidency of the United States.

According to Craig Shirley,

Had Reagan lost North Carolina, despite his public pronouncements, his revolutionary challenge to Ford, along with his political career, would have ended unceremoniously. He would have made a gracious exit speech, cut a deal with the Ford forces to eliminate his campaign debt, made a minor speech at the Kansas City Convention later that year, and returned to his ranch in Santa Barbara. He would probably have only reemerged to make speeches and cut radio commercials to supplement his income. And Reagan would have faded into political oblivion.

Torrijos–Carter Treaties

Helms was a long-time opponent of transferring possession of the Panama Canal to Panama, calling its construction an "historic American achievement", and warned that it would fall into the hands of Omar Torrijos's "communist friends". It had appeared as an issue in the 1976 presidential race, wherein then-President Ford suspended negotiations over the transfer of sovereignty to assuage conservative opposition. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter reopened negotiations, appointing Sol Linowitz as co-negotiator without Senate confirmation, and Helms and Strom Thurmond led the opposition to it. Helms claimed that Linowitz's involvement with Marine Midland constituted a conflict of interests, arguing that it constituted a bailout of American banking interests, and brought two federal suits, demanding prior congressional approval of any treaty and then consent by both houses of Congress. Helms also rallied Reagan, telling him that negotiation over Panama would be a "second Schweiker" as far as his conservative base was concerned.

When Carter announced, on August 10, 1977, the conclusion of the treaties, Helms declared it a constitutional crisis, cited the need for the support of America's allies in Latin America, accused the U.S. of submitting to Panamanian blackmail, and complained that it threatened national security in the event of war in Europe. Helms threatened to obstruct Senate business, proposing two hundred amendments to the revision of the United States criminal code, knowing that most Americans opposed the treaties and would punish congressmen that voted for them if the ratification vote came in the run-up to the election. Helms announced the results of an opinion poll showing 78% public opposition, but Helms and Thurmond's leadership of the cause made it politically easier for Carter,

1978 re-election campaign

Helms began campaigning for re-election in February 1977, allowing him to campaign actively for fifteen months by the time of the primaries. Whilst Helms faced no primary opponent, the Democrats nominated Commissioner of Insurance John Ingram, who came from behind in the first round of the primary to win in the run-off. Ingram was known as an eccentric populist and employed low-budget campaigning, just as he had to win in the primary, when he campaigned almost exclusively on the issue of insurance rates and against "fat cats and special interests", in which he included his main primary opponent. Helms was one of three senators given a 100% rating by the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action for 1977, and was ranked fourth-most conservative by others. thanks to Richard Viguerie and Alex Castellanos's pioneering direct mail strategies. However, it was estimated that at least $3m of Helms's spent was on raising the funds. Nonetheless, Helms easily outspent Ingram, who spent $150,000, several times over. Helms was forced to suspend campaigning for six weeks in September and October, due to a punctured lumbar disc. In a low-turnout election, Helms received 619,151 votes (54.5%) to Ingram's 516,663 (45.5%). Celebrating his victory, Helms told his supporters that it was a "victory for the conservative and the free enterprise cause throughout America", adding, "I'm Senator No and I'm glad to be here!"

Second Senate term (1979–1985)

New Senate term

On January 3, 1979, the first day of the new Congress, Helms once again introduced a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, on which he now 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 Supreme Court; the opposition hinged over the issue of O'Connor's presumed unwillingness to overturn ''Roe v. Wade''. 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 supported, along with Democrat Patrick Leahy, a federal Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

He joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, being one of four Carter-critical voices 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 criticised the government over Zimbabwe Rhodesia, leading support for the Internal Settlement government in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, under Abel Muzorewa, and campaigned along with Samuel Hayakawa for the immediate lifting of sanctions on his government and complaining of the inconsistency of lifting them 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, and sent two aides to the Lancaster House Conference because he did not "trust the State Department on this issue", thereby provoking British diplomatic complaints. One of the aides, John Carbaugh, was accused of encouraging Smith to 'hang on' and take a harder line and implying that there was enough support in the 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 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 benefitting from unilaterally lifting sanctions on tobacco-exporting Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

1980 presidential election

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 he said he'd accept if he could "be his own man", and 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 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 endorsing the party platform and an address to 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, under the weight of opposition from 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.

Republicans take the Senate

In the 1980 Senate election, the Republicans unexpectedly won a majority, their first in twenty-six years, including John Porter East, a social conservative and a Helms protégé soon dubbed 'Helms on Wheels', winning the other North Carolina seat. Howard Baker was set to become Majority Leader, but conservatives, angered by Baker's support for the Panama treaty, SALT II, and the Equal Rights Amendment, had sought to replace him with Helms until Reagan gave Baker his backing. Although, it was thought they'd put Helms in charge of the Foreign Relations Committee instead of the liberal Charles H. Percy, he instead became chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in the new Congress.

The first six months of 1981 were consumed by numerous Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings, which were held up by Helms, who believed many of the appointees too liberal or too tainted by association with Kissinger, and not dedicated enough to his definition of the 'Reagan program': support for South Africa, Taiwan, and Latin American right-wing regimes (as opposed to Black Africa and 'Red' China), and active defence of human rights. These nominations included Alexander Haig, Chester Crocker, John Louis, and Lawrence Eagleburger, all of whom were confirmed regardless, whilst all of Helms's candidates, were rejected. Helms also, unsuccessfully, opposed the nominations of Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan, and Frank Carlucci. However, he did score a notable coup two years later, when he led a small group of conservatives to block the nomination of Robert T. Grey for nine months, and thus causing the firing of Eugene Rostow.

Food stamp program

An opponent of the Food Stamp Program, Helms had already voted to reduce its scope, and was determined to follow this through as Agriculture Committee chairman. At one point, he proposed a 40% cut in their funding. Instead, Helms supported the replacement of food stamps with workfare. He then proposed that food stamp benefits be dropped by $11.50 per month per child for each youngster enrolled in the school lunch program. He maintained that "free lunches" duplicate food stamps. The outrcry against his proposal was so strong that he was compelled to back down. Helms also challenged fraud in the food stamp program. He said that the public had "grown legitimately resentful about the abuses which they themselves have observed."

As a freshman lawmaker in 1973, Helms tried to reverse the 1968 congressional vote which had permitted workers on strike to qualify for food stamps. Though he failed to gained reversal, his position drew the support of future Minority and Majority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee and twelve Senate Democrats. Helms' position was upheld in 1988, when the United States Supreme Court decreed 5–3 that a law denying food stamps to strikers was constitutional unless the worker otherwise qualified for food stamps prior to going on strike. Justice Byron White said that the government must maintain neutrality in labor dispute and not subsidize strikers.

As the Agriculture Committee chairman, Helms proposed repeal of the 1977 amendment which had deleted the purchase requirement for food stamps. With that position he ran afoul of fellow Republican Bob Dole, who claimed that the purchase requirement had contributed to fraud and administrative difficulties in the program. Helms cited a Congressional Budget Office report which showed that 75 percent of the increase in stamp usage had occurred since the purchase requirement was dropped. When Helms' ally, Steve Symms of Idaho, proposed to reinstitute the purchase requirement, the motion was defeated, 33–66.

The Helms bloc also failed to secure other limits to the program, including a motion to delete alcohol and drug residential treatment patients from benefits. House and Senate conferees dropped a Helms-backed provision requiring families disqualified from the program to repay double the amount of any benefits received improperly. House Democratic Whip Thomas Foley of Washington insisted that such a penalty would violate the Fifth Amendment rights to due process. Instead families repay the actual amount of improperly obtained benefits."

Economic policies

Helms supported the gold standard through his role as the Agriculture Committee chairman, which exercises wide powers over commodity markets. During the budget crisis of 1981, Helms restored $200 million for school lunches by instead cutting foreign aid, and against increases in grain and milk price support, despite the importance of the dairy industry to North Carolina. He warned repeatedly against costly farm subsidies as chairman. However, in 1983, he used his position to lobby to use the country's strategic dairy and wheat stocks to subsidise food exports as part of a trade war with the European Union. Helms heavily opposed cutting food aid to Poland after martial law was declared, and called for the end of grain exports to (and arms limitation talks with) the Soviet Union instead.

