Bono and Jesse Helms

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jesse Helms hosted international rock star Bono and Hollywood actor Chris Tucker in his office Wednesday to discuss strategies for tackling the problem of AIDS in Africa.

The meeting brought together some of the most conservative Republican senators with two huge stars in the entertainment industry to raise high a torch not normally carried by Republicans.

Helms, reviled throughout his career by people who think he has ignored AIDS, said recently he wants to spend his remaining time in office fighting the problem in Africa, where it has reached epidemic levels.

In addition to Helms, Republican Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Bill Frist of Tennessee gathered for an hour.

"Oh, I loved it," said Tucker, giving a manicured thumbs up as he strode out of Helms' office after the meeting.

Tucker, star of Hollywood blockbusters such as Rush Hour, is doing research for a new movie in which he will star as America's first black president. In the film, to be called Mr. President, Tucker's character eradicates AIDS in Africa. Filming is set to start shortly in Virginia.

Bono, who has lobbied on the hill to improve conditions in underdeveloped nations, always creates a stir. At one point, he got stalled at a metal detector. The operator had no idea who Bono was and kept sending him back through the box until finally figuring out that it was his blue-tinted sunglasses that were setting off the alarm.

And at the Capitol outside the Senate majority leader's office, Helms handed Bono the keys to the scooter he uses to get around more easily. Bono gladly took it for a spin.

Shortly after Bono arrived at Helms' office but before word got out that the rock star was there, two girls walked into the hallway, deeply red-faced and dazed.

Elise Chevalier, 17, of Cary, just happened to stop by the office with her friend hoping to meet her senator and get her picture made with him. "When we walked in, they said today's my lucky day," she said, fanning her flushed face. "I had no idea he was going to be here. I mean Bono."

As word spread, the crowd in the hallway grew larger and rumbled with anticipation. The office took on the feel of backstage at a rock concert. At one point, Bono stepped outside for a group picture. After the camera snapped and people's poses relaxed, Bono nodded his head of brushed-back dyed hair and said, "Wow. Very cool," and returned to Helms' office.

Later Santorum swung open the heavy wooden door and stood in the doorway as the crowd erupted into cheering. With a dorky grin, he waved as though the crowd really wanted him to emerge.

Inside Helms' office, senators had their own Bono fan club, lining up to get their pictures taken with him.

Though Helms often invokes the name of Bono, he hardly swoons over him. As the meeting broke and pleasantries were exchanged, Helms shook Bono's hand. Then he gripped the star's arm and all smiles went out of his face.

"You're going to involve (the international) private sector, too, right?" he asked, referring to Helms' demands that the effort be paid for by the entire international community and not just Americans.

After the stars and other senators left, Helms leaned on his four-pronged cane in his office. He looked around the quiet office thoughtfully as his chief of staff, Jimmy Broughton, rearranged chairs from the meeting.

"We really got started, Jimmy," he said. "Bono knows what he's doing."


© 2002 Charlotte Observer and wire service sources

Helms admits 'shame' over inaction on AIDS
John Wagner

02/21/2002
The News & Observer Raleigh, NC

Washington -- U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms said Wednesday that he was ashamed
to have done so little during his Senate career to fight the worldwide
spread of AIDS and pledged do more during his remaining months in
office.

"I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant
about AIDS," the North Carolina Republican told a gathering of several
hundred Christians at an international conference on AIDS held at a
Washington hotel. "I'm not going to lay it aside on my agenda for the
remaining months I have."

Helms, who will retire in January, later told the crowd he was "so
ashamed that I've done so little."

Aides said Helms' most pointed remarks were not included in his
prepared text. He appeared at the "Prescription for Hope" conference
at the invitation of the Rev. Franklin Graham, a friend, whose
charity, Samaritan's Purse, organized the event.

During his 30-year Senate career, Helms has clashed repeatedly with
gay activists over AIDS funding and comments blaming homosexuals for
the spread of the disease.

