Sam Nunn

Sam Nunn was the longtime chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee (1987–1995). He is Co-Chairman and Chief Executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an organization working to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

Nunn is on the steering committee of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest
has been on the board of directors of General Electric, a significant military contractor, with an annual compensation of $312,793 in 2011, since the year he left the Senate (1997). In addition to the issues mentioned above, GE also lobbied on "bank tax and Robin Hood Tax" (a proposed tax on Wall Street financial speculation that could raise $1 trillion for deficit reduction), corporate tax rates, taxes on international operations, housing, energy, and transportