Grew up in new jersey, and spent the summer months down here in North Carolina. Davidsonted from college in 1976 and received a phd in history from the university of virginia. For the next 23 years he taught at the university of North Carolina at greensboro. Between 1995 and 1998 he served as associate dean at the college of arts and sciences and between 1998 and 2004 was the head of the history department. The university of florida to occupy the richard j middleborough chair in history. He teaches courses and supervises the world students. He has published for major books prior to this one. A hard country in a lonely place, Schooling Society and reform in rule of virginia, the paradox of southern progressivism, 18821930. William friday and the american higher education. These last two books for both mayflower cup winners for nonfiction. The roots of succession secession. He lives in gainesville, florida with his wife susanna, daughter josie, and one border collie. Time for me to stop. Leaving more time for the historian and his subject am a senator helms to speak for themselves. Righteous warrior jesse helms and the rise of modern conservatism. Please welcome Professor William link. [applause] william thank you very much. Thank you all for coming and permitting me to Say Something about my new book which just appeared two weeks ago. It is hot off the press. What i thought i would do this book,g is talk about the and try to focus on the conclusions i reached, particularly on the relevance of for 2008. S most of us know something about jesse helms here in North Carolina. Immediateon of identification that may not be quite so true and the rest of the united states. Certainly here he is a figure who has almost iconic status. That political leaders who polarized he almost immediately in terms of his thought and action had divided people. To a large extent i think that the polarizing effect of helms has in some respects of securities significance. Left,ople on the liberals, the progressive side, there has been a tendency to write him off, to see him off as. Uffoonish and ineffectual i think weekly to people on the right, people love conservative persuasion there has been among many conservatives the tendency to be slightly embarrassed by jesse helms and his hardnosed tactics. Obscurelt has been to inse helms and he retired 2002. We are six years out of his political career. To some extent he is at least partially forgotten. I wanted to point to my book as twook back on helms assesses impact which i argue in the book was significant. It wouldnt be an exaggeration to describe him as one of the Major Political players of the last half of the 20th century and one of the more important north carolinians. Wideranging impact on political culture, political life in the way that policy and politics were practiced in the last third of the 20th century into our own time. Revolution, the emergence of a new kind of american right that occurred after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 were the culmination of a longstanding strategy on the part of jesse helms to change politics in a fundamental way. Most know something about helms. Born in monroe, North Carolina, grew up the son of a Police Officer who eventually became sheriff of monroe. Smalltown, 23000 people. From an early age he wanted to be a journalist and was fascinated with journalism. In the yearbook of his graduating here in 1938, two things that are of no, the first is he announces his intention to journalist. The second is that his classmates voted him most of noxious member of the class. He attended college for two years and left college after one and then get plunged into journalism and work for the observer and the raleigh times, the evening newspaper. Then he was in the war, in the navy. After the war got involved in radio broadcasting. Subsequently was actively involved for the rest of his nonpolitical career in radio and television broadcasting. From 1960 to 1972 he was a person who ran tv here in raleigh, has part of the 12 years he provided daily editorials about a range of topics. 1972 he was elected united , and served in the senate for the next 30 years. Five terms in the senate. By severalis defined things. Int important is his impact coalescing a new conservatism that we see in this country, beginning in the 1960s. What i would like to do with the time i have is to talk about his Lasting Impact and legacy. The first thing is that he had a Significant Impact on politics between 1972, his first election , that 30 year time. Politics, what politics was life and what politics was life in 2002 you was agree there revolution that took place in the way politics was practice. Politics was still fairly personal. Practice on a personal level. It involved local organizations, retail politics was the typical pattern. There wasnt much advertising on television, virtually none. In his campaign, his first one, almost all the advertising was done in newspapers. Little in television. 