A decade ago, Helms was widely quoted saying funds for research and
treatment of AIDS were being allotted "not because of its threat to
society, but on the basis of media hype and who can make the loudest
noise in the halls of Congress."

In recent years, however, Helms has worked more quietly to steer
funding for AIDS treatment and relief to Africa and other poor
nations, where the disease has become a major epidemic. In 2000, while
still chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Helms
co-authored legislation authorizing $600 million for such efforts.
Today, HIV and AIDS affect roughly 40 million people, according to the
World Health Organization. More than 28 million of those live in
sub-Saharan Africa.

On Wednesday, Helms suggested his views had also been influenced by
Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2. Bono visited Helms in
September 2000 to talk about debt relief to poor nations, and the pair
struck up an unlikely friendship.

Helms said Bono has cited the many Bible passages that urge followers
to help the unfortunate, which Bono interprets to include people
afflicted with AIDS.

Helms on Wednesday also praised the efforts of Janet Museveni, the
first lady of Uganda, a nation in east central Africa, for her efforts
to stop the spread of AIDS through a campaign based on "biblical
values and sexual purity."

'Senator No' shows he's pro Bono

By JOHN WAGNER, Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- On certain foreign-policy issues, rock star Bono has Sen.
Jesse Helms' ear. If the senator has any ears left, that is. This week,
Helms took in most of U2's concert in Washington at the invitation of Bono,
the band's front man.

"It was the noisiest thing I ever heard," Helms reported afterward. "I
turned my hearing aids all the way down and kept my hands over my ears much
of the time."

But he said he was "fascinated" with his first rock show -- at age 79.

"It was filled to the gills, and people were moving back and forth like corn
in the breeze," Helms said. "They had that crowd going wild. ... When Bono
shook his hips, that crowd shook their hips."

Helms and Bono struck up a friendship last fall when the singer lobbied
Helms on international debt relief.

On Wednesday, they dined together. On Thursday, Bono set up Helms and his
grand children with sky-box seats and invited them backstage before the
show, where Helms hung out with U2 guitarist the Edge.

Helms, who left before the encores, said he was most impressed with Bono's
stamina. "I don't see how he lasts physically," he said. "He runs and skips
and just goes and goes."

Helms didn't come away with a list of favorite songs. In fact, "it was so
loud I couldn't really understand what he was saying."

Watch Real Video:

010614_bono.smil&proto=rtsp

U2 singer, Jesse Helms discuss AIDS

June 13, 2001

 By Dana Bush CNN Capitol Hill Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U2 lead singer and activist Bono called Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina a "brave and bold man" for inviting him to lunch Wednesday to discuss the African AIDS crisis. "It's an extraordinary thing, I will admit, to have Jesse Helms to throw a lunch for you," said Bono. "You know it's bad for both of our images."

Bono said he was impressed that Helms "cares deeply about what is happening in Africa right now" and that "there is a move here in the Capitol to do something more historic about it. "I'm very humbled. I'm having my world turned upside down, and I'm surprised that people should be so generous in letting an obvious outsider in."

"You'll never be an outsider. You'll always be a friend here," Helms quickly responded, shaking the singer's hand for the cameras. The lunch, which took place in the Senate Foreign Relations reception room of the Capitol, also included Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tennessee., Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

".....(Bono) managed to stop by Jesse Helms office. The picture that came out of the meeting may go down in history along with the Nixon-Presley shot of three decades ago. Bono, amazingly, looks like he's having a good time — and oddly enough, so does Helms. Bono may be a lefty, but he's not afraid to at least be pictured with a lion from the Right." National Review

Bono: "When I met with Senator Jesse Helms, he wept."

What exactly did you do to make Jesse Helms weep?

"I talked to him about the Biblical origin of the idea of Jubilee Year, the idea that every 49 years, you were supposed to release people from their debt and slaves were supposed to be set free. It's very punk rock for God, but I think it's in Leviticus. He was genuinely moved by the story of the continent of Africa, and he said to me, 'America needs to do more.' I think he felt it as a burden on a spiritual level."