RALEIGH, N.C. - Former Senator Jesse Helms, who served 30 years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July, the Jesse Helms research centre says. He was 86.

The centre, based at Wingate University in North Carolina, said today that he died at 1:15 a.m.

Jimmy Broughton, Helms' former chief of staff, says the former senator died of natural causes in Raleigh.

Helms built a career along the fault lines of racial politics.

He battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during his decades in Congress.

He was slowed in later age by a variety of illnesses, including a bone disorder, prostate cancer and heart problems.

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