Jesse Helms, former NC senator, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86. The chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C, said Jesse Helms died at 1:15 a.m. He died comfortably in Raleigh of natural causes, according to former chief of staff Jimmy Broughton. Funeral arrangements are to be announced, the Jesse Helms center said.

Few senators could match Jesse Helms’ reputation. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said in a statement.

Jesse Helms became known to North Carolina voters as a newspaper and television commentator, won election to the Senate in 1972, and decided not to run for a sixth term in 2002.

"Compromise, hell!  If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?" Helms wrote in a 1959.

Helms’ public appearances lessened as his health deteriorated. He had a variety of illnesses, including a bone disorder, prostate cancer and heart problems, and made his way through the Capitol on a motorized scooter as his career ended. In April 2006, he moved into a convalescent center diagnosed with vascular dementia, in which repeated minor strokes damage the brain.

Helms served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committees over the years at times when the GOP held the Senate majority, using his posts to protect his state’s tobacco growers and other farmers and place his stamp on foreign policy.

His opposition to Communism defined his foreign policy views. He took a dim view of many arms control treaties, opposed Fidel Castro, helped create legislation in 1996 to strengthen U.S. restrictions against the Caribbean island’s communist government., and supported the contras in Nicaragua as well as the right-wing government of El Salvador. He opposed the Panama Canal treaties that then-President Carter pushed through a reluctant Senate in 1977.

The Helms-Burton law bars the United States from normalizing relations with Cuba as long as Castro or his brother Raul — who has been president since February — are involved in government. He forced roll-call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on federal funding for art he judged pornographic, school busing, and flag-burning. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine", he said in 1993.

After Democrats killed the appointment of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, a former Helms aide, to a federal appeals court post in 1991, Helms blocked all of Clinton’s judicial nominations from North Carolina for eight years.

Helms never lost a race for the Senate, but he never won one by much. He won the 1972 election after switching parties, and defeated then-Gov. Jim Hunt in 1984, then the costliest Senate race on record.

Helms also played a role in national GOP politics — supporting Ronald Reagan in 1976 in a presidential primary challenge. Reagan’s candidacy was near collapse when it came time for the North Carolina primary. Helms was in charge of the effort, and Reagan won an upset that rejuvenated his campaign. Most people feel like there would have never been a President Reagan had it not been for Jesse Helms.

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