Finally an accurate obit of an evil man
A friend in Key west relayed the Guardian's obit for Jesse Helms, which had been sent to him by a friend in Italy; shows you the worldwide concern about the evil that this one man did in his lifetime. You can access the guardian's words about Jesse at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/usa
Meanwhile, here's a little run-in I had with Jesse very early in my career:
Jesse and me
June 25th is a date that should live in infamy to all those who believe in academic freedom in North Carolina. It was on that date in 1963 that a renegade band of redneck legislators suspended the rules of the General Assembly and within minutes enacted the infamous Speaker Ban.
It was only a matter of minutes after that when Ol’ Jesse Helms, the man we then dismissed as a minor nuisance and major right wing crackpot at WRAL, tried to get me fired from my job as a reporter for United Press International. I was a very young 21 when I dropped out of my junior year at UNC to cover the 1963 General Assembly.
On the last day of the session, I was sitting alone in the press section, which was then right on the floor beside the legislators. My ears perked up as Reps. Phil Godwin and Ned Delamar asked for a suspension of the rules and submitted a bill. A bill had gone through the previous day to censor public television and now here was a bill to restrict speakers at state universities. It was, from the beginning, a clear slap at UNC President Bill Friday because he would not fire two professors involved in the civil rights movement. None of the Speaker Ban’s sponsors had attended UNC, two had never been to college.
Rep. Paul Story protested, “Gentlemen, this is clearly unconstitutional on its face,” but the House Speaker was in on the plan and it passed by voice vote. I was so incensed by this that I went to the back of the hall and ran with the bill’s sponsors onto the floor of the senate, where the Senate President Clarence Stone was waiting. Sen. Luther Hamilton, among others, was shouting to be recognized, but Stone would hear no dissent and hammed the bill into law on a voice vote. Hamilton was finally able to say in utter disgust: “Gentlemen, this is not worthy of the senate of North Carolina.”
A passionate believer in truth, justice and the American way, I rushed to the UPI teletype machine in the press room and punched out my story: “Reactionaries in the North Carolina General Assembly have ramrodded another censorship bill into law.” I knew that WRAL was UPI’s biggest client in the state; what I did not know was that Jesse Helms was apparently standing there reading the wire as my “reactionaries” story came across.
Jesse didn’t mess with the local bureau chief. He called the president of UPI in New York and demanded that I be fired on the spot. UPI immediately issued a “mandatory kill” on the story, the only one I ever saw in several years with the company in Raleigh, New York and Saigon.
It turned out that Jesse played a key role in the speaker ban. He had gotten hold of an Ohio speaker ban law and had praised it on the air the week before [June 21] and passed it along to friendly hands in the legislature. I learned a great deal from this experience. One inflammatory word had cost me the chance to describe the very dramatic debate I had witnessed that day. [No other reporters were on the floor when the bill passed.] None of the later stories reported the eloquent opposition to the ban.
More important, I will always remember walking into the UPI bureau across from the news room at the News and Observer and hearing my bureau chief still on the phone with his superiors in New York. This was Robert “Bo” McNeill, a proud UNC graduate, who was saying into the phone, “But they ARE reactionaries; he’s right.” He refused to fire me. He hung up the phone, grinned and said: “Well, you sure screwed up this time.” And the next day he wrote me a commendation for doing a fine job covering the legislature.
Meanwhile, here's a little run-in I had with Jesse very early in my career:
Jesse and me
June 25th is a date that should live in infamy to all those who believe in academic freedom in North Carolina. It was on that date in 1963 that a renegade band of redneck legislators suspended the rules of the General Assembly and within minutes enacted the infamous Speaker Ban.
It was only a matter of minutes after that when Ol’ Jesse Helms, the man we then dismissed as a minor nuisance and major right wing crackpot at WRAL, tried to get me fired from my job as a reporter for United Press International. I was a very young 21 when I dropped out of my junior year at UNC to cover the 1963 General Assembly.
On the last day of the session, I was sitting alone in the press section, which was then right on the floor beside the legislators. My ears perked up as Reps. Phil Godwin and Ned Delamar asked for a suspension of the rules and submitted a bill. A bill had gone through the previous day to censor public television and now here was a bill to restrict speakers at state universities. It was, from the beginning, a clear slap at UNC President Bill Friday because he would not fire two professors involved in the civil rights movement. None of the Speaker Ban’s sponsors had attended UNC, two had never been to college.
Rep. Paul Story protested, “Gentlemen, this is clearly unconstitutional on its face,” but the House Speaker was in on the plan and it passed by voice vote. I was so incensed by this that I went to the back of the hall and ran with the bill’s sponsors onto the floor of the senate, where the Senate President Clarence Stone was waiting. Sen. Luther Hamilton, among others, was shouting to be recognized, but Stone would hear no dissent and hammed the bill into law on a voice vote. Hamilton was finally able to say in utter disgust: “Gentlemen, this is not worthy of the senate of North Carolina.”
A passionate believer in truth, justice and the American way, I rushed to the UPI teletype machine in the press room and punched out my story: “Reactionaries in the North Carolina General Assembly have ramrodded another censorship bill into law.” I knew that WRAL was UPI’s biggest client in the state; what I did not know was that Jesse Helms was apparently standing there reading the wire as my “reactionaries” story came across.
Jesse didn’t mess with the local bureau chief. He called the president of UPI in New York and demanded that I be fired on the spot. UPI immediately issued a “mandatory kill” on the story, the only one I ever saw in several years with the company in Raleigh, New York and Saigon.
It turned out that Jesse played a key role in the speaker ban. He had gotten hold of an Ohio speaker ban law and had praised it on the air the week before [June 21] and passed it along to friendly hands in the legislature. I learned a great deal from this experience. One inflammatory word had cost me the chance to describe the very dramatic debate I had witnessed that day. [No other reporters were on the floor when the bill passed.] None of the later stories reported the eloquent opposition to the ban.
More important, I will always remember walking into the UPI bureau across from the news room at the News and Observer and hearing my bureau chief still on the phone with his superiors in New York. This was Robert “Bo” McNeill, a proud UNC graduate, who was saying into the phone, “But they ARE reactionaries; he’s right.” He refused to fire me. He hung up the phone, grinned and said: “Well, you sure screwed up this time.” And the next day he wrote me a commendation for doing a fine job covering the legislature.
posted by Perry Deane Young at 1:49 PM
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