Helms, a Senate Legend, to Retire in 2003

AUG 21, 2001 Helms, a Senate Legend, to Retire in 2003 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Home Purchase Filed at 4:41 p.m. ET Home Equity Refinance RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the most powerful conservative voices in Congress, plans to retire when his term expires in 2003, The Associated Press learned Tuesday. Two sources who spoke with staffers in Helms' office said Tuesday the five-term Republican will announce his retirement plans Wednesday night on WRAL-TV. The sources spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Helms, who turns 80 on Oct. 18, was first elected to the Senate in 1972. In recent years, he has suffered from a variety of health problems, including prostate cancer. Bill Peterson, general manager of WRAL, confirmed Helms had asked for airtime, but added he didn't know what Helms planned to say. The decision was first reported Tuesday by The News & Observer of Raleigh on its Web site. The paper, quoting unidentified sources, said Helms plans to retire when his term expires in 16 months. Helms' wife, Dorothy, brushed aside reports that her husband was retiring. ``They are just speculating,'' she said. Home Purchase Eddie Woodhouse, a Helms aide in Raleigh, refused to say what the televised Home Equity Refinance remarks would involve. Helms' staff late Tuesday afternoon began telling senior Republicans, including Bush advisers, that he would not seek another term, according to two GOP sources. Miles only rewarded for His departure would complicate GOP hopes of reclaiming the narrowly divided loans funded by E-LOAN. Senate. Democrats seized control by one vote when Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP to become an independent. Another senior Republican incumbent, 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, has said he will not seek re-election next year. Helm's departure would clear the way for failed presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole to seek the GOP nomination. Republican officials were hoping to avoid a nasty primary fight between Dole and former Sen. Lauch Faircloth, who was defeated in 1998 by Democrat John Edwards. Republicans are defending 20 Senate seats in 2002, including Thurmond's. Democrats are defending 14, none of them open. Republicans will counter the Democrats' numerical advantage by targeting seats in the Midwest and South in states held by Democratic senators but won by President Bush in 2002, like South Dakota, Missouri and Montana. The GOP also is expected to put up a stiff challenge in Iowa and Minnesota, two states narrowly won by Vice President Al Gore. Helms, a former newspaper editor and television commentator, has been active in North Carolina politics since he worked to elect segregationist Willis Smith to the Senate in 1950 and was for a time Smith's top aide. A lifelong conservative Democrat, Helms switched parties in 1970 and was elected to the Senate two years later in the GOP sweep led by Richard Nixon. In the Senate, Helms has been a staunch opponent of communist regimes and critic of foreign aid and used the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he held from 1995 until this year, to promote his views. Although he mellowed somewhat in recent years, Helms saw himself as a family values stalwart and he took to the floor often to condemn what he called gay lifestyles. He was seen as unsympathetic to civil rights generally, and vigorously fought the use of tax dollars to subsidize what he considered indecent art, and he was a hard-liner in foreign affairs and outspoken critic of the United Nations. But he also could be personally charming, with a genteel Southern manner. He ended up on good terms with then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright toward the end of the Clinton administration, even though he often disagreed vehemently with positions she took on foreign policy issues. ^------ AP White House correspondent Ron Fournier contributed to this report. Copyright 2001 The Associated Press | Privacy Information .

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