2002, television is everything. Political advertising is based and polluse of polling driven media. He was involved in this heolution to take place wasnt solely responsible for it. I spent a good bit of time talking about this, the Congressional Club, which was organized in 1973 after his first senate campaign. Helmsdebt in 1972. And then became successful as his main Political Organization until the mid1990s. A Congressional Club was successful because of its ability to raise huge amounts of money. And 79, the club became a money machine and developed for its day the most sophisticated fundraising operation in the country. It was based on direct mail, fundraising, and depended on a Huge National database of names, once constituted a National Conservative constituency. The vast majority of the contributors to the Congressional Club, and they raised millions, people outside of North Carolina. Movemento were part of conservatives, people dedicated because of things he was dedicated to. That is one noteworthy characteristic. The other is that most of them were small contributors. The average contributor contributed 30. Clubs revenue came from Political Action committees. That is an interesting thing. It provided independence for the club and its ability to run political campaigns without that to pay. The other way in which the clubs revolutionary, i would argue, its use of advertising. 1980s, the the Congressional Club becomes very effective at using Television Advertising to run political campaigns. Hat is new to this era there is a realization that takes place among his political advisers that the way to win campaigns is to use lots of television campaigning. Advertising, especially negative advertising become the trademark of the way the club operates. 1980, the extensive use of advertising is remarkable and it is devised inhouse by the Congressional Club, and by the operatives of the Congressional Club. 1984 campaign, 1990 campaign are the two outstanding examples of the use of advertising and negative advertising particular to define candidates win elections. 1984 is a complex election. An election that he ran against jim hunt, a popular incumbent governor. Mentioned, the i key to the success of the Congressional Club and part of this big change taking place is the use of polling. There had been Public Opinion polling used by Political Organizations but the Congressional Club refined into a science and they are able to connect the polling to their advertising and use advertising in precise ways, anyway that is ahead of their adverse iron adversaries of the day. Way, i would argue jesse helms was instrumental in mobilizing a National Conservative movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The election of Ronald Reagan marked a critical moment in the history of modern conservatism. He was elected to the senate in 1972. Soon after he was elected he began to pound away and work assiduously to put together elements of a conservative coalition. Interesting relationship between jesse helms and Ronald Reagan. Helms had known reagan since the 1960s, soon after reagan was elected to the governorship in 1966. Helms endorsed reagan when he 1970s,president in the 1976 when he challenged gerald ford. The story goes like this. Ronald reagan was about to go down in defeat in 1976. He lost primaries to gerald ford. Ofgans operation came in my 1976 and reagan turned over the operation of the campaign to his people. They won the North Carolina primary of 76. They turned the whole thing around. Although reagan was not nominated in 1976, he became the heir presumptive for 1980 and was set up to be nominated as the republican candidate. Reagan is owed helms his political survival because if he had lost that would have been at, the end of his president ial ambitions. Si of the things helms was successful at is defining a National Conservative agenda of issues. He puts together a set of issues of a coalescedt conservative movement. The thing that holds the movement together, the message homes was promoting is a common hostility to liberals, to new deal liberalism, and the and more first liberal state that conservatives are revolting against. From 1950s on, he is unyielding anticommunist. Had relations between russia and the soviet union and the hardlineates ease the be maintained. He opposes the detente of the 1970s and the easing of relations and arms control treaties in the 1970s. He supports Ronald Reagan of course. Also an opponent of civil rights and translates that message into a conservative message. He opposes the brown decision of 1954, which the Supreme Court schools for now unconstitutional and illegal. Throughout the 1950s he opposed federal intervention in southern race relations. Strong detractor of Martin Luther king. He was a critic of king all through the 60s. One congress attempted to make kings birthday and National Holiday in 1983 he launched a filibuster against the legislation which went nowhere but helped the fine a very clear message. Wasthrough the 1960s helms an anti1960s person. He was suspicious of campus revolt. He was suspicious of the sexual revolution. He was suspicious of the university of North Carolina, unc became a very common whipping boy in tv editorials of the 1960s. Ofms promotes a kind conservative issue of morality. He is particularly in favor of school prayer. He is against the secularization of american life. He is a strong opponent of sexual rights homosexual rights. He is one of the first people to bring the religious right into the fold, prior to the late 1970s the christian evangelical right was largely nonpolitical. Through the efforts of helms and his allies, the religious right was drawn into conservative politics. , anle like Jerry Falwell ally of helms. He enjoyed the support of the christian evangelicals, especially in the close election of 1984. The christian evangelical right was mobilized and helped him win with governor jim hunt. One of the things that people underestimated about homes is his ability to use the media. He had a longstanding experience in the media. He had radio experience, television experience. Media,rstood how to