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NEWS
Friday, October 17, 2003 6:28AM
EDT
Helms still feisty in retirement
Conservative icon keeps after
Castro
By ROB CHRISTENSEN, Staff Writer
RALEIGH -- Jesse Helms, the old conservative lion, was doing what he
always liked best -- sticking a thumb in the communists' eye.
Helms was on a telephone hookup Thursday afternoon with Radio Marti,
broadcasting into Cuba from his office on the edge of Cameron Village.
Although he is no longer chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee nor even a senator, Helms told the Cuban people on the
U.S.-sponsored station that he would never stop working for their
freedom.
Take that, Fidel.
As he talked, he was watched by a beaming group from the Cuban Movement
for a Unified Democracy. They gave him a plaque thanking him for his
long record as a leading congressional foe of Castro.
"I am no longer in the Senate," Helms later told Eleno Oviedo, who spent
26 years in Castro's prisons. "But I still have some friends in the
Senate."
More than nine months after he left the Senate, Helms is still mentally
vigorous, even if his body is frailer, his voice weaker than in the days
when he hurled verbal thunderbolts at liberals, Democrats, gay
activists, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who offended his
conservative sensibilities.
He will turn 82 on Saturday, marking the occasion with a gala
fund-raiser at Grandover Resort in Greensboro for the Jesse Helms Center
in Wingate. The guest list features Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Those who watched Helms for 30 years in the Senate had a hard time
seeing him in a hammock sipping sweet tea. Like a lot of workaholics,
Helms has stayed busy in his retirement.
Most days, he is in his office pecking away at his trusty Royal manual
typewriter writing his memoirs, which he hopes to finish this year or
early next year. He has a contract with Random House to print at least
50,000 volumes.
No book title yet
No title has been chosen. But Helms will tell the story of how a son of
a Monroe police chief became one of the nation's most influential and
controversial conservative voices.
"What they want from me is a view of the world as I see it, flavored
with the way I grew up and all the rest of that," Helms said in an
interview.
He still talks occasionally by telephone with President Bush. He'd
rather not say about what. And he sometimes gets calls from senators who
want to tap his deep knowledge of Senate parliamentary rules.
When he gets twinges for his Senate days, Helms turns on C-SPAN to watch
the proceedings. With a smile, he admits that there are times when he is
tempted to jump to his feet and enter the fray.
"I say, 'No, no, no, don't do it,' " Helms said with a laugh.
Helms originally had not planned to have an office in Raleigh. But he
got so many calls from people, including those showing up at the
doorstep of his house in the Hayes Barton neighborhood, that he decided
he needed to set up shop.
So he rented a modest, two-room office five minutes from his home, paid
for out of his own pocket and those of his friends. Part of Helms'
political success was his crackerjack constituent services, and he still
gets boxes of mail.
The other day, Helms said, he helped a woman expedite her passport. Old
habits are hard to break.
Recalls commitment
"When I was elected to the Senate, I made a commitment to myself that I
would not be a big-shot senator," Helms said. "I wanted to do what I
could for the so-called little people."
Helms doesn't always put in a full day at the office, sometimes coming
in for a short visit, depending on his health.
He missed a large chunk of his last year in the Senate, becoming
critically ill when a heart valve had to be replaced. His knees and feet
give him trouble, and he gets around with the aid of a walker.
His balance is precarious. He fell and struck his head in July and spent
three days in the hospital. In August, he was back in the hospital for
another three days when he was fitted with a new pacemaker.
But the way Helms looks at it, his health is remarkably good. He says
his retirement is going "marvelously." And he noted that he and his
wife, Dot, will celebrate their 61st anniversary on Oct. 31.
"I met this lady this morning," he quipped to the Cuban delegation,
motioning affectionately to his wife. "Come here, baby."
Helms has only good things to say about his successor, Republican
Elizabeth Dole, who has visited him several times in Raleigh.
But it is a different story with Democratic Sen. John Edwards of
Raleigh. Asked what he thinks about Edwards' presidential bid, Helms
laughed and replied: "Just say I chuckled."
Doubts about Edwards
Helms said he doubted that Edwards could carry North Carolina in a
presidential race.
When asked about President Bush, Helms clearly struggles. He doesn't
want to say anything negative about his friend. Yet he is clearly
troubled by the situation in Iraq and sees no easy way out.
"I think he was fed some bad information about what was in the borders
[of Iraq], but I don't know that," Helms said. "He may come out of it.
But he has been harmed by it. I've had today four or five people who
were solid with the president who said: 'What the hell is wrong with
him?' and that sort of thing.
"I don't want to be critical of the president. But Dorothy and I have
both wondered about certain aspects of it. This thing could develop so
that he is smelling like a rose on it. But he has a problem right now."
For the first time in 30 years, it's a major policy problem that is not
Helms' problem.
Staff writer Rob Christensen can be reached at 829-4532 or
robc@newsobserver.com.
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2953765p-2709800c.html
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