Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 1, No. 3 | Sam Nunn an interview (low bandwidth)

Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a foundation committed to reducing the global threat of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He is also a senior partner in the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding, where he focuses his practice on international and corporate matters. He served as a United States Senator from Georgia for 24 years (1972-1996). Nunn is also a trustee of Carnegie Corporation of New York. He is interviewed here by Susan Robinson King, Carnegie Corporation Vice President, Public Affairs.

SK: Here we are in an age of globalization and interconnectedness and it feels like foreign policy is not the center of attention for the American public. Does that seem like a disconnect to you?

SN: It’s a paradox because never have we been more involved in the world economically than we are now, and never have we had so many business people keeping up with and learning about what’s going on around the world and probably never have we had, except during World War II, the kind of deployment of military forces rotating in and out of as many parts of the world as we do now. So the military and the business community are learning about and experiencing a great deal of what’s happening around the globe. And yet, the American public, which has a vital stake both in the business and economic side of global developments, as well as the security side, seem not to be interested. So there are disconnects, some of which are understandable in our post-cold war period, some of which are inexplicable to me.

SK: Is it because the American public thinks that since we’re the only existing superpower, what goes on in other places is irrelevant and that we set the world’s foreign policy agenda?

SN: It may be partly that but it may also be that we’re all being overwhelmed with information. At some point, you read about all the horrible things happening in places in Africa—Sudan and Burundi and Rwanda, for example—and you read about the problems in Chechnya and you read about North Korean children starving and you say to yourself, I can’t do anything about it, it doesn’t seem like it’s relevant to my personal life even though it’s tragic and so I think I’ll just tune out. I’m not sure the decision is that conscious, but I do think there may be some of that going on.

SK: Tell me about Sam Nunn the young man. What gave you a hunger to get involved in national security issues and international relations? How did that develop?

SN: I suppose the proximate cause was my experience working for the House Armed Services Committee when I was just one year out of law school. My great-uncle was chairing the committee and as I say somewhat facetiously, when I graduated from law school in 1962, the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives hired me because of my outstanding law school record, my great personality, the great potential they saw in me for the future and also, coincidentally, that my great-uncle was chairman of the committee. So I call that benevolent nepotism. Nevertheless, I worked there for a year and that stimulated my thinking. Even when I went back to my small hometown of Perry, Georgia, when my father was ill and I had to help my mother with the farm, I kept up with what was going on internationally. I really was motivated by my experience as a staff person in Congress.

But, frankly, I didn’t realize how much I’d kept up with events in Washington, not just regarding the military, but on the economic front and others as well, and how much that one year had whetted my appetite for intellectual growth in that arena, until, after serving four years in the Georgia House of Representatives, I ran for the United States Senate in 1972 and got involved in a series of debates.

I thought I was at a tremendous disadvantage because I was in a run-off primary election with the incumbent, Senator David Gambrell. And I was broke. I had no money. So I challenged him to debate and he agreed the next day, which surprised me, because he was loaded with money—a great advantage. We had seven TV debates and, I believe, three radio debates in about a two-week period. It was very intense. I went into it thinking, there’s no way that I can compete and yet, because I’d kept up with national and international events during the ten years that had gone by since I’d had the Congressional experience as a young person, that put me on at least equal ground, and when you’re equal to an incumbent, on TV you usually have the advantage.

SK: There’s an endorsement of the power of television.

SN: The power of television, and also the tremendous effect, at a young age, that exposure to some kind of public service can have, whether it’s in Washington or at the local level, which I think is life-shaping for a lot of young people. I’ve seen that in the interns I’ve had at my office in Washington. Whether they went back to the farm or ended up in business, in a law practice or in government, the experience had a huge effect on their understanding and knowledge and thirst for participation in public affairs.

SK: I want to talk about the Nuclear Threat Initiative which you now are focusing on, an opportunity made possible by Ted Turner with his commitment of $250 million over five years. Is this a foundation that gets to really shape foreign policy and focus on security threats in the new framework of a changed post-cold-war world?

Next page: We still have thousands of nuclear weapons, as well as a tremendous amount of other nuclear material and know-how out there contributing to the growing danger of terrorism and accidents.

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