use and make points on television. He was also a master of language, very effective use of language. Helms love to write letters. He constantly wrote letters. He was a master in the use of words. People often dont realize that. His mastery of words was connected to his ability to mobilize sentiment and the National Conservative movement. Is heing to remember regarded this and as a kind of support to pull together conservative coalition. For the first 20 years of his time in the senate, he had little interest in passing legislation. For the most part he used the senate to dramatize issues. He had a couple of techniques. His favorite were the use of amendments. He would take an obscure appropriation bill, and tacky writer on it, tackle on an amendment that might relate to Something Like school busing, or relate to abortion, or relate to school prayer. Then he would force his colleagues to vote to put them on record and expose the differences between conservatives and liberals on these issues. His fundraisers would use these frequently and direct mail messages to keep the money running. It became a way to promote and nurture a National Conservative movement. E was a master parliamentarian ed the down and learn rulebook of the senate. He became one of the best parliamentarians. He now the process work and how to work the senate to his advantage. He was an active partition or in the use of the filibuster. The filibuster was a rarely rare thing before jesse helms. It becomes more common by the. Ime he left the senate almost always he lost the filibusters but at the same time he use them to communicate a message and dramatize the message to his constituency. Throughout the first 20 years or so, the Senate Becomes a forum for helms to reach out to a constituency, and bring them together effectively. In a new coalition. 1980, andogether in constitutes a majority i would argue that american politics for the next 30 years. T maybe we are in a new era it seems to me the 2008 elections clearly a major election, which Different Things are going to happen, but if you look back between 1980 and 2008 a constitutes a distinct time in which modern conservative Movement Held sway and tend to dominate politics. The last part of the career involves Foreign Policy. He had always been interested in Foreign Policy from the time he arrived in the senate. In the 1970s he was unqualified in his opposition to the soviet union and soviet empire. He was unqualified in his opposition to fidel castro and. He castro style revolution and preventing the spread of the castro revolution to the rest of latin america. The 1970s and 1980s, he made a conscious decision that it was better to have authoritarian regimes abroad even if they were brutal and oppressive than to have castro style revolutionary nationalism. This led him to support regimes. Uch as the pinochet regime those are two examples. Helms was the strongest. Upporter this sort of changes, i think. In the 1980s he shifts focus, gradually in central america, his policy in el salvador, and panama. Cy in mexico and both places he begins to focus on issues such as corruption and drugs. And less on issues of supporting unqualified authoritarian regimes. He opposes incumbent authoritarian regimes because of the fact they are connected with the drug trade and they are fundamentally corrupt, or so he solve them. He interesting thing is develops a Shadow State Department, a whole network of information and sources that withde him in many cases the services of the state department. To the shock and horror of the state department, he had long opposed the state department, centrists that existed, there was genuine terror at helms ining over, which she did 1995. There is a big change in helms that takes place when he moves to the Foreign Relations committee chairmanship. Gone for the most part are the tactics that have been practicing for most of his career. After he focuses on policy. He lays the basis to the Foreign Policy of bush, emphasizes unilateralism, the post cold war policies that rely exclusively on American Power and sovereignty. Helms had a great this date for the united nations, and a mistrust of arms control, and lead efforts to defeat to major armscontrol treaties. The chemical weapons convention, which was adopted, and the comprehensive test ban, which was defeated. In many different ways helms lays the basis for a fundamental foreign change that takes place for better or worst after the election of george bush in 2000. These are elements of the helms legacy. The other thing i would add is a people legacy, scores of people who work for jesse helms through the 30 years he is in the providing as is school for policymaking in politics. The Congressional Club trains a generation of people who later work in conservative politics and applies it and other settings. Example, a person running john mccains campaign in 2008, charlie black began with jesse helms and worked in his organization. This is true in other areas as well. It was known widely known that if you work for jesse helms as a staffer on the hill, you would be badly underpaid, because he was tight with money, but that you would gain valuable experience in terms of policy things, especially in the conservative world. People, a legacy of Training Ground that helms provides. Argument that the helms was a major figure in change that takes place, this conservative revolution, the emergence of the american right. He is often underestimated and not taken seriously but hopefully if you get anything out of the book of this is the major argume