In 1982, Helms authored a bill to introduce a federal flat tax of 10% with a personal allowance of $2,000. He voted against the 1983 budget: the only conservative Senator to have done so, and was a leading voice for a balanced budget amendment. With Charlie Rose, he proposed a bill that would limit tobacco price supports, but would allow the transfer of subsidy credits from non-farmers to farmers. He co-sponsored the bi-partisan move in 1982 to extend drug patent duration. Helms continued to pose obstacles to Reagan's budget plans. At the end of the 97th Congress, Helms led a filibuster against Reagan's increase of federal gasoline tax by 5-cents per gallon: mirroring his opposition to Governor Jim Hunt's 3-cent increase in the North Carolina gasoline tax, but alienating the White House from Helms.

Social issues

Although Helms recognized budget concerns and nominations as predominant, he rejected calls by Baker to move debate on social issues to 1982, with conservatives seeking to discuss abortion, school prayer, the minimum wage, and the 'fair housing' policy. With the new Congress, Helms and Robert K. Dornan again proposed an amendment banning abortion in all circumstances, and also proposed a bill defining fetuses as human beings, thereby taking it out of the hands of the federal courts, along with Henry Hyde and Romano Mazzoli. More successfully, Helms passed an amendment banning federal funds from being used for abortion unless the woman's life is in danger. His support was key to the nomination of C. Everett Koop as Surgeon General, by proposing lifting the age limit that would otherwise have ruled out Koop. He proposed an amendment taking school prayer out of the remit of the Supreme Court, which was criticised for being unconstitutional; despite Reagan's endorsement, the bill was eventually rejected, after twenty months of dispute and numerous filibusters, in September 1982, by 51–48. Helms and Strom Thurmond sponsored another amendment to prevent the Department of Justice filing suits in defence of federal busing, which he contended wasted taxpayer money without improving education; this was filibustered by Lowell Weicker for eight months, but passed in March 1982.

In 1981, Helms started secret negotiations to end an 11-year impasse and pave the way for desegregation of historically white and historically black colleges in North Carolina. In response to a rival anti-discrimination bill in 1982, he proposed a bill outlawing granting tax-free status to schools that discriminated racially, but allowing schools that discriminate on the grounds of religion to avoid taxes. When the Voting Rights Act came up for amendment in 1982, Helms and Thurmond criticised it for bias against the South, arguing that it made Carolinians 'second-class citizens' by treating their states differently, and proposed an amendment that extended its terms to the whole country, which they knew would bury it. However, it was extended anyway, despite Helms's filibuster, which he promised to lead 'until the cows come home'. In 1983, Helms hired Claude Allen, an African-American, as his press secretary. Despite his publicly-aired belief that he was one of the best-liked senators amongst black staff in Congress, it was pointed out that he did not have any African-American staff of his own, prompting the hiring of the twenty-two year old, who had switched parties when he was press secretary to Bill Cobey in the previous year's campaign.

With John East and John Stennis, Helms led the senatorial opposition to establishing Martin Luther King Day as a federal holiday in 1983, attributing his opposition to two associates of King's with communist ties: Stanley Levison and Jack O'Dell. They embarked on a 16-day filibuster, which Helms broke in exchange for a new tobacco bill.

Latin America

Upon the Republican takeover of the Senate, Helms also became chairman of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, promising to 'review all our policies on Latin America', of which he had been severely critical under Carter. He immediately focused on the escalating civil war in El Salvador, and particularly preventing Nicaraguan and Cuban support for guerrillas in El Salvador. Within hours, the subcommittee approved military aid to El Salvador, and later led the push to cut aid to Nicaragua. Helms was assisted in pursuing the foreign policy realignment by John Carbaugh, whose influence the ''New York Times'' said '[rivalled] many of [the Senate's] more visible elected members'.

In El Salvador, Helms had close ties with the right-wing Salvadoran Nationalist Republican Alliance and its leader and death squad founder Roberto D'Aubuisson. Helms said, "If I had found even one credible link between D'Aubuisson and the so-called 'death squads' ... I'd repudiate him instantly." Helms opposed the appointment of Thomas R. Pickering as Ambassador to El Salvador. alleged that the CIA had interfered in the Salvadoran election March and May 1984, in favour of the incumbent centre-left José Napoleón Duarte instead of D'Aubuisson, claiming that Pickering had 'used the cloak of diplomacy to strangle freedom in the night'. A CIA operative testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee was alleged by Helms to have admitted rigging the election, but senators that attended have stated that, whilst the CIA operative admitted involvement, they did not make such an admission. Helms disclosed details of CIA financial support for Duarte, earning a rebuke from Barry Goldwater, but Helms replied that his information came from sources in El Salvador, not the Senate committee.

In 1982, Helms was the only senator who opposed a Senate resolution endorsing a pro-British policy during the Falklands War, citing the Monroe doctrine, although he did manage to weaken the resolution's language. Nonetheless, Helms was a supporter of the late Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, who supported the United Kingdom in the Falklands conflict. Helms was steadfastly opposed to the Castro regime in Cuba, and spent much of his time campaigning against the lifting of sanctions. In 1980, he opposed a treaty with Cuba on sea boundary delimitation unless it included withdrawal of the Soviet brigade stationed on the island. The following year, he proposed legislation establishing Radio Free Cuba, which would later become known as Radio Martí.

1984 re-election campaign

Half way through Reagan's term, Helms was talked about as a prospective presidential candidate in 1984 in case Reagan chose to stand down after his first time. There was also speculation that Helms would run for the Governorship, being vacated by Jim Hunt. However, the President stood for re-election, and Helms ran once more for his Senate seat—facing Governor Hunt—and becoming the top target amongst the incumbent Senate Republicans.

Unlike in 1978, Helms faced an opponent in the primary, George Wimbish, but won with 90.6% of the vote, while Hunt received 77% in his. During the general election campaign, Hunt accused Helms of having the most "anti-Israel record of any member of the U.S. Senate". Helms pledged during the campaign that he would retain his chairmanship of the Agriculture committee.

In the most expensive Senate campaign up to that time, Helms narrowly defeated Hunt, taking 1,156,768 (51.7%) to Hunt's 1,070,488 (47.8%). Helms might not have won had it not been for Ronald Reagan's popularity in the state; Reagan carried North Carolina by 24 points that year.

Third Senate term (1985–1991)

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. Even though the Helms amendment was kept in the final ADA bill that passed Congress in 1990, Helms twice voted against the bill.

Foreign affairs

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

A 'purge' of the State Department by George Shultz in early 1985, replacing conservatives with moderates, was heavily opposed by conservatives, led by Helms. They unsuccessfully attempted to block the appointment of Rosanne Ridgway, Richard Burt, and Edwin Corr as ambassadors, arguing that Shultz was appointing diplomats that were not loyal to the President's philosophy, particularly in Latin America. In August, 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's request for a softer line towards Panama, Helms—a long-time Noriega critic—agreed, and the hearings uncovered the large degree of leeway that the US government, and particularly the Central Intelligence Agency, was giving Noriega. After the Drug Enforcement Administration encountered opposition from Oliver North in investigating Noriega's role in drugs 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 drugs 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.

Helms became interested in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, and in October 1990 his committee staff chief and longest-serving aide, James P. Lucier, prepared a report stating that it was probable there were live American prisoners still being held in Vietnam and that the George H. W. Bush administration was complicit in hiding the facts. The report also alleged that the Soviet Union had held American prisoners after the end of World War II and more may have been transferred there during the Korean War and during the Vietnam War. (Lucier also believed that survivors of the 1983 shoot-down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 were being held prisoner by the Soviets.) Helms stated that the "deeper story" was a possible "deliberate effort by certain people in the government to disregard all information or reports about living MIA-POWs." This was followed up in May 1991 by a minority report of the Foreign Relations Committee, released by Helms and titled ''An Examination of US Policy Toward POW/MIAs'', which made similar claims and concluded that “any evidence that suggested an MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected ...” The issuing of the report caused other Republicans on the committee to become angry, and charges were made that the report contained errors, innuendo, and unsubstantiated rumors. This and other personnel matters led to Helms firing Lucier and eight other staff members in January 1992. Helms subsequently distanced himself from the POW/MIA issue. (The aides claimed vindication later in 1992 when Russian President Boris Yeltsin said that the Soviet Union had kept some U.S. prisoners in the early 1950s.)

