Jesse Helms, an iconic United States conservative lawmaker known for hard-line stances on foreign policy and civil liberties, died on July 4 at the age of 86, a spokesperson said.
John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Centre Foundation, announced that the senator had died, but did not release the cause of death.
US President George Bush described his conservative ally as ”a stalwart defender of limited government and free enterprise, a fearless defender of a culture of life, and an unwavering champion of those struggling for liberty”.
”Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called ‘the Miracle of America’. So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July,” he said in a statement, referring to the US Independence Day holiday celebrated on July 4.
Helms served in the US Senate for 30 years, where he was a polarising force as a hard-right conservative.
He was chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee where he pressed for reform of the United Nations. He also co-authored the Helms-Burton Act tightening and codifying as law US sanctions against communist Cuba.
The law, highly controversial internationally, sought to apply sanctions against non-US firms doing business in Cuba, and penalised those suspected of profiting from assets seized from US nationals after the 1959 revolution.
”Under his leadership, the Senate foreign relations committee was a powerful force for freedom,” Bush said in a statement. ”And today, from Central America to Central Europe and beyond, people remember: in the dark days when the forces of tyranny seemed on the rise, Jesse Helms took their side.”
Helms was the first legislator from any country to address the UN Security Council, and critics took issue with his hard-line stances on Aids, homosexuality, abortion rights, racial integration and what he viewed as ”obscene” art.
He was nicknamed ”Senator No” by a North Carolina newspaper in the late 1970s, a moniker Helms later said ”wasn’t meant as a compliment, but I certainly took it as one”.
Born in 1921 in Monroe, North Carolina, Helms was a pillar of his Republican Party when Ronald Reagan came to power and the senator was a staunch supporter of traditional tobacco and textile interests.
Helms served in the navy during World War II, and worked as a newspaper and radio journalist before entering politics.
In 1995, Helms lashed out at Aids patients and said the US government should spend less money on them because they became ill due to ”deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct”, he told the New York Times.
However, he retracted those statements in 2002 after meeting the Irish rock star Bono of U2, a leader in advocacy efforts to combat the global Aids epidemic.
”I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant about Aids,” Helms said.
Health problems led him to retire in 2003. — Sapa-AFP