Reply #43: If Kerry Can Work With Jesse Helms, He Can With Anybody [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

I think this little gem from the Boston Globe profile demonstrates how a flaming liberal like Kerry builds bridges with the centrists in his Party, and even further across to the other side of the aisle.

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Kerry had spent the spring conducting an unauthorized investigation into reports that the Reagan administration was illegally providing aid to the rebel Nicaraguan Contra armies, which were attempting to overthrow the left-wing government of that Central American nation. At this closed session, he planned to urge the committee to launch an official probe.

...

Behind the scenes, Kerry had forged an unlikely alliance with Senator Jesse Helms, the hidebound conservative from North Carolina. As the senior Republican on the committee, Helms was the key to Kerry's hopes. And the key to Helms was the drug war.

In the course of their investigation, Kerry and his staff had found evidence that some contras had ties to drug smuggling. If there was one class of villain that Helms deplored as much as the communists, it was drug traffickers.

On matters of political philosophy, Kerry and Helms were polar opposites. Yet each was something of a maverick, contemptuous of the capital's courtiers and willing to rock the clubby Senate. "I spent time with Jesse," Kerry recalls. "I talked to him. Talked his language. Jesse didn't believe the same things I did in many cases, but he was a gentleman. He was a man of his word."

As Kerry finished his presentation, the senior members turned to Helms, taking his temperature on the issue. "Jesse? What do you think about this?" asked Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the panel, according to a transcript of the then-secret session. "I know you are a contra supporter."

"I will tell you what I do not support, and John Kerry and I have talked about this: anybody sending drugs into this country," Helms told his colleagues. "I do not care whose side they are on."

Helms was on board. The committee reached a consensus: It would investigate the contras and the contra-drug connection.

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/062003.shtml

Follow up (oddly enough) in a Windsurfer Magazine article:

Jesse Helms entered the senate elevator with John Kerry and me. In my eyes, I conjured up preconceived images of this man who was reputed to have singlehandedly challenged free speech and artistic expression. I watched him in silence-a silence that could have easily continued without acknowledgement.

To my right, Senator Kerry broke in and said something I can't recall and Jesse Helms responded. Again, I can't recall the words but I remember the tone-a tone that surprised me. There was a familiarity to their voices, a tone of respect, of understanding and even affection. After their brief exchange, Kerry introduced me and I shook hands with the legend.

As we greeted, I looked into his eyes and caught sight of a frail and elderly statesman. Something changed in that brief encounter-something which made me realize, in retrospect-John Kerry does not burn his bridges. No matter how bad the battle rages, there is a clear truce of civility that binds these political gladiators.

http://www.americanwindsurfer.com/mag/back/issue5.5a.html