HIV legislation

In 1987, Helms added an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act, which directed the president to use executive authority to add HIV infection to the list of excludable diseases which prevent both travel and immigration to the United States. The action was opposed by the U.S. Public Health Service. Congress restored the executive authority to remove HIV from the list of excludable conditions in the 1990 Immigration Reform Act, and in January 1991, Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan announced he would delete HIV from the list of excludable conditions. A letter-writing campaign headed by Helms ultimately convinced President Bush not to lift the ban, and left the United States the only industrialized nation in the world to prohibit travel based on HIV status. The travel ban was also responsible for the cancellation of the 1992 International AIDS Conference in Boston. On January 5, 2010, the 22 year old ban was lifted after having been signed by President Barack Obama on October 30, 2009.

''The New York Times'' stated that Helms was 'bitterly opposed to federal financing of AIDS research and treatment'., which he believed was God's punishment for homosexuals. Opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988, Helms stated, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy". When Ryan White died in 1990, his mother went to Congress to speak to politicians on behalf of people with AIDS. She spoke to 23 representatives; Helms refused to speak to Jeanne White, even when she was alone with him in an elevator. Despite opposition by Helms, the Ryan White Care Act passed in 1990.

1990 reelection campaign

Helms ran for reelection in a nationally publicized and rancorous campaign against the former mayor of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt, in his 'bid to become the nation's only black Senator' and 'the first black elected to the Senate from the South since Reconstruction'. In the primary, Helms had two opponents, George Wimbish (as in 1984) and another; Helms won with 84.3% of the vote.

Helms aired a late-running television commercial that showed a white man's hands ripping up a rejection notice from a company that gave the job to a 'less qualified minority'; some critics claimed the ad utilized subliminal racist themes. The advert was produced by Alex Castellanos, whom Helms would employ until his company was dropped in April 1996 after running an unusually hard-hitting ad.

Helms won the election with 1,087,331 votes (52.5 percent) to Gantt's 981,573 (47.4 percent). In his victory statement, Helms noted the unhappiness of some media outlets over his victory, quoting a line from ''Casey at the Bat'': "There's no joy in Mudville tonight. The mighty ultra-liberal establishment, and the liberal politicians and editors and commentators and columnists have struck out."

Fourth Senate term (1991–1997)

In a widely publicized incident on 22 July 1993, Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in the Senate and the only black Senator at the time, alleged that Helms offended her by whistling Dixie. After Moseley Braun persuaded the Senate to vote against Helms's amendment to extend the patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy insigna, which included the Confederate flag, Helms ran into Moseley Braun in an elevator. Helms turned to Senator Orrin Hatch and said, "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing ''Dixie'' until she cries." He then proceeded to sing the song about 'the good life' during slavery to Moseley Braun. In 1999, Helms unsuccessfully attempted to block Moseley Braun's nomination to be United States Ambassador to New Zealand.

In 1994, Helms created a sensation when he told broadcasters Rowland Evans and Robert Novak that Clinton was 'not up' to the tasks of being commander-in-chief, and suggested two days later, on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, that Clinton "better not show up around here [Fort Bragg] without a bodyguard". Helms said Clinton was so unpopular and said he had not meant it as a threat.

Republican majority

Republicans regained control of Congress after the 1994 elections and Helms became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In that role, he pushed for reform of the UN and blocked payment of the United States' dues. Helms passed few laws of his own in part because of this bridge-burning style. Hedrick Smith's ''The Power Game'' depicts several senators specifically blocking Helms's goals as a result of his intransigence, but nonetheless portrays Helms as a 'devastatingly effective power broker'. Helms vehemently opposed granting Most favoured nation status to China, citing human rights concerns.

Helms tried to block the refunding of the Ryan White Care Act in 1995, saying that those with AIDS were responsible for the disease, because they had contracted it because of their 'deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct', and that the reason AIDS existed in the first place was because it was "God's punishment for homosexuals". Helms also claimed that more federal dollars were spent on AIDS than heart disease or cancer, despite this not being borne out by the Public Health Service statistics.

Helms-Burton Act

Soon after becoming the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in February 1995, Helms announced that he wished to strengthen the spirit of the 1992 Torricelli Act with new legislation. Its companion sponsored through the House by Dan Burton of Indiana, it would strengthen the embargo against Cuba: further codifying the embargo, instructing United States diplomats to vote in favour of sanctions on Cuba, stripping the President of the option of ending the embargo by executive order until Fidel and Raúl Castro leave power and a prescribed course of transition is followed. The bill also, controversially explicitly overruling the Act of State Doctrine, allowed foreign companies to be sued in American courts if, in dealings with the regime of Fidel Castro, they acquired assets formerly owned by Americans.

Passing the House comfortably, the Senate was far more cautious, under pressure from the Clinton administration. The debate was filibustered, with a motion of cloture falling four votes short. Helms reintroduced the bill without Titles III and IV, which detailed the penalties on investors, and it passed by 74 to 24 on 19 October 1995. A conference committee was scheduled to convene, but did not until 28 February 1996, by which time external events had taken over. On 24 February, Cuba shot down two small Brothers to the Rescue planes piloted by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. When the conference committee met, the tougher House version, with all four titles, won out on most substantive points. It was passed by the Senate 74–22 and the House 336–86, and President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act into law on 12 March 1996. For years after its passing, Helms criticised the corporate interests that sought to lift the sanctions on Cuba, writing an article in 1999 for ''Foreign Affairs'', at whose publisher, the Council on Foreign Relations, also drew Helms's ire for its softer approach to Cuba.

1996 reelection campaign

In 1996, Helms drew 1,345,833 (52.6 percent) to Gantt's 1,173,875 (45.9 percent). Helms supported his former Senate colleague Bob Dole for president, while Gantt endorsed Bill Clinton. Although Helms is generally credited with being the most successful Republican politician in North Carolina history, his largest proportion of the vote in any of his five elections was 54.5 percent. In North Carolina, Helms was a polarizing figure, and he freely admitted that many people in the state strongly disliked him: "[The Democrats could nominate Mortimer Snerd and he'd automatically get 45 percent of the vote." Helms was particularly popular among older, conservative constituents, and was considered one of the last 'Old South' politicians to have served in the Senate. However, he also considered himself a voice of conservative youth, whom he hailed in the dedication of his autobiography. Under Helms's banner, many conservative Democrats in eastern North Carolina switched parties and began to vote increasingly Republican.

Fifth Senate term (1997–2003)

The summer of 1997 saw Helms engage in a protracted, high-profile battle to block the nomination of William Weld, Republican Governor of Massachusetts, as Ambassador to Mexico: refusing to hold a committee meeting to schedule a confirmation hearing. Although he did not make a formal statement of his reason, Helms did criticise Weld's support for medical marijuana, which Senate conservatives saw as incompatible with Mexico's key role in the War on Drugs. Weld attacked Helms's politics, saying, "I am not Senator Helms's kind of Republican. I do not pass his litmus test on social policy. Nor do I want to." This opened Helms to counter on Weld's positions on abortion, gay rights, and other issues on which he had a liberal position. Other factors, such as Weld's noncommittal position on Helms's chairmanship during his 1996 Senate campaign and Weld's wife's donation to the Gantt campaign, made the nomination personal and less cooperative. Held up in the committee by Helms, despite Weld resigning his governorship to concentrate on the nomination and a petition signed by most senators, his nomination died.

As Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms vigorously opposed American participation in the International Criminal Court. While the United States cast one of four votes against the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted by a 120 to 4 vote in July 1998, President Clinton signed the Statute for the United States. However, Helms was strident in his opposition and let it be know that any attempt to have the Senate ratify the Statute would be "dead on arrival" at the Foreign Relations Committee. He also introduced the American Service-Members' Protection Act, adopted by Congress in 2002 "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party".

In 2000, Bono sought out Jesse Helms to discuss increasing American aid to Africa. In Africa, AIDS is a disease that is primarily transmitted heterosexually, and Helms sympathized with Bono's description of 'the pain it is bringing to infants and children and their families'. Helms insisted that Bono involve the international community and private sector, so that relief efforts would not be paid for by 'just Americans'. Helms coauthored a bill authorizing $600 million for international AIDS relief efforts. In 2002, Helms announced that he was ashamed to have done so little during his Senate career to fight the worldwide spread of AIDS, and pledged to do more during his last few months in the Senate. Helms spoke with special appreciation of the efforts of Janet Museveni, first lady of Uganda, for her efforts to stop the spread of AIDS through a campaign based on 'biblical values and sexual purity'.

