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6. The Dawn of a Conservative Era: Gaining Power, 1968 to 1972
- University Press of Florida
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164 6 The Dawn of a Conservative Era Gaining Power, 1968 to 1972 Since the 1950s, Helms had alternated between premonitions of an America doomed by an immense conspiracy and a nation saved by conservatism ’s ascent. At the end of the decade he labeled the “sick Sixties,” Helms concluded that America would either choose conservatism or succumb to the left-wing conspiracy that had been stalking the nation for decades. “The longer I live,” Helms wrote Dr. Peele, his John Birch Society contact, “the more persuaded I become that there is a definite, perilous conspiracy far beyond anything imagined even by Robert Welch. And there is an incredible organization ready to pounce upon anybody who mentions it.” In a similar vein, Helms painted an image of sinister forces steering the nation before a high school chapter of Future Farmers of America. “I am unalterably persuaded that even the best-intentioned people of America have been—and are being—misled.” But there was always the hope the nation would turn to conservatives: “You live in an era when many are beginning to come alive to the fact that they have been subjected to three or four decades of brainwashing.”1 Conspiracy theories had been a key feature of pious incitement since the 1950s. Helms admitted to Peele that it was “next to impossible” to find proof that a left-wing conspiracy existed.2 The lack of evidence, however, did not undermine conspiracies’ political value. Helms equated radicals, liberals, and moderates with Cold War enemies. He accused activists of violence to justify using violence against them. His tendency to lump everyone to his left into a single category fueled his suspicions. Although establishment liberals like Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and radicals in black power and antiwar movements viewed each other with The Dawn of a Conservative Era: Gaining Power, 1968 to 1972 · 165 disdain, Helms believed that liberals and radicals were complicit. Conservatives could turn the upheavals of the decade to their benefit. In the early 1960s the mainstream media had focused on the heroic civil rights struggle in the South. Vigilantes and southern law enforcement targeted decorous protesters for sitting in the front of a bus or ordering a cup of coffee. This story was a simplified version of the issues at stake, but it was an attractive story for news media, especially television. The protests of the late 1960s—antiwar and black power—did not lend themselves to the sort of simple morality tale television favored.3 In retrospect, 1968 was the year a conservative era dawned. After the disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago, Helms surmised, “All of a sudden, it’s no longer unpopular to be a rightwinger.” Even the liberals admitted that voters were fed up. The year was so promising that Helms considered a run for governor. But a shift toward conservatives was far from certain. Helms feared that Republican nominee Richard Nixon would run as a moderate out of political expediency. Helms used WRAL to push the debate as far to the right as possible during the election and after—never hesitating to criticize Nixon.4 From 1968 until Helms’s election to the U.S. Senate in 1972, urban riots, the failing effort in Vietnam, continued liberal influence, and the activism of the black power, antiwar, and feminist movements made his prognostications of doom seem plausible. Events aided his efforts to further the backlash against Democrats no matter how moderate. By 1968 his audience had expanded to forty weekly papers and fifty radio stations in North Carolina alone, and more than two hundred thousand people had written or called in response to Helms’s commentaries. Nationally, Viewpoint appeared in ten daily papers and aired on radio stations as far away as Oregon . Human Events and the Citizen, the magazine of the white Citizens’ Council, reprinted Viewpoints. And Viewpoint continued growing to two hundred newspapers across the country and seventy radio stations over the next few years. By 1972, three hundred thousand people had written.5 Two decades of mixing his media career with politics culminated in Helms’sentranceintothe1972Senatecontest.ButHelmswasnotapolitician. He was first of all a media insider—a news director, a reluctant entertainment executive, and a conservative television personality. He had refined pious incitement for eleven years on WRAL. Conservatives encouraged him to run, and voters responded favorably because of Viewpoint. Helms’s years addressing civic clubs and students made him an effective public [3.215.183.194] Project MUSE (2024-03-28...