Jesse's World
Gorry, John
Trial Lawyers' Best FriendNRA's Best FriendNRA's Best ShotMost Missed VotesLongest HandshakeBest HandshakeMost Like John ConyersLeading FeministMost SincereMost InsincereWorst MannersFritz...
...In 1986 Republicanslost control of the Senate, and Helms, of course, lost his chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee...
...Other Senate Republicans, as well as members of theBush administration, began to look strangely at the ForeignRelations Committee...
...And that, of course, was the essential Jesse...
...For one thing, the new staffers were drawn to conspiracytheories...
...He won't send up the ABM Treaty because he knows Iwant to give it a decent burial," Helms said...
...Trial Lawyers' Best FriendNRA's Best FriendNRA's Best ShotMost Missed VotesLongest HandshakeBest HandshakeMost Like John ConyersLeading FeministMost SincereMost InsincereWorst MannersFritz HollingsJohn DingellBob BarrGlenn PoshardRobert TorricelliJames RoganMaxine WatersTrent LottHenry HydeJoseph BidenTom Lantos °``," '.-17,Y.NiMMK444MIE41Best MomsBest ToupeBest ShoesMost Eligible BachelorStrom Thurmond ElevatorPincher AwardBest Donna Shalala ImitationsLarry Pressler MENSA AwardBest Party SwitcherFewest Lucid MomentsWorst Party SwitcherBest GolferMost ObscureBest LookingMeanest LookingMost Afraid of HillaryConnie Morella...
...Something had to be done, and it was...
...The Republicans on the committee, however, did not seeit that way...
...Delicacy stopped him from saying more, although really there was no need to...
...I'll fight him on that...
...nd here he is one final time...
...He decided then that hehad fulfilled his pledge to North Carolina, and would try tobecome the ranking minority member on Foreign Relations...
...Anne NorthrupHenry WaxmanPatty MurrayBarney FrankEdward M. KennedyBarbara Mikulski...
...After all, he was the senior Republican...
...The two have, as they say, a history...
...Hisvoice cracked when he said: "I loved Bud Nance like a brother...
...He worked for Helms until the week before his deathfrom a debilitating blood disease last May...
...As ranking minority member, Helms could choose nine professionals on the committee staff, but even his most devoted admirers do not think he chose verywell...
...It would be nice to think the committee united then in conservative purpose, but it did not...
...This was also the essential Jesse...
...He had told the White Housethat he would not send the treaty to the floor of the Senateuntil Clinton kept his promise to send the Anti-Ballistic MissileTreaty to the committee first...
...He wasJames Nance, once a rear admiral, and by all accounts a lovely man...
...He and Lugar had joinedthe committee on the same day in 1979,but he had served in theSenate four years longer...
...Barbara BoxerSam BrownbackBen Nighthorse CampbellPatrick KennedyJames JeffordsDan BurtonCharlie WhatchamacallitSteve LargentBarbara BoxerCharles Schumer—RET"Lugar and Helms have a complex, cool relationship," a Senate aide said guardedly...
...Lugar and Helms arguedon the Senate floor last year over whose views were more "ridiculous...
...His voice, weak and raspy, but nonetheless unmistakablyclear, replied, 1 love you, too.'" Helms began to cry...
...Many senatorseulogized him then, among them, of course, Helms...
...In my final conversation with him nine days ago, I told himso...
...Helms then appealed the decision tothe other Republicans in the Senate, and in a secret ballotreaffirming the seniority principle they overturned the committee members' vote, and made him the ranking minoritymember...
...They voted unanimously to make Lugar the ranking minority member...
...But it leaves my country, our country, undefended, and I'm not going to let that happen...
...It is September 23, thesame day as the hearing on corruption in Russia, andwhile no news story mentioned it, September 23 wasalso the day that Clinton had chosen for the Senate toratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty...
...One was that passengers had survived the downing ofKorean Airlines flight o07, and were being held in Soviet prisons...
...In 1991, Helms persuaded a boyhood friend from Monroe, North Carolina tocome out of retirement, and reorganize the staff...
...But Helms had blocked that...
...The American Spectator • November 199927...
...He wants to leaveit in place...
Vol. 32 • November 1999 • No. 11