Because of recurring health problems, including bone disorders, prostate cancer, and heart disease, Helms did not seek re-election in 2002. His Senate seat was won by Elizabeth Dole, a former Johnson, Nixon, and Ford presidential advisor that served as Reagan's Transportation Secretary (which at that time included the Coast Guard), H.W. Bush's Labor Secretary, and a former Presidential candidate, who also happened to be the wife of long-time colleague and former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.

Post-Senate life (2003–2008)

In 2004, he spoke out for the election of Republican U.S. Representative Richard Burr, who, like Elizabeth Dole two years earlier, defeated Democrat Erskine Bowles to win the other North Carolina Senate seat. In September 2005, Random House published his memoir ''Here's Where I Stand''. In his memoirs, he likened abortion to the Holocaust and the September 11 terrorist attacks stating, "I will never be silent about the death of those who cannot speak for themselves." Helms had also been recruited by pop star Bono for charity work.

In 1994, after turning down requests for his papers to be left to an Ivy League university, he designated Wingate University as the repository of the official papers and historical items from his Senate career, where the Jesse Helms Center is based to promote his legacy. In 2005, Liberty University opened the Jesse Helms School of Government with Helms present at the dedication.

Death

Helms's health remained poor after he retired from the Senate in 2003. In April 2006, news reports disclosed that Helms had multi-infarct dementia, which leads to failing memory and diminished cognitive function, as well as a number of physical difficulties. He was later moved into a convalescent center near his home. Helms died of vascular dementia during the early morning hours of July 4, 2008, at the age of 86. He is buried in Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Social and political views

Views on minorities

Helms opposed many progressive policies regarding race, such as busing, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Helms called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 'the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress', and sponsored legislation to either extend it to the entire country or scrap it altogether. Helms reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although he had fewer reservations about establishing a North Carolina state holiday for King. He has been accused of being a segregationist by some political observers and scholars, such as USA Today's DeWayne Wickham who wrote that Helms 'subtly carried the torch of white supremacy' from Ben Tillman.

In 1996 the Department of Justice admonished Helms's 1990 campaign for mailing 125,000 postcards to households in predominantly African-American precincts warning them (incorrectly) that they could go to jail if they had not updated their addresses on the electoral register since moving. Helms opposed 'every piece of civil rights and affirmative action legislation' and blocked 'black judges from being considered for the federal bench'. In 1982, he voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act. Helms opposed busing, supported the 'racist apartheid regime of South Africa', and 'for years blocked attempts by President Bill Clinton to appoint a Black judge on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals'. Only when Helms's own judicial choices were threatened with blocking did attorney Roger Gregory of Richmond, Virginia get confirmed. Helms also tried to block the nomination of Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American female senator, as ambassador to New Zealand.

Views on homosexuality

Helms had a negative view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and LGBT rights in the United States. Helms called homosexuals 'weak, morally sick wretches' and tried to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting the 'gay-oriented artwork of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe'. In 1993, when then-president Bill Clinton wanted to appoint 'out' lesbian Roberta Achtenberg to assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms held up the confirmation 'because she's a damn lesbian', adding '[s]he's not your garden-variety lesbian. She's a militant-activist-mean lesbian'. Helms also stated 'I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine'. When Clinton urged that gays be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces, Helms said the president 'better have a bodyguard' if he visited North Carolina. His views on gay and lesbian citizens were depicted in the 1998 documentary film ''Dear Jesse''.

Helms initially fought against increasing federal financing for HIV/AIDS research and treatment, saying the disease resulted from 'unnatural' and 'disgusting' homosexual behavior. In his final Senate year, he strongly supported AIDS measures in Africa, where heterosexual transmission of the disease is most common, and continued to hold the belief that the 'homosexual lifestyle' is the cause of the spread of the epidemic in America.

Personal life

Family

Jesse and Dot had three children: Jane, Nancy of Raleigh, and Charles Helms of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Charles was a nine-year-old orphan with cerebral palsy who they adopted after reading in a newspaper that Charles wanted a mother and father for Christmas. The couple had seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Religious views

Helms was well known for his principled religious views. He played a leading role in the development of the Christian right, and was a founding member of the Moral Majority in 1979. Although a Southern Baptist from his upbringing in a strictly literalist, but hawkishly secularist, environment, when in Raleigh, Helms worshipped at the moderate Hayes-Barton Baptist Church, where he had served as a deacon and Sunday school teacher before his election to the Senate.

Helms was close to fellow North Carolinian Billy Graham (whom he considered a personal hero), as well as Charles Stanley, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell; whose Liberty University dedicated its Jesse Helms School of Government to Helms. Helms helped found Camp Willow Run, an interdenominational Christian summer camp, sitting on its board of directors until his death, and was a Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of freemasons in North Carolina.

Equating leftism and atheism, Helms argued that the downfall of the USA was due to loss of Christian faith, and often stated, "I think God is giving this country one more chance to save itself". He believed that the morality of capitalism was assured in the Bible, through the Parable of the Talents. He believed, writing in ''When Free Men Shall Stand'', that 'such utopian slogans as Peace with Honor, Minimum Wage, Racial Equality, Women's Liberation, National Health Insurance, Civil Liberty' are ploys by which to divide humanity 'as sons of God'.

Awards

He held honorary degrees from several religious universities including Bob Jones University, Campbell University, Grove City College, and Wingate University.

In popular culture

Helms's conservative views on art were the subject of the Loudon Wainwright III song "Jesse Don't Like It".

Bibliography

''When Free Men Shall Stand'' (1976); Zondervan Pub. House.

''Empire for Liberty: A Sovereign America and Her Moral Mission'' (2001); by National Book Network.

''Here’s Where I Stand: A Memoir'' (2005); New York: Random House.

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

Jesse Helms Center which hosts Articles About Senator Helms

Liberty University's Helms School of Government

Senator No: Jesse Helms—UNC-TV biographical documentary by independent filmmaker John Wilson

Oral History Interview with Jesse Helms from Oral Histories of the American South

{{U.S. Senator box| before=B. Everett Jordan| class = 2| state = North Carolina| alongside = Sam J. Ervin, Robert Morgan, John P. East, James T. Broyhill, Terry Sanford, Lauch Faircloth, John Edwards| years=1973–2003| after=Elizabeth Dole}}

Category:1921 births Category:2008 deaths Category:American anti-communists Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American memoirists Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Deaths from dementia Category:New Right (United States) Category:North Carolina Democrats Category:North Carolina Republicans Category:People from Raleigh, North Carolina Category:People from Union County, North Carolina Category:Recipients of the Order of the Three Stars, 2nd Class Category:Republican Party United States Senators Category:United States Navy officers Category:United States Senators from North Carolina Category:Wake Forest University alumni Category:Wingate University alumni Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class

da:Jesse Helms de:Jesse Helms fr:Jesse Helms la:Iesse Alexander Helms, Minor nl:Jesse Helms ja:ジェシー・ヘルムズ no:Jesse Helms pl:Jesse Helms pt:Jesse Helms ru:Хелмс, Джесси simple:Jesse Helms fi:Jesse Helms sv:Jesse Helms

Jesse, Eshai or Yishai, (, meaning "God exists" or "God's gift"; ''Yassa''; ''Iessai''; ) is the father of the David, who became the king of the Israelites. His son David is sometimes called simply "Son of Jesse" (''Ben Yishai'').

Jesse was the son of Obed and the grandson of Ruth and of Boaz. He lived in Bethlehem, in Judah, and was of the Tribe of Judah, he was a farmer, breeder and owner of sheep. He was a prominent resident of the town of Bethlehem. Jesse is important in Judaism because he was the father of the most famous king of Israel. He is important in Christianity, in part because he is in the Old Testament and mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus.

