Jesse Helms Asked Favors of Hoover

The late U.S. senator Jesse Helms, a longtime opponent of gay and civil rights, tried to gain favor with equally controversial FBI director J. Edgar Hoover prior to beginning his 30-year political career, reports CBS News. Helms would occasionally call on the bureau for information and investigation, according to an FBI file that has been released to the Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request. The file of more than 1,500 pages consisted mostly of reports from agents investigating death threats, some of which came from gay rights activists and supporters of an indoor smoking ban.

Helms retired from the Senate in 2002 and died in 2008 at the age of 86.