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Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir
Jesse Helms
Random House
September 2005
On Sale: August 30, 2005
336 pages
ISBN: 0375508848
EAN: 9780375508844
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
The highly-anticipated memoir by one of the giants of the
U.S. Senate–a book as fascinating, frank, and full of
fervor as the man himself. The first Republican elected to the Senate from North
Carolina since Reconstruction, Jesse Helms was both a bane
and a boon to Presidents for thirty years, championing such
core conservative causes as low taxes, anticommunism, and
school prayer, while working to become Chairman of the
crucial Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a post he
attained in 1995. Now he chronicles the inside story of his
rise to power and all those who defended or fought him,
from Nixon and Reagan to Kennedy and Clinton. Born a seventh-generation citizen of the small town of
Monroe, Helms recalls his hardworking family and the
inspiring image of his father, the six-foot-five-inch chief
of the town’s fire and police departments. As a result of
his career in journalism, Helms was introduced to both his
beloved wife, Dot, and the conservative views of her
father, Jacob Coble. At the time of his greatest influence
as a radio editorialist, Helms ran successfully for the
Senate in 1972, arguing that a “spiritual rebirth” was
needed in America and that it was necessary to derail “the
freight train of liberalism,” beliefs to which he remained
faithful for the rest of his career. From a time when conservatives in the Senate “could have
met comfortably in a phone booth” to the recent
consolidation of conservative power in every branch of the
federal government, Jesse Helms was a mover, shaker, and
lightning rod for the Republican Party on issues ranging
from the Panama Canal to race relations to Roe v. Wade to
Iran-Contra. Yet Here’s Where I Stand is more than just the story of
Helms himself. It is a series of intimate portraits of
people he befriended and, at times, beat back: Richard
Nixon, his respect for whom turned to disillusion; Jimmy
Carter, a fellow son of the South with whom he had little
in common; Ronald Reagan, the long-shot star whom Helms
supported early and then saw become his favorite U.S.
leader; Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle, be
they kindred spirits like Barry Goldwater or friendly foes
like Paul Wellstone; and world leaders to whom he became
close, as disparate as Margaret Thatcher and the Dalai Lama. All the events of the recent past that shook and shaped
America are recounted by Helms as he experienced them from
his seat at the center of power, including the Kennedy
assassination, the Watergate hearings, the fall of the
Soviet Union, and the Clinton impeachment. A fitting coda
to his impressive career, Here’s Where I Stand is at once a
revealing glimpse into the spirit of an important
politician and an engaging journey through much of the past
American century.
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