"Some men are born great,
some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness
thrust upon 'em'."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
See. Sam Nunn Biography
Sam Nunn
UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography, (2003)
An expert on national defense and chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee in the 100th Congress (1987-1989), Sam Nunn (born
1938) was elected to the United States Senate from Georgia from 1972
until his retirement in 1996.
Sam Nunn's capacity for winning Democratic senatorial elections
in Republican years classified him as a ";Boy Wonder" of Georgia and
the New South. In 1972, when Richard Nixon took nearly 70 percent of
the vote in his state, Nunn won his first election to the United
States Senate by a comfortable 54 percent against Republican Fletcher
Thompson. Again in 1984, when Ronald Reagan captured Georgia by over
60 percent, Sam Nunn won his third election, against Mike Hicks, by a
whopping 80 percent. And in the 1984 election he had the sup****t of
his Republican senatorial colleague from Georgia, Mack Mattingly
Born in Perry, Georgia, on September 25, 1938, Sam Nunn was the son of
Samuel A. and Elizabeth (Canon) Nunn. Educated in Perry public school
system, where he was a star basketball player, he grew up in a family
steeped in learning and politics. His father, a well-known lawyer-
farmer, was a dedicated reader and collected an excellent library
which Sam Jr. patronized avidly. His uncle, the nationally-known Carl
Vinson, set records for congressional service, concentrating on duties
as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Sam and his older sister were raised in a strict Protestant atmosphere
which brought them to Perry's Methodist Church regularly, under the
influence of their mother Elizabeth Nunn, who survived her husband
into her 80s, still living in the family home in Perry in 1986.
As a result of his family's political connections, young Sam Nunn had
the op****tunity to meet many Georgia politicians, including Senator
Herman Talmadge, with whom he later served as junior senator during
the twilight of Talmadge's career.
Nunn attended Georgia Institute of Technology from 1956 to 1959, then
took time out for a stint in the Coast Guard. Returning to civilian
life, he graduated with a B.A. from Emory University in 1960 and
earned his LL.B. two years later. For a while he practiced law and in
1965 married ColleenO'Brien, with whom he had two children,
Mary and Samuel.
In 1968 he won his first election to the Georgia House of
Representatives. To him, it was a stepping stone to the federal House
of Representatives, but a planned congressional district which would
win him that prize failed to be organized, forcing him to try for the
United States Senate in 1972. As a newcomer barely out of his 30s, he
had little hope of success, even Carl Vinson felt it was too soon, but
Nunn surprised everyone by winning.
From his first days in Wa****ngton he concentrated on defense, working
with the giants of both parties to learn and develop without regard to
ideological factionalism. He disagreed, but without rancorous and
divisive rhetoric. When he believed in an issue, he voted for it,
whether it was a Carter initiative or one from Reagan. His moderation
earned him praise from the more conservative press and political
leader****p of the nation. His 1981 ratings from Americans for
Constitutional Action (conservative) was 71, while Americans for
Democratic Action (liberal) gave him a 35. These figures do not
explain Nunn's Democratic Party values nearly as much as does his
member****p in the D.L.C. (Democratic Leader****p Council). He founded
this organization in 1985 with other moderates such as Charles Robb,
Joseph Biden, and Lawton Chiles to restore the South and West, as Nunn
put it, to the mainstream of American politics, other goals were a
strong national defense, commitment to arms control within reason, and
retention of civil rights gains. Among other D.L.C. members, Nunn was
perhaps more conservative, as evidenced by his early sup****t for the
Strategic Defense Initiative (known popularly as;Star Wars and aid to
anti-Communist Contra forces in Nicaragua.
As a senator, Nunn showed that he was capable of innovation and
creativity as well as of the hard work required to master the details
surrounding America's national defense. He became expert in defense
terminology and had the capacity, tenacity, and wit to see defense
issues in the larger context of fiscal integrity and future planning.
The bipartisan "build down proposal" which Nunn co-authored with
Republican senator William Cohen of Maine, provided both the United
States and the former Soviet Union with the flexibility necessary to
replace and modernize their multifarious systems of weapons while at
the same time reducing the number of warheads in each arsenal. The
purpose was to allay American fears of Russian long-range missiles and
Russian fears of American long-range bombers.
Nunn's ideological credentials and his grasp of details made him a
formidable foe of Pentagon waste and inefficiency. He was hostile to
stretch out long periods of funding for weapons development and
production since they tended to bleed the nation of its resources
while providing nothing in return. He opposed the controversial new
B-1 B bomber on grounds that it could not accomplish its primary
mission namely, to dodge Soviet defenses and strike at internal
targets in Russia.
|
