(image via nndb)
Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died last week but not after spending much of the 1990s' causing a ruckus as the powerful chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (as well as mucking up Civil Rights legislation in the 80s). His rancid support of the totalitarian regime in Apartheid era South Africa all but negated his claims at being a conservative freedom lover. But this, from Ernest B. Fergurson's masterful biography of Helms, which The Corsair dutifully read over the weekend, really caused us to sit up and take notice:
"Helms's rise to national prominence attracted reporters, and despite his misgivings about 'the media,' he occasionally invited one to visit him at home. Bill Arthur of the Charlotte Observer wrote about how a photographer started to take Helms's picture in his study when the Senator pulled an illustration off the wall. 'That'll get me in trouble,' he said. The picture showed a black man in a rocking chair on a veranda of a plantation, sipping a mint julep saying, 'This is what me and Martin Luther had in mind.'
"Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that Helms had a generic nickname for blacks: 'Fred.' He told the paper that actually that was not his usage, but perhaps that of two of his former Senate staffers. But an aide said the Senator had a habit of saying, in response to a black request, 'What does this Fred want?' Or, 'Take care of that Fred.' His aide said Helms thought it was funny."
Charmed, I'm sure.
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