Samuel Nunn

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and once a seaman in the U.S. Coast Guard, knows better than most how to steer a middle course through treacherous political shoals.

The Pentagon paid tribute to one of its great supporters and keen critics Friday, giving Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) a full military send-off in his last year in the Senate. "He leaves a magnificent legacy of wisdom, tenacity, vision and patriotism," Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in a ceremony on the parade grounds outside the Pentagon.

The controversial B-2 bomber suffered another major setback Monday as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) formally joined the growing list of congressional opponents of the costly warplane. In a floor speech, Aspin said that he can discern no "unique and compelling mission for the B-2" and declared that he hopes to terminate the program when the 15 bombers now under construction are completed.

In midsummer of 1994, Charles E. Redman, then the chief U.S. negotiator in the Balkans, paid a private visit on Capitol Hill to Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and a small group of key lawmakers who were searching for ways to help the struggling government of Bosnia survive the Balkan civil war. Nunn and his colleagues thought they had an answer for one troubling question: how the U.S. could help the outgunned Bosnians defend themselves without directly violating the international arms embargo.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee proposed Saturday that the United States and Soviet Union undertake an unprecedented overhaul of the safeguards they have in place to protect against an accidental or unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said he will make a formal proposal soon to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to begin a sweeping review of existing mechanisms adopted by the armed forces to ensure the security of the nation's nuclear weapons.

Nov. 8 -- George Bush is elected President. Within days, FBI begins background check of his leading candidate for defense secretary, John Tower. The probe focuses on allegations of excessive drinking, womanizing and ties to the defense industry. Dec. 16--Bush ends weeks of speculation by announcing Tower's nomination, saying the long investigation cleared Tower of any serious impropriety.

A few months ago, before Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) split over whether to go to war in the Persian Gulf, Aspin sized up the two defense oracles' comparative political clout and hinted at their intense, though outwardly friendly, rivalry. "I'm the 400-pound gorilla" on defense policy, said Aspin, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. But Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "is the 800-pound gorilla," Aspin conceded.

Dealing a heavy blow to his party's efforts to regain power on Capitol Hill, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) announced Monday that he will end a legislative career that has spanned a quarter-century of change in the Democratic Party, in the South and in the Senate as an institution. Nunn, a leading voice for conservative Democrats and his party's premier spokesman on defense issues, joins a stampede of Democrats--mostly moderates and Southerners--leaving Congress next year.

Two Democratic senators joined with William J. Bennett, author of the popular "Book of Virtues," to criticize advertisers who support what critics call "trash TV" talk shows. The three said the shows are contributing to a decline in morals in America and selling exploitation. In television and radio ads to begin airing today, Bennett and Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.

The White House intensified its search for a new defense secretary on Wednesday after the abrupt and unexpected withdrawal of nominee Bobby Ray Inman. Officials said that Georgia Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had been approached about the job, but Nunn, who has sparred with President Clinton on defense budget issues and on the acceptance of gays in the military, declined to be considered.

Two Democratic senators joined with William J. Bennett, author of the popular "Book of Virtues," to criticize advertisers who support what critics call "trash TV" talk shows. The three said the shows are contributing to a decline in morals in America and selling exploitation. In television and radio ads to begin airing today, Bennett and Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), one of the Senate's most influential voices on national security matters, said he would consider "very strongly" any request from President Clinton to take over from Warren Christopher as secretary of state. Nunn, who is not seeking reelection next year, said, however, that he had not heard from Clinton about any such possibility. "It's a job that anyone would consider, I think," he said.

Sen. Sam Nunn, one of the top authorities in Congress on security and terrorism, warned Sunday that the United States has many inviting and inadequately protected terrorist targets and should pay heed to Japan's painful experience with the Aum Supreme Truth cult. Nunn (D-Ga.) said a study by his staff shows that the Japanese cult, which is accused in the deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways earlier this year, was working to develop biological weapons and the means to deliver them.

Dealing a heavy blow to his party's efforts to regain power on Capitol Hill, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) announced Monday that he will end a legislative career that has spanned a quarter-century of change in the Democratic Party, in the South and in the Senate as an institution. Nunn, a leading voice for conservative Democrats and his party's premier spokesman on defense issues, joins a stampede of Democrats--mostly moderates and Southerners--leaving Congress next year.

Only one day after the White House hailed the accord that staved off a U.S. invasion of Haiti, a wave of criticism erupted Tuesday over the agreement and how the Clinton Administration handles foreign policy--some of it coming from participants in the eleventh-hour mission to Port-au-Prince.

Former President Jimmy Carter was ushered into early retirement by the American voters because they saw him as ineffective at home and weak abroad, but he has shown again this weekend that he retains two surpassing virtues: a preternatural patience and an unshakable faith in his fellow man.

Sen. Sam Nunn dismissed two aides a decade ago after learning they were gay, and gay rights groups say that disqualifies him from a Cabinet post in the Clinton Administration, a published report said Sunday. The Georgia Democrat, said to be a leading candidate for secretary of Defense, has confirmed that he asked the two openly gay aides to leave because of their sexual persuasion, the New York Times said.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday proposed cutting the Pentagon budget by between $80 billion and $85 billion over the next five years, setting the stage for a confrontation between Congress and President Bush over how far to slash defense spending in the post-Cold War period. The proposal offered by Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.

In what President Clinton called "one last, best effort" to avoid bloodshed, a delegation led by former President Jimmy Carter met with Haiti's top military leaders into the early hours this morning, hoping to persuade them to step aside rather than face an invasion by the huge U.S. force poised offshore. Neither side indicated whether any progress was made in the first round of talks, which lasted about three hours Saturday afternoon.

When former President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and retired Gen. Colin L. Powell met with Haiti's Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras on Saturday, the first item on their agenda was persuading the enigmatic general to give up and go into exile--but that wasn't the only thing. Indeed, setting a departure time and destination for Cedras and other members of Haiti's military regime might prove to be the easiest part of Carter's mission, Administration officials say.