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)
