Both Helms and Thurmond, both backstabbing miserable lowlife snakes (in the finest traditon of honorable upstanding Southern gentlemen of course) were of no help in 1976.
Actually he did. Quite a number of southern states went for Nixon by one vote under the unit rule. A shift of a total of six delegates would have denied Nixon a first ballot nomination. Thurmond held those delegates in line. Hundreds of delegates were forced to vote for Nixon on the first ballot by state law. If he didn't win on the first ballot he would have lost. Rockefeller never would have won.