Jesse in 1 Samuel

Jesse is stated to having eight sons, including David the youngest. Among his grandchildren were the three sons of Zeruiah, Abishai, Joab and Ashashel. One day the prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem sent by God, to anoint the next king of Israel. Ostensibly, his visit to Bethlehem was to offer a sacrifice to God. He used that excuse because he was afraid that Saul might kill him if he suspected the true reason for his arrival in Bethlehem. Samuel offered a sacrifice with Jesse and then went to his house, where he sanctified him and his family. The prophet asked Jesse to present his sons, after seeing them, he realized that God has not chosen any of them. Then he said to Jesse if he had any other sons, Jesse told him that David the youngest was tending the flock. The prophet then asked for him, waited and when he came, God asked the prophet to anoint him as king over Israel. Some time later king Saul was suffering from depression and melancholy, asked Jesse for his son to play the harp for him since he heard David plays the harp beautifully. Jesse sent his son alongside some gifts for the king, the king was taken with David's harp playing that he asked Jesse to keep him in his court to play for him whenever he was depressed. Later on Jesse sent his son with gifts to be given to his older brothers who were to fight war against the Philistines and, to the captain too. Years later when David fled to the desert away from Saul, who sought to kill David in order for him to stay in power and not have his throne be taken away from him. David, worried about the safety of his parents, went to Mizpeh, the king of Moab, to ask permission from the king to allow his father Jesse and his mother to stay under the royal protection of the king, they stayed there till Jesse's son's fortunes took a turn for the better.

Jesse in Isaiah

The name Jesse is referenced in the Old Testament, and in particular the passages of Isaiah, Chapter 11, Verses 1-3:

Also Chapter 11, Verse 10:

These are two of the verses regarded by Christians as prophecy of the advent of Jesus, whom they consider to be the Christ and Messiah. These two prophesies are, however, or perhaps additionally, regarded by Bahá'ís to refer to Bahá'u'lláh, alleged also to have arisen from "the stump of Jesse."

The Tree of Jesse

From the eleventh century the Tree of Jesse has been portrayed in religious illuminations, manuscripts, wall paintings, wood and stone carvings (including a grave marker), stained glass windows, floor tiles and embroidery. In the representation of the Tree, it is usual for Jesse to be portrayed recumbent with a tree rising from his body, and the ancestors of Christ portrayed in its branches with Prophets and Christ at the summit. The earliest illustrated manuscripts did not always depict Jesse or Christ. Not all illustrations include the same number of characters; this depends upon the size of the area provided, such as seven light windows or three light windows.

Jesse in 1 Chronicles

Unlike in the Book of Samuel, in the Book of Chronicles Jesse is said to have only seven sons including David and two daughters, Zeruiah and Abigail.

Geographical usage

The "Geza of Jesse" is a plateau located just north of the valley of Jezreel in Israel said to have been originally cleared and settled by descendants of David.

See also

Tree of Jesse

List of people named Jesse

References and notes

External links

Tree of Jesse Directory

BehindTheName.com Jesse

Category:Hebrew Bible people Category:David Category:People from Bethlehem Category:Old Testament saints

be:Імя Джэсі bo:ཡེ་སེ། ca:Jessè cs:Jišaj de:Isai el:Ιεσσαί es:Jesé eu:Jese fa:یسی fr:Jessé hr:Jišaj id:Isai it:Iesse he:ישי lmo:Iesse nl:Isaï ja:エッサイ no:Isai pl:Jesse pt:Jessé ro:Ieseu ru:Иессей sv:Jishaj zh:耶西

name	Nina Totenberg
birth date	January 14, 1944
birth place	New York, NY, USA
education	Boston University (did not graduate)
occupation	Journalist and legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio. News commentator for ''Inside Washington''.
spouse	H. David ReinesFloyd K. Haskell (widowed)
relatives	Roman Totenberg (father)Amy Totenberg (sister)
ethnicity	Jewish
nationality	United States
years active	1965–present
url	}}

Nina Totenberg (; born January 14, 1944) is an American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) focusing primarily on the activities and politics of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her reports air regularly on NPR's newsmagazines ''All Things Considered, Morning Edition'', and ''Weekend Edition''. She is also a panelist on the syndicated TV political commentary show ''Inside Washington''.

Newsweek Magazine calls her "the creme de la creme" of NPR, and ''Vanity Fair'' refers to her as "Queen of the Leaks". She is the dean of the Supreme Court press corps and has won every major broadcast journalism award for both her explanatory pieces and her scoops.

Among her scoops was her groundbreaking report of sexual harassment allegations made against Clarence Thomas by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill, leading the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Previously, in 1986, she broke the story that Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg had smoked marijuana, leading Ginsburg to withdraw his name. And in 1977, she reported on secret Supreme Court deliberations relating to the Watergate scandal.

Personal life and family

Nina Totenberg was born in New York, the eldest daughter of violinist Roman Totenberg and Melanie Totenberg, who was a real estate broker. She is the widow of U.S. Senator Floyd K. Haskell (D-Colorado), whom she married in 1979. She remarried in 2000 to H. David Reines, a trauma surgeon and Vice Chairman of Surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming. In March 2010, Totenberg's sister Amy Totenberg was nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Amy Totenberg was confirmed the next year.

Early career

Totenberg enrolled in Boston University in 1962, majoring in journalism, but dropped out less than three years later because, in her own words, she "wasn’t doing brilliantly". Soon after dropping out of college, Totenberg began her journalism career at the ''Boston Record American'', where she worked on the Women's Page and learned breaking news journalism skills by volunteering in the news department. She moved on to the ''Peabody Times'' in Massachusetts and ''Roll Call'' in Washington, D.C.

At the ''National Observer'', Totenberg began covering legal affairs. In 1971 she broke a story about a secret list of candidates President Richard Nixon was considering for the Supreme Court. All the candidates were later rejected as unqualified by the American Bar Association and none was nominated.

After Totenberg wrote an ''Observer'' profile of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the latter wrote a long letter to the paper's editor demanding she be fired. Instead, the editor printed the letter in the ''Observer'' along with a rebuttal of Hoover's complaints regarding the article.

She was fired from that paper for plagiarism in 1972 regarding a profile she wrote of then-soon-to-be Speaker Tip O'Neill which included, without attribution, quotes from members of Congress that had previously appeared in ''The Washington Post''. Totenberg has said that the dismissal also related to her rebuffing of sexual overtures from an editor. She has not identified the editor. Such plagiarism has been called "one of the cardinal sins of journalism from which reporters can never recover their credibility" Many of Totenberg's colleagues have defended her, noting that this was a case of using previously reported quotes, a common journalistic practice in the 1970s. In 1995, Totenberg told the ''Columbia Journalism Review'', "I have a strong feeling that a young reporter is entitled to one mistake and to have the holy bejeezus scared out of her to never do it again."

She next worked for the New York based news magazine ''New Times''. At that publication, she wrote a celebrated article called "The Ten Dumbest Members of Congress", prompting the senator at the top of the list, William L. Scott, to call a press conference to deny that he was the "dumbest member of Congress."

National Public Radio

In 1975, Nina Totenberg was hired by Bob Zelnick to work at National Public Radio and has been there since.

Watergate appeals

In 1977, Totenberg broke a story about the Supreme Court appeal of three men who had been convicted in the Watergate scandal: H.R. Haldeman, John N. Mitchell, and John D. Ehrlichman. Totenberg revealed the results of their secret 5–3 vote against reviewing the case and that the three dissenters were appointees of President Richard Nixon. Nixon had then just resigned in the wake of Watergate. Totenberg also revealed that Nixon-appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger delayed announcing the results of the vote hoping to sway his fellow justices. Her reporting of private Supreme Court deliberations was a novel development in Supreme Court reporting and led to speculation about who on the Court gave her the information.

William Rehnquist's Chief Justice nomination

In 1986, Totenberg broke the story that William H. Rehnquist, who was nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, had written a memo in 1970 opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, in which he said that the amendment would "hasten the dissolution of the family" and that would "virtually abolish all legal distinctions between men and women". The memo was written when Rehnquist was head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in the Nixon administration.

Douglas Ginsburg's Supreme Court nomination

Totenberg broke the story that Douglas H. Ginsburg, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, had smoked marijuana "on a few occasions" during his student days in the 1960s and while an Assistant Professor in the 1970s, something that did not appear in Ginsburg's FBI background check. The revelations resulted in Ginsburg's withdrawing his name from consideration. Totenberg was awarded the 1988 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton award for outstanding broadcast journalism for the story.

Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings

In 1991, a few days before a confirmation vote was scheduled for Republican George H. W. Bush's Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, Totenberg disclosed allegations of sexual harassment lodged against Thomas by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill. Totenberg's report about Hill's allegations led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges.

