Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was an American politician and leader of the conservative movement. He was elected five times as a Republican to the United States Senate from North Carolina. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001 he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates. Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected Senator in North Carolina's history. He was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state. He successfully advocated that conservative whites move to the Republican Party because the national Democratic party was too liberal for them. The Helms-controlled National Congressional Club's state-of-the-art direct mail operation raised millions of dollars for Helms and other conservative candidates, allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns. 

October 18th, 1921 in Monroe  /  Died:   Jul 4th, 2008 - aged 86