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June 10, 2005

In new memoir, Helms says his AIDS beliefs were wrong

In new memoir, Helms says his AIDS beliefs were wrong

In his upcoming memoir, former U.S. senator from North Carolina Jesse Helms acknowledges that he was wrong about the stance he took regarding the AIDS epidemic but still maintains that integration was forced before its time by "outside agitators who had their own agendas."

Here's Where I Stand, to be published in September by Random House, contains Helms's first extended comments on national affairs since the Republican retired from the U.S. Senate in 2003 after five terms. Advance proofs were described in Thursday's editions of The News & Observer of Raleigh.

Helms, 83, was one of the state's leading voices of segregation as a TV commentator in Raleigh in the 1960s and opposed nearly every civil rights bill while in the Senate. He has never retracted his views on race or said segregation was wrong. In the book, Helms suggests he believed voluntary racial integration would come about without pressure from the federal government or from civil rights protests, which he said sharpened racial antagonism.

Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect gays from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cites friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa. "Until then," Helms writes, "it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior and that it would probably be confined to those in high-risk populations. I was wrong." (AP)

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