Totenberg was criticized by many of Thomas' supporters, including Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee. The Senate appointed special counsel Peter E. Fleming Jr. to investigate the leak. Totenberg and ''Newsday'''s Timothy Phelps were subpoenaed by Fleming, but refused to answer questions about their confidential sources.

Totenberg was confronted by one Thomas supporter, Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson, during and after the taping of an episode of ''Nightline''. On the show, Simpson criticized Totenberg, saying "What politicians get tired of is bias in reporters. Let's not pretend your reporting is objective here. That would be absurd." After Totenberg defended her reporting and objectivity on the show, Simpson followed her out of the studio and continued to criticize her, even holding open the door of her limousine so she could not leave. "He was in a complete rage. He was out of control," Totenberg said. Accounts differ on Totenberg's response, but she used what she called "choice epithets" and said: "I think I told him to shut the fuck up."

Following Totenberg's allegation to ''The Washington Post'''s Howard Kurtz that she had been sexually harassed at the ''National Observer'', Al Hunt of ''The Wall Street Journal'' brought up the plagiarism incident in a column about media coverage of and responses to the Thomas hearings. Some observers connected Hunt's rehashing of a then nearly 20-year-old incident to the stance of the ''Journal'', whose conservative editorial pages had "editorially championed" Thomas and had previously criticized Totenberg, but Hunt denied any ideological motivation.

For the report and NPR's gavel-to-gavel coverage, Totenberg received the George Foster Peabody Award. The same year she won the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism and the Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting (the latter also in part for her coverage of the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall). The American Library Association presented her with their James Madison Award, given to those who "championed, protected, and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know". She also earned the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting.

Distinction and acclaim

In addition to awards mentioned above, and among her other awards, Totenberg has been honored seven times by the American Bar Association for excellence in legal reporting and won the first-ever Toni House award presented by the American Judicature Society for a career body of work and was the first radio journalist to be honored by the National Press Foundation as Broadcaster of the Year. She has written articles for the ''Harvard Law Review'' (including tributes to Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Lewis Powell when they retired); the ''New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine''; the ''Christian Science Monitor''; and numerous other legal and general circulation publications. She also contributed to the Jewish Women's Archive's online exhibit ''Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution'' with regard to her reporting on Anita Hill's allegations against Clarence Thomas. In the 1990s Totenberg was a regular contributor to ABC's ''Nightline''.

Totenberg played the part of an election anchor in the film ''The Distinguished Gentleman'', and also appeared briefly as herself in the Kevin Kline film ''Dave''. Her image has also been used for an item produced for NPR called "The Nina Totin' Bag" — a play on her name and the stereotypical tote bag offered as a thank-gift for donating to a public broadcasting pledge drive.

Controversies and criticism

Totenberg has made friends with a number of politicians and lawyers in national politics, and her personal connections to these people have occasionally generated discussion. Allegations that Totenberg obtained her scoops by untoward means were prevalent early in her career, a fact Bill Kovach, editor of the New York Times, attributed to sexism since she was one of the few women working in a predominately male environment. Totenberg was criticized by some commentators for hugging her friend Lani Guinier during a press conference announcing Guinier's nomination by Bill Clinton to the post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Media critic Howard Kurtz reported that while Totenberg said she did not intend to give special treatment to Guinier in her reporting, she had hugged her because she had not seen her in some time. Then in 2000 some journalists expressed concern that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiating Totenberg's marriage could be seen as a conflict of interest. Totenberg responded she did not consider it a conflict of interest since her friendship with the jurist was established long before Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court. She has made the same observation about her friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia.

''Wall Street Journal'' editorialist Paul Gigot wrote in 1991 that Totenberg exhibits partisanship in her reporting. ''Washington Post'' reporter Thomas Edsall said in 1995 that she was cited as an example of liberal bias in public broadcasting due to her reporting on two controversial Supreme Court nominations.

In 1995, responding to conservative Senator Jesse Helms, who characterized AIDS as a "disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts" in his effort to cut government spending to combat it, Totenberg said: "I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the good Lord's mind, because if there's retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will." On the same show, conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and Tony Snow also criticized Helms, with Krauthammer calling Helms's remarks "bigoted and cruel" and Snow accusing him of "hypocrisy". Totenberg subsequently expressed regret for her choice of words, saying: "It was a stupid remark. I'll pay for it for the rest of my life." Following his October 2010 firing from NPR for comments he made on FoxNews, Juan Williams said the failure of NPR to discipline her for these statements was an example of NPR's double standard, a charge echoed by FoxNews and conservative pundits.

Bibliography

References

External links

Nina Totenberg: Queen of the Leaks

Category:American political journalists Category:American radio reporters and correspondents Category:National Public Radio personalities Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:People from Scarsdale, New York Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Boston University alumni

name	Bill Hicks
birth name	William Melvin Hicks
birth date	December 16, 1961
birth place	Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.
origin	Houston, Texas, U.S.
death date	February 26, 1994
death place	Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
medium	Stand-up, music, philosophy
nationality	American
active	1978—1994
genre	Observational comedy, dark comedy, political satire
subject	American culture, American politics, current events, pop culture, human sexuality, philosophy, religion, spirituality, recreational drug use, entheogens, conspiracy theories, consumerism
website	BillHicks.com. WebCitation archive.
footnotes	}}

William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy. In both his stand-up performances and during interviews, he often criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to "keep people stupid and apathetic."

Hicks was just sixteen years old when started performing stand up comedy at the Comedy Workshop in Houston in 1978. During the 1980s he toured America extensively and performed a number of high profile television appearances. It was in the UK, however, where Hicks first amassed a significant fan base, packing large venues with his 1991 tour. Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved acclaim in creative circles. In 2007 he was voted the sixth-greatest stand-up comic on the UK's Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, and appeared again in the updated 2010 list as the fourth-greatest comic.

Early life

Born in Valdosta, Georgia, Bill Hicks was the son of Jim and Mary (Reese) Hicks and had two elder siblings: brother Steve and sister Lynn. The family lived in Florida, Alabama, and New Jersey, before settling in Houston, Texas when Hicks was seven. He was raised in the Southern Baptist faith, where he first began performing as a comedian for other children at Sunday School.

Hicks was drawn to comedy at an early age, emulating Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, and writing routines with his friend Dwight Slade. Worried about his behavior, his parents took him to a psychoanalyst at age 17 but, according to Hicks, after one session the psychoanalyst informed him that "...it's them, not you."

Career

Change in comic style

Hicks graduated from high school and began touring in the early 1980s. After a few years of performing the same material, he felt that his act wasn't progressing. He wanted to push the boundaries of creativity as his idols Jimi Hendrix and Richard Pryor had done. At 21 years old, Hicks had never consumed alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or tried drugs. He began to experiment to see if intoxication was indeed the key to crossing the line. Although drinking and drugs helped Hicks to loosen his tongue, he eventually had to quit, realizing that it would interfere with his act, making it too controversial (and occasionally shambolic) for the public to handle.

Once Hicks gained some underground success in night clubs and universities, he quit drinking, realizing that it wasn't alcohol that made a comic genius but his ability to express a truth, even if it was an unpopular one. However, Hicks continued to smoke cigarettes. His nicotine addiction, love of smoking, and occasional attempts to quit became a recurring theme in his act throughout his later years.

California and New York

In January 1986, Hicks found himself broke, having spent all his money on a variety of substances. His career soon received another upturn, though, as he appeared on Rodney Dangerfield's ''Young Comedians Special'', in 1987. The same year, he moved to New York City, and, for the next 5 years, performed about 300 times a year. On the album ''Relentless'', he jokes that he quit using drugs because "once you've been taken aboard a UFO, it's kind of hard to top that", although in his performances, he continued to extol the virtues of LSD, marijuana, and psychedelic mushrooms. He fell back to chain-smoking, a theme that would figure heavily in his performances from then on.

In 1988, Hicks signed on with his first professional business manager, Jack Mondrus. Throughout 1989, Mondrus worked to convince many clubs to book Hicks, promising that the wild drug- and alcohol-induced behavior was behind him. Among the club managers hiring the newly sober Hicks was Colleen McGarr, who would become his girlfriend and fiancée in later years.

Hicks quit drinking in 1988, as stated in his 1990 album ''Dangerous'' on the first track, entitled "Modern Bummer".

