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Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician and a leader in the conservative movement. He was elected five times as a Republican to the United States Senate from North Carolina. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001 he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates. Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected Senator in North Carolina's history. He was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state. He successfully advocated that conservatives move to the Republican Party because the national Democratic Party was too liberal for them. The Helms-controlled National Congressional Club's state-of-the-art direct mail operation raised millions of dollars for Helms and other conservative candidates, allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns.〔William A. Link, ''Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism'' (2008) p. 557〕 Helms was the most stridently conservative politician of the post-1960s era,〔Bruce Frohnen, ''American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia'' (2006) p. 379〕 especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs (including legislating integration via the Civil Rights Act and enforcing suffrage through the Voting Rights Act). Helms was credited by even his most critical opponents with providing excellent constituent services through his Senate office.〔Link (2008) p 261〕 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.〔Link (2008) p 444–45〕 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 to North Carolina. On social issues, Helms was conservative. He was a master obstructionist who relished his nickname, "Senator No".〔Congressional Quarterly, ''Politics in America 1992: The 102 Congress'' (1991) p 927〕 He combined cultural, social and economic conservatism, which often helped his legislation win wide public support. He fought what he considered to be liberalism whenever it was on the agenda, opposing civil rights at first, disability rights, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, access to abortions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and the National Endowment for the Arts.〔Link (2008)〕 Helms brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against homosexuality.〔William D. Snider, ''Helms and Hunt: the North Carolina Senate Race, 1984'' (1985) p 19〕 He used racially charged language in his campaigns and editorials.〔Link (2008) pp 39, 50, 196, 284, 373〕 ''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".〔(), University of North Carolina TV〕 ==Childhood and education (1921–1940)== Helms was born in 1921 in Monroe, North Carolina, where his father, nicknamed "Big Jesse", served as both fire chief and chief of police; his mother, Ethel Mae Helms, was a homemaker. Helms was of English ancestry on both sides.〔Link (2008) ch 1〕 Helms briefly attended Wingate Junior College, now Wingate University, near Monroe, before leaving for Wake Forest College. He left Wingate after a year to begin a career as a journalist, working for the next eleven years as a newspaper and radio reporter, first as a sportswriter and news reporter for the Raleigh ''News and Observer'', and also as assistant city editor for ''The Raleigh Times''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jesse Helms」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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