The former North Carolina senator had a courtly manner and mossy drawl and turned his hard-edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art.
AP - "Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.
AP - Video recorded during the rescue of 15 rebel hostages shows them filing grim-faced toward the helicopter that would fly them to safety, then hugging one another and crying with joy after they are aloft and realize they are free.
AP - It's Staff Sgt. Edgar Covarrubias' second Fourth of July in Iraq. No family barbecue, no fireworks, but Covarrubias says he'll call his mom, wife and kids to share the day anyway.
It begins with the grim-face hostages being led across a field in handcuffs and ends in hugs and tears aboard a helicopter as the 15 realize they have been freed -- without a shot fired -- after years of captivity in the jungle. The video shown Friday at Colombia's military headquarters documents the secret rescue operation one U.S. official has described as "brilliant."
About half a million people are expected Friday on the National Mall in Washington for the nation's birthday celebration, but they may be shocked at what they see.
Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died today at the age of 86, the Jesse Helms Center announced. Helms once said his job was to derail the freight train of liberalism.