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Jesse Helms, an icon of American conservatism who served five terms as US senator for North Carolina, died today aged 86. Mr Helms served in the US Senate for 30 years, where he was a polarising force as a hard-right-wing conservative. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was the first legislator to address the UN Security Council. Jimmy Broughton, Helms’s former chief of staff, says the ex-senator died of natural causes in Raleigh. Health problems led him to retire in 2003. Mr Helms’s Senate seat was picked up by Republican Elizabeth Dole, wife of long-time colleague and former Senator Bob Dole. Mr Helms built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during his decades in Congress. He was slowed in later years by a variety... [read full story]