In 1989 he released his first video, ''Sane Man''. It was reissued in 2006.

Early fame

In 1990, Hicks released his first album, ''Dangerous'', performed on the HBO special ''One Night Stand'', and performed at Montreal's ''Just for Laughs'' festival. He was also part of a group of American stand-up comedians performing in London's West End in November. Hicks was a huge hit in the UK and Ireland and continued touring there throughout 1991. That year, he returned to ''Just for Laughs'' and filmed his second video, ''Relentless''.

Hicks made a brief detour into musical recording with the ''Marble Head Johnson'' album in 1992. During the same year he toured the UK, where he recorded the ''Revelations'' video. for Channel 4 He closed the show with his soon-to become-famous philosophy regarding life, "It's Just a Ride". Also in that tour he recorded the stand-up performance released in its entirety on a double CD titled ''Salvation''. Hicks was voted "Hot Standup Comic" by ''Rolling Stone magazine''. He moved to Los Angeles in 1992.

Hicks and Tool

The progressive metal band Tool invited Hicks to open a number of concerts for it on their 1993 Lollapalooza appearances, where Hicks once famously asked the audience to look for a contact lens he'd lost. Thousands of people complied.

Tool dedicated its triple-platinum album ''Ænima'' (1996) to Hicks. The band intended to raise awareness about Hicks's material and ideas, because they felt that Tool and Hicks "were resonating similar concepts". In particular, ''Ænima''s final track, "Third Eye", is preceded by a clip of Hicks' performances, and both the lenticular casing of the Ænima album packaging as well as the chorus of the title track "Ænema" make reference to a sketch from Hicks' Arizona Bay philosophy, in which he contemplates the idea of Los Angeles falling into the Pacific Ocean. The closing track "Third Eye" contains samples from Hicks' ''Dangerous'' and ''Relentless''. An alternate version of the ''Ænima'' artwork shows a painting of Bill Hicks, calling him "Another Dead Hero," and mentions of Hicks are found both in the liner notes and on the record.

Controversy

Censorship and aftermath

Hicks constantly faced problems with censorship. In 1984, Hicks was invited to appear on ''Late Night with David Letterman'' for the first time. He had a joke that he used frequently in comedy clubs about how he caused a serious accident that left a classmate using a wheelchair. NBC had a policy that no handicapped jokes could be aired on the show, making his stand-up routine difficult to perform without mentioning words such as "wheelchair". Hicks was disappointed that the television audience didn't get to experience the uncensored Bill Hicks that people saw in clubs.

On October 1, 1993, Hicks was scheduled to appear on ''Late Show with David Letterman'', his 12th appearance on a Letterman late- night show, but his entire performance was removed from the broadcast — then the only occasion where a comedian's entire routine was cut after taping. Hicks' stand-up routine was removed from the show allegedly because Letterman and his producer were nervous about a religious joke ("if Jesus came back he might not want to see so many crosses"). Hicks said he believed it was due to a pro-life commercial aired during a commercial break. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility. Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a letter to John Lahr of ''The New Yorker''. Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, Hicks did not appear on the show again. The full account of this incident was featured in a ''New Yorker'' profile by Lahr, which was later published as a chapter in Lahr's book, ''Light Fantastic''.

Hicks' mother, Mary, appeared on the January 30, 2009 episode of ''Late Show''. Letterman played the routine in its entirety. Letterman took full responsibility for the original censorship and apologized to Mrs. Hicks. Letterman also declared he did not know what he was thinking when he pulled the routine from the original show in 1993, saying, "It says more about me as a guy than it says about Bill because there was absolutely nothing wrong with that."

Denis Leary

For many years, Hicks was friends with fellow comedian Denis Leary. But in 1993 Hicks was angered by Leary's album ''No Cure for Cancer.'' Upon hearing the album, "Bill was furious. All these years, aside from the occasional jibe, he had pretty much shrugged off Leary's lifting. Comedians borrowed, stole stuff, and even bought bits from one another. Milton Berle and Robin Williams were famous for it. This was different. Leary had practically line for line taken huge chunks of Bill's act and ''recorded'' it."

The friendship ended abruptly as a result. At least three stand-up comedians have gone on the record stating they believe Leary stole Hicks's material as well as his persona and attitude. In an interview, when Hicks was asked why he had quit smoking, he answered, "I just wanted to see if Denis would, too." In another interview, Hicks said, "I have a scoop for you. I stole his [Leary's] act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and, to really throw people off, I did it before he did."

The controversy surrounding plagiarism is also mentioned in ''American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story'', by Cynthia True:

}}

During a 2003 Comedy Central roast of Denis Leary, comedian Lenny Clarke, a friend of Leary's, said there was a carton of cigarettes backstage from Bill Hicks with the message, "Wish I had gotten these to you sooner." This joke was cut from the final broadcast.

In a 2008 interview, Leary said, "It wouldn't have been an issue, I think, if Bill had lived. It's just that people look at a tragedy and they look at that circumstance and they go, oh, this must be how we can explain this."

Comic style

Hicks's style was a play on his audience's emotions. He expressed anger, disgust, and apathy while addressing the audience in a casual and personal manner, which he likened to merely conversing with his friends. His material was less focused on the everyday banalities of life and placed greater emphasis on philosophical themes of existence. He would invite his audiences to challenge authority and the existential nature of "accepted truth." One such message, which he often used in his shows, was delivered in the style of a news report (in order to draw attention to the negative slant news organizations give to any story about drugs):

Another of Hicks's most famous quotes was delivered during a gig in Chicago in 1989 (later released as the bootleg ''I'm Sorry, Folks''). After a heckler repeatedly shouted "Free Bird", Hicks screamed that "''Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever!''" Hicks followed this remark with a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity.

Much of Hicks's routine involved direct attacks on mainstream society, religion, politics, and consumerism. Asked in a BBC interview why he cannot do a routine that appeals "to everyone", he said that such an act was impossible. He responded by repeating a comment an audience member once made to him, "We don't come to comedy to think!", to which he replied, "Gee! Where do you go to think? I'll meet you there!" In the same interview, he also said: "My way is half-way between: this is a night-club, and these are adults."

Hicks often discussed conspiracy theories in his performances, most notably the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He mocked the Warren Report and the official version of Lee Harvey Oswald as a "lone nut assassin." He also questioned the guilt of David Koresh and the Branch Davidian compound during the Waco Siege. Hicks would end some of his shows, especially those being recorded in front of larger audiences as albums, with a mock "assassination" of himself on stage, making gunshot sound effects into the microphone while falling to the ground.

Cancer diagnosis and death

Hicks wrote, "On June 16, 1993 I was diagnosed with having 'liver cancer that had spread from the pancreas.'” He started receiving weekly chemotherapy, while still touring and also recording his album, ''Arizona Bay'', with Kevin Booth. He was also working with comedian Fallon Woodland on a pilot episode of a new talk show, titled ''Counts of the Netherworld'' for Channel 4 at the time of his death. The budget and concept had been approved, and a pilot was filmed. The ''Counts of the Netherworld'' pilot was shown at the various Tenth Anniversary Tribute Night events around the world on February 26, 2004.

After being diagnosed with cancer, Hicks would often joke that any given performance would be his last. The public, however, was unaware of Hicks's condition. Only a few close friends and family members knew of his disease. Hicks performed the final show of his career at Caroline's in New York on January 6, 1994. He moved back to his parents' house in Little Rock, Arkansas, shortly thereafter. He called his friends to say goodbye, before he stopped speaking on February 14, and re-read J.R.R. Tolkien’s ''The Fellowship of the Ring''. He spent time with his parents, playing them the music he loved and showing them documentaries about his interests. He died of side effects of his cancer treatment in the presence of his parents at 11:20 p.m. on February 26, 1994. He was 32 years old. Hicks was buried in the family plot in Leakesville, Mississippi.

On February 7, 1994, Hicks authored a verse on his perspective, wishes, and thanks of his life, to be released after his death as his "last word", ending with the words: "I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."

Legacy

''Arizona Bay'' and ''Rant in E-Minor'' were released posthumously in 1997 on the Voices imprint of the Rykodisc label. ''Dangerous'' and ''Relentless'' were also re-released by Rykodisc on the same date.

