Porn To Raise Hell

By PAUL GRAY/

Running hard for re-election in North Carolina, Senator Jesse Helms is enlisting the so-called dirty pictures he has so publicly opposed. At a barbecue in Burlington, Helms' speech included an invitation -- men only, please -- to examine three portfolios guarded by his assistants. "You won't look long because you just ate," Helms warned the curious, who stepped forward to peer at reproductions of the Robert Mapplethorpe nudes from the show partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. "Tell me whether you resent taxpayers' money going to this!" boomed the Senator.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS