A friend told me that when Harvey Gantt was interviewed on TV about Jesse Helms’ death the reporter – apparently looking to stir up a bit of controversy – asked Gantt something like, Well, what did you think about Jesse’s record on race? And Gantt said, Well, now’s not the time to discuss that. My hat’s off to Harvey Gantt. But, apparently, he’s the only one who feels that way. The news media have certainly had plenty to say about Jesse’s record: He was controversial. He was mean. He was racist. It seems like every TV station has the videotape of Jesse exploding in rage, calling a reporter a “jerk” and a “liar.”

A little of the courtesy Harvey Gantt showed – if only as a kindness to Jesse’s family – would have been a blessing. It would have done no harm if the media had left Jesse’s political vivisection to the historians. But they didn’t. And there it is. But they’ve generally left out one big fact.

It is hard, today, to realize how people felt back in 1975 after we lost the Vietnam War. To the generation of Americans who had lived through World War II – like Jesse Helms and Ronald Reagan – losing Vietnam said one thing loud and clear: America was losing the Cold War. We were weak. And the generation that had lived through Hitler didn’t see much hope that “détente” with Communist dictators was going to work any better than appeasement with Nazis. Their fear, after Vietnam, was real. And tangible. And they found a voice in Ronald Reagan and, in the Senate, in Jesse Helms.

Thirty years later, a good case can be made the single most important event of the second half of the Twentieth Century was the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

But, of course, all that happened years ago. Communism is no longer a threat. Our victory in the Cold War, like our victories in World War I and II, has taken on an aura of inevitability. And, maybe, that’s right. Maybe men like Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms – who said we should count on strength and not “détente” or “peaceful coexistence” – didn’t make a difference. But if you could turn back the hands of the clock and make Jesse Helms’ political career vanish – would you be willing to take the risk?

After all, without Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan might never have been President – because the first election Reagan won was right here in North Carolina. And, then, there would never have been a Reagan military buildup – which the Russians bankrupted themselves trying to match.

The fact is Reagan was elected and the Berlin Wall did fall and as a result “mutual assured destruction” is no longer the best policy we can come up with to protect our country.

When it comes to Jesse Helms’ legacy, if you’re seeking flaws and foibles you will find them. But what he said and did during the Cold War ought not to be ignored. It’s a pretty big counter-weight on the other side of the scales.

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