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, fellow comedians and comedy insiders voted Hicks #13 on their list of "The Top 20 Greatest Comedy Acts Ever". Likewise, in "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" (2004), Hicks was ranked at #19. In March 2007, Channel 4 ran a poll, "The Top 100 Stand-Up Comedians of All Time", in which Hicks was voted #6. Channel 4 renewed this list in April 2010, which saw Hicks move up 2 places to #4.

Devotees of Hicks have incorporated his words, image, and attitude into their own creations. By means of audio sampling, fragments of Hicks' rants, diatribes, social criticisms, and philosophies have found their way into many musical works, such as the live version of Super Furry Animals' "Man Don't Give A Fuck". His influence on Tool is well-documented, he "appears" on the Fila Brazillia album ''Maim That Tune'' (1996) and on SPA's self titled album ''SPA'' (1997), which are both dedicated to Hicks; the British band Radiohead's second album ''The Bends'' (1995) is also dedicated to his memory. Singer/songwriter Tom Waits listed ''Rant in E-Minor'' as one of his 20 most cherished albums of all time.

Rappers Adil Omar and Vinnie Paz have also cited Hicks as an influence to their work; contemporary comedians David Cross and Russell Brand have stated that they were inspired by Hicks.

The British actor Chas Early portrayed Hicks in the one-man stage show ''Bill Hicks: Slight Return'', which premiered in 2004. The show was co-written by Chas Early and Richard Hurst, and imagined Hicks' view of the world 10 years after his death.

On February 25, 2004, British MP Stephen Pound tabled an early day motion titled "Anniversary of the Death of Bill Hicks" (EDM 678 of the 2003-04 session), the text of which reads: of inclusion with Lenny Bruce in any list of unflinching and painfully honest political philosophers.}}

Film and documentary

A documentary entitled ''American: The Bill Hicks Story'', based on interviews with his family and friends, premiered on March 12, 2010, at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Discography

References

Notes

Further reading

External links

Sacred Cow Productions

Bill Hicks Quotes

The subversive legacy of comic Bill Hicks, ''Salon.com''

Bill Hicks' releases on Rykodisc

Bill Hicks is Dead: Tribute and Biography, with related videos.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Comedians: Bill Hicks at Love-It-Loud.com

Dark Poet Unofficial Fan site

Category:1961 births Category:1994 deaths Category:American cannabis activists Category:American satirists Category:American social commentators Category:American stand-up comedians Category:Cancer deaths in Arkansas Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Free speech activists Category:Former Baptists Category:People from Houston, Texas Category:People from Valdosta, Georgia Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Religious skeptics Category:Rykodisc artists Category:American agnostics

bg:Бил Хикс ca:Bill Hicks de:Bill Hicks el:Μπιλ Χικς es:Bill Hicks fr:Bill Hicks is:Bill Hicks it:Bill Hicks he:ביל היקס mk:Бил Хикс nl:Bill Hicks ja:ビル・ヒックス no:Bill Hicks pl:Bill Hicks ru:Хикс, Билл simple:Bill Hicks sk:Bill Hicks sr:Бил Хикс fi:Bill Hicks sv:Bill Hicks tr:Bill Hicks

Name	MC Hawking
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Ken Lawrence
Alias	MC Hawking, The Hawkman
Instrument	Text-to-speech program
Genre	Nerdcore hip hop
Occupation	rapper, songwriter, producer
Label	Brash Music
Associated acts	Dark MatterDJ Doomsday
Website	}}

Ken Lawrence is a nerdcore hip hop artist who purports to be theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking rapping under the name MC Hawking.

MC Hawking gained some popularity on the Internet in the early 2000s. The songs were originally released in MP3 format, but due to the popularity of the website Lawrence was signed to a record deal with Brash Music to release a "greatest hits" album in 2004.

Background

MC Hawking's entire body of work and his rapper persona were created by American web developer Ken Lawrence. Lawrence earned a degree in music composition from Hampshire College. His raps are synthesized by the text-to-speech program WillowTalk. The beats for MC Hawking are provided by DJ Doomsday. Most of the beats are samples of classic hip hop tracks, or taken from commercial royalty-free loop libraries.

Lyrical content

The lyrics are a mixture of gangsta rap topics, science topics and Stephen Hawking quotations (such as the famous "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun", which became "Every time I think of them my trigger finger itches", referring to creationists). Among subjects of MC Hawking songs are various scientific topics, Hawking's professional relationships with MIT rivals, as well as the standard fare of gangsta rap, including street violence and drug use.

The lyrics display insight into many aspects of current scientific thought, Newton's laws of motion ("All My Shootings Be Drivebys"), Einstein's theory of relativity ("E=MC Hawking"), the Big Bang ("The Big Bizang"), Thermodynamics ("Entropy"), and quantum physics subjects such as Schrödinger's cat and the wave function collapse ("Rock Out With Your Hawk Out").

The creation evolution controversy is also mentioned in "Fuck the Creationists" and "Entropy".

Dark Matter & Greatest hits album

He is also involved with a heavy metal group called Dark Matter — a parody of Ice T's "Body Count" — with whom he has performed such songs as "Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die", "UFT for the MC" (a parody of the Sex Pistols song "Anarchy in the UK"), and "The Big Bizang". He is also an occasional Song Fight! participant.

His "greatest hits" album is called ''A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking's Greatest Hits'', a parody of Hawking's book ''A Brief History of Time''. It included many songs that were available on the official website, plus new material (four songs and three interludes from a fictional radio interview).

Reaction by Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking has said that he is "flattered, as it's a modern-day equivalent to ''Spitting Image''". On the inside cover of ''A Brief History of Rhyme'', Lawrence thanks Stephen Hawking "for taking this joke in the spirit that it was intended."

Discography

''A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking's Greatest Hits'' (2004)

#"The Hawkman Cometh"

#"The Dozens"

#"Big Bizang"

#"Excerpt from a Radio Interview (Pt. 1)"

#"Entropy"

#"The Mighty Stephen Hawking"

#"Crazy as Fuck"

#"Bitchslap (With MC Frontalot)"

#"Excerpt from a Radio Interview (Pt. 2)"

#"Fuck the Creationists"

#"E=MC Hawking"

#"All My Shootings Be Drivebys"

#"UFT For The MC"

#"Excerpt from a Radio Interview (Pt. 3)"

#"What We Need More of is Science"

#"GTA3"

Songs released in MP3 format only

* "Led Zeppelin Medley" (no longer available)

* "QuakeMaster"

* "Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die?" (Since the release of this track, he did.)

* "Rock Out with Your Hawk Out" (appears on Rhyme Torrents Vol.1 )

* "MC Hawking Holiday"

Appearances

:*"Nerdcore Rising" - MC Frontalot - ''Nerdcore Rising''

Fictional discography

As part of the parody, a fictional discography was created on the MC Hawking's Crib website. None of these albums were actually created, and any songs not listed in the above discography were never actually recorded.

''The Hawkman Cometh EP'' (1992)

#"The Hawkman Cometh"

#"Big Biz-ang"

#"The Dozens"

''Fear of a Black Hole'' (1994) (originally called ''A Brief History of Rhyme'' until Hawking's real album was given that title)

#"Crazy as Fuck"

#"The Mighty Stephen Hawking"

#"Nanomachine"

#"Black Holes"

#"Faster Than Light"

#"Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die?"

#"Big Biz-ang (Remix)"

#"Doomsday Device"

#"Cut It Up"

#"Bitch Slap"

#"Entropy"

#"Fucking Shit Up Old-school"

#"F.Y.M."

#"Bring the Noize"

''E = MC Hawking'' (1997)

#"A Brief Dissertation on Gravitational Entropy, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Principle."

#"Fuck the Creationists"

#"Event Horizon"

#"All My Shootin's Be Drive-bys"

#"Space Time"

#"Wrong Again Albert"

#"What We Need More of Is Science"

#"Bitch Slap"

#"F.Y.M.A.S.M.D."

#"Dark Matter"

#"TKO"

#"Paradox"

#"E=MC Hawking"

#"Kick That Shit!"

External links

MCHawking.com was created by Lawrence to look like a personal fan site for the MC. From the former home page: "While there are dozens of other sites on the web devoted to Stephen Hawking's scientific achievements, I am unaware of a single site (aside from this one) devoted to his career as a lyrical terrorist." The site is no longer active.

Category:Nerdcore hip hop artists Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

de:MC Hawking es:MC Hawking sv:MC Hawking