Reviews
"If Ronald Reagan was the smiling, avuncular face of conservatism, Jesse Helms was its snarling pit bull—though, as Link (History/Univ. of Florida) notes, he rejected the "imperiousness of some of his colleagues" and was even "rated among the nicest senators" in a magazine survey of some 1,200 Capitol Hill employees. He may have been courtly and well-spoken, but Helms also carved a political niche in the civil-rights era as an opponent of desegregation and federal intervention in the South's delicate little problem. "His insistence on white 'rights' as a sort of natural right would become a consistent theme in his rhetoric about race," writes Link, one that scarcely matured as he ascended the political ranks. Fulminating against race-mixing, he also darkly warned in 1970 that the "longhairs" in the streets might just get a revolution after all, "but not the kind they expect." Helms was right, of course, and he gloried in the reactionary '70s and '80s, serving as a vigorous ally of and spokesman for just about any South-American dictator who came along, "reporting to his constituents favorably about their authoritarian regimes" while railing against Jimmy Carter's plan to return the Panama Canal to Panama. In his later terms, he groomed the likes of Trent Lott, allied himself with fundamentalists and anti–gay rights activists and vigorously opposed a holiday for Martin Luther King. His last days in the Senate were spent battling the appointments of African-Americans to various posts, even though he seems to have melted, at the end, when rock star Bono came calling with his program of debt relief for Africa.
Link's scholarly and unsparing biography of Helms is recommended reading for anyone who wonders how the nation ever became what it is."
-- Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2007
'“Righteous Warrior” should stand as the go-to biography of Helms for some time. Not only will Link’s thorough research and dutiful reconstruction of Helms’s career deter successors, but his core analysis is hard to dispute. “If you want to call me a bigot, fine,” Helms himself once growled, while ranting against a Clinton administration appointee for being “a damn lesbian.” Link is too dispassionate and fair-minded a historian to make this book a monochromatic portrait in bigotry. Yet his account leaves little doubt, ultimately, about what made Helms such a figure of vilification throughout his long career — and what simultaneously allowed such a vilified figure to enjoy so much sustained success." -- David Greenberg, New York Times Book Review, February 10, 2008
"By any measure, Jesse Helms, the former five-term U.S. senator from North Carolina (now 86 and retired), has been one of the most momentous figures in modern American political history. He arguably saved the political career of Ronald Reagan, played a lead role in bringing the organizational muscle of evangelical Christians into the Republican coalition, leveled justified and withering criticism at the United Nations and its corrupt ways, and unstintingly laid down an anticommunist marker in Central America in the 1980s. His efforts made the world a better place.
But there can be no doubt that Mr. Helms, with his blunt, angry rhetoric and frequent reactionary rigidity, encouraged the growth of a slash-and-burn style in American politics. Worse, he gave voice, early in his career, to bigotry against black Americans and, later, against homosexuals. His words poisoned otherwise defensible arguments about public policy.
The mixed legacy may explain why conservatives these days so seldom adduce Helms as a hero of their party, allowing the positive aspects of his legacy to go unheralded. Now along comes William A. Link, a self-proclaimed political liberal, to fill the silence. As he writes: "Perhaps because of the tendency to view Helms in ideological terms, he has been widely underestimated, misunderstood, and even ignored by journalists and historians."
"Righteous Warrior" is an admirably thorough and fair treatment of a controversial figure, though a bit dry and soulless given the drama that Jesse Helms brought to political life. Mr. Link acknowledges Mr. Helms's estimable qualities right away. His opening paragraph notes a 1998 survey of 1,200 congressional staffers that rated Mr. Helms among the "nicest" members of the U.S. Senate. Mr. Link spends the next several pages cataloging Mr. Helms's manifold personal kindnesses, his responsiveness to constituents, his strong work ethic and other virtues. Immediately we see a man of charm and substance, and we understand how a North Carolina voting public could continue to elect him despite the national media's eagerness to demonize him."
Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2008 (full review)
""Righteous Warrior" is an ambitious, well-researched work that will probably be the definitive take on Jesse Helms for some time." Washington Times, March 4, 2008 (full review)
"In a 1981 cover story on Helms, Time magazine described him as a "'saint to his fans'" and "'a dangerous buffoon to his foes.'" Link reveals Helms to be neither saint nor buffoon but rather a powerful and influential political force who contributed significantly to the reconfiguring of modern conservatism." Chicago Tribune, March 9, 2008 (full review)
"William A. Link's Righteous Warrior is a scrupulously fair biography of a man who gave himself entirely to protecting a way of life he saw as endangered." Washington Post, March 9, 2008 (full review)
National Review Online, March 6, 2008
American Spectator, March 31, 2008
Washington Monthly, March 2008
Durham Herald-Sun, April 6, 2008
Raleigh News and Observer, May 18, 2008
"Bill Link's masterful biography of Jesse Helms lays bare the roots of his conservative politics grounded in his white supremacist childhood and documents Helms's influence in shaping the course of national politics. Exhaustively researched and crisply written, Link proves Helms's importance to the Republican Party's southern strategy at home and his exportation of conservative southern values into U.S. foreign policy. This is fundamental reading for anyone interested in the rise of conservativism and politics in general in our time."
-- Glenda Gilmore, Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University
"Professor Link's fascinating political biography of Jesse Helms is also an authoritative study of the rise of the New Right. Through Helms's career, we see the knitting together of the various strands of conservatism that account for Ronald Reagan's triumph in 1980, the Republican Party's Congressional revolution of 1994, and much else. Vivid characters and important issues fill the pages of 'Righteous Warrior,' and the reader is eager to keep turning those pages."
-- Sheldon Hackney, Boies Professor of US History, University of Pennsylvania
"Historian William Link captures in this incisive biography the complexity of Jesse Helms—a personally kind and charitable man who supported racial segregation; an affable and principled politician who played hard ball politics to get what he wanted; and a controversial symbol of the New Right in America, a hero to his followers and a demon to his enemies."
--Donald T. Critchlow, Author of The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History