Here's Where I Stand

The five-term North Carolina senator and conservative icon describes his humble beginnings, his political principles, his rise to power and his friends among the powerful in this confident, if rarely surprising, memoir. Helms covers his small-town childhood, when "dad served as both chief of police and chief of the fire department"; his early days as a newspaperman, wartime navy recruiter and radio host; his brief time in 1950s Washington as a staffer for conservative senator Willis Smith; and his stint as a TV commentator in North Carolina during the 1960s, which made possible his first winning Senate campaign. The remainder of the book (about three-quarters of it) often defends Helms's unbending principles, his crusades against abortion and for school prayer, and his attempts to "derail the freight train of liberalism." Helms also sketches profiles of each president under whom he has served, saving special praise for Ronald Reagan, who "made clear where he stood," and for George W. Bush. Helms's controversial stance on race relations and his notorious "white hands" advertisement (from his 1990 reelection campaign) receive unapologetic defenses: "I have always counted many blacks among my friends," the senator says. He also explains his late-career conversion to the crusade against AIDS in Africa and his "genuine friendship" with the late liberal Paul Wellstone. Helms concludes as he began, denouncing abortion and affirming his strong faith in "the Christian religion" and "the Miracle of America," in terms that should delight religious conservatives, as well as anyone curious about the longevity, and the integrity, of a political survivor. (Sept.)