Jessie Helms, the former North Carolina senator with the courtly manner and mossy drawl who turned his hard-edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.

Mr. Helms’s former chief of staff, James W. C. Broughton, said the senator died at the Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh, N.C., where he had been living for the last several years. Mr. Helms had been in “a period of declining health” recently, Mr. Broughton said.

In a 52-year political career that ended with his retirement from the Senate in January 2003, Mr. Helms became a beacon for the right wing of American politics, a lightning rod for the left and, often, a mighty pain for presidents whatever their political leaning.  

Ronald Reagan, a friend who could thank Mr. Helms for crucial campaign help, once described him as a “thorn in my side.” Mr. Helms was known for taking on anyone, even leaders of his own party, who strayed from his idea of ideological purity.

“I didn’t come to Washington to be a ‘yes man’ for any president, Democrat or Republican,” he said in an interview in 1989.

“I didn’t come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”