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The Metamorphosis of Arch Conservative Jesse Helms

He has abandoned his own conservative principles, sold out the POW/MIA issue, betrayed American farmers and is uncharacteristically quiet about the Red Chinese intelligence penetration of the White House.

By Ted Sampley
March/April/May 1997

Republican Senator Jesse Helms, known nationally as a devout anticommunist, an unswerving defender of rural American farmers and a patriotic advocate for America's POW/MIAs, has been "born again." The Helms of today is more gentle and has a newly developed liberal fondness for some of the same communists he had made a career out of exposing as "ruthless, godless, brutal, and atheistic."

This mind boggling "love thy neighbor" metamorphosis of North Carolina's arch conservative senator, who liberals loved to hate, has nothing to do with Helms' Christian teachings of "forgiveness."

It is about money, deceit and betrayal, all of which were epitomized in March 1996, when Helms cozily welcomed Vietnam's charge d'affaires, Le Van Bang, to North Carolina. With Le Bang posed at his side, Helms was photographed telling the press that communist Vietnam is a welcome "economic partner" for North Carolina. The Helms red carpet welcome included a visit to the high-tech Research Triangle Park and a tobacco plant, followed by dinner at the governor's mansion and a visit to Helms' coveted nonprofit Jesse Helms Center at Wingate University near Charlotte, N.C.

When reporters pressed Helms about whether North Carolina might be exporting more jobs than products, he impatiently answered "The more we export, the more people we can employ. We live in this world. We have to participate in the affairs of the world."

Asked by a reporter about complaints of religious persecution, human rights violations and the use of child labor in Vietnam, Helms said "The best way to handle that is to get to know one another and have communication."

This uncharacteristic behavior of Helms is a transformation baptized in the ink of contracts which sealed a joint business venture in Vietnam between Helms' most powerful backer and contributor, R.J. Reynolds International, Inc. (RJR) and the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Anticipating more rigid U.S. government regulation of tobacco, RJR has for several years been quietly building cigarette manufacturing capabilities in Vietnam and other countries.

To that end, RJR has spent more than $21 million building manufacturing facilities, while at the same time moving to take full advantage of Vietnam's twenty cent an hour slave labor by teaching the communists how to grow tobacco and manufacture cigarettes.


Vietnam law requires its Communist Party, which has outlawed the importing of most foreign goods including tobacco, to own at least 30% of any business operating in Vietnam.

Helms has refused to answer written requests from The U.S. Veteran Dispatch for an explanation of how the growing and manufacture of tobacco products in Vietnam helps the embattled tobacco farmers in this country.

Soon after entering the tobacco business in Vietnam, RJR corporate managers realized they could not protect RJR's Vietnam investments without U.S. taxpayer sponsored Overseas Private Corporation Insurance (OPIC). Businesses covered under OPIC would be reimbursed with U.S. tax dollars if, for example, Vietnam's Communist Party decided to confiscate U.S. business investments in Vietnam.

OPIC operates under the authority of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Under the terms of that law, the president can extend OPIC protection to U.S. businesses if he declared it "in the national economic interests."

However, without normalized relations and the exchange of ambassadors between Hanoi and Washington, initially opposed by Helms, the issue of OPIC protection for U.S. businesses operating in Vietnam was null and void. Helms had promised the POW/MIA families and Vietnam veterans he would "never" allow normal ties with Vietnam until Hanoi had made an "honest and full" accounting of U.S. servicemen missing in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, Helms coldly violated that promise and helped open the door to Vietnam for his contributors by supporting President Clinton's posting of a U.S. ambassador to Vietnam in April of this year.

In doing so, Helms joined the ranks of other greedy politicians and corporate lobbyists who have sold out the POW/MIA issue, betrayed American farmers and are jeopardizing the security of the United States for the love of money.

Soon after Helms inherited the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1995, mega contributions began pouring into the Helms political machine from a virtual who's who of corporations lobbying to expand and protect their businesses in Vietnam and China.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Glaxo Wellcome, Citibank, First Union, AT&T, Federal Express, Coca-Cola, etc, are all associated with the effort to remove the POW/MIA issue as an obstacle to full trade and diplomatic relations with Hanoi.

The Jesse Helms Center received at least $325,000 in contributions from foreign governments, $225,000 of which came from the government of Taiwan, the number one investor in Vietnam with $3.6 billion invested. Taiwan, along with Red China and Vietnam, is accused of making illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and to President Clinton.

First Union Corp. of Charlotte, N.C. and First Factors of High Point, N.C. gave at least $183,000 in soft money to the North Carolina Republican Party and $7,500 to the Helms for Senate Campaign.

First Factor is a subsidiary of First Union, which is in a partnership with Lippo Group and the Red Chinese-owned Hong Kong Chinese Bank. The First Union/Lippo/Hong Kong Chinese Bank partnership has millions invested in Vietnam.

The FBI suspects Lippo, which is a family controlled banking conglomerate of "overseas Chinese," of being a conduit by which Red Chinese intelligence agents gained access to the White House with millions of dollars in illegal contributions to President Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Red China's anti-democratic thug government is rapidly emerging economically and militarily as a world power. It has available literally billions of dollars earned in lopsided trade deals with the United States to buy American political influence and the latest military hardware.

The Conversion of Helms

Several days before his November 1990 re-election, Helms had released a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Interim Report which concluded that U.S. prisoners of war were left behind alive in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War had ended. He told the press he was haunted by that thought.

Helms' interim report was bold and it contradicted President George Bush's POW/MIA stance that "no conclusive" evidence existed proving live POWs were left behind. Bush administration insiders were embarrassed and infuriated by the report.

The conversion of Helms coincides with the 1991 appearance of retired Adm. "Bud" Nance as director for Helms on the minority staff of the Foreign Relations Committee. Nance is a former National Security Council (NSC) advisor who served during the Reagan/Bush years.

Within months, Nance had purged the Helms staff of all who had anything to do with compiling and releasing the POW/MIA report.

Helms claimed his staff was fired because he felt they were "pursuing an independent agenda at a cost of isolating him from the Bush administration and other Senate Republicans."

However, from the day Nance showed up, the POW/MIA families have received no significant help from Helms in seeking the truth about what happened to their loved ones that his report had concluded were abandoned alive in Vietnam.

The Helms for Senate Campaign, the Jesse Helms Center, and even the North Carolina Republican Party have received significant help since the Admiral became the ramrod of Helms' senate committee. Just like the Democrats, their coffers are filled with money from the powerful and greedy who care for nothing but to make money.

News reports say that aside from the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations Helms accepted from political action committees, he also accepted a whopping $750,000 from RJR for the Jesse Helms Center.

The Nance Connections

Nance is a trustee for the Jesse Helms Center. He is best friends with Brent Scowcroft, a retired Air Force Lt. Gen. and Henry Kissinger's former deputy national security adviser who later served on the NSC under President Bush. Scowcroft and Kissinger each gave $1,000 to the 1996 Helms campaign.

Scowcroft is a trustee of The Asia Pacific Policy Center, which was established in 1993 by former policy experts who had served at various times in the Reagan/Bush administrations. The Policy Center's objective is to push for closer ties between U.S. government and business officials in Southeast Asia.

Also with the Policy Center is Douglas Paal, who served on the NSC during the Reagan years, Frank Carlucci, former Defense Secretary for the Reagan administration, Frank Lavin, another former NSC advisor for Reagan and Bush, and David Brown, a 30-year career State Department official.

The Policy Center has very strong ties to William Cohen, the former Republican senator from Maine, who Clinton recently appointed Secretary of Defense. As a matter of fact, Cohen's son, Kevin, was the Policy Center's program director until September, 1994.

Secretary of Defense Cohen is politically affiliated with Anthony Stout, a wealthy well-connected Republican lobbyist and businessman.

Stout, according to a February 1997 article in The American Spectator, helped bankroll the Policy Center when it started in 1993. He is connected to the U.S.-Thailand Business Council, founded in 1994 by Thai government and business officials who wanted to strengthen business between the two countries.

According to the Spectator, "one of the main movers behind the Council was Pauline Kanchanalak, a woman from a wealthy Thai family who runs a consulting business called Ban Chang International, based in Washington, D.C."

Kanchanalak is of Lippo fame and associated with the infamous John Huang. The DNC was forced to return $253,500 that she gave to the DNC between 1993 and 1996. Huang is being investigated by the FBI for a possible Red Chinese intelligence penetration of the Clinton White House.

Nance's bosom-buddy is the infamous former POW and Navy pilot Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ). Since the early 1990s, McCain, whose long time friend and best man at his wedding is none other than Cohen, has led the push on Capital Hill for Hanoi.

McCain's wife Cindy and her beer baron father, James Hensley, own millions of dollars in Anheuser-Busch stock. Hensley & Co. is the second largest Anheuser-Busch distributorship in the United States. Anheuser-Busch has recently invested tens of millions of dollars to brew beer in Vietnam and China and its lobbyists had been pushing for normalized relations with Vietnam.

Since the early 1990s, nearly every present and former U.S. government official mentioned above is on the record attacking the POW/MIA issue.

Scowcroft suggested to the Washington Post in 1991 that the POW/MIA issue was nothing more than "unscrupulous people" using Pentagon data to prey on the hopes of family members.

McCain, in 1992, while defending the communist Vietnamese, called the POW/MIA families and Vietnam veteran activists "the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam."

The facts expose the real "most craven and despicable scam artists." They are certainly not the POW/MIA families and Vietnam veterans who have dedicated their lives to bringing our missing servicemen home.

And Helms, the so called "protector of conservative values," has turned out to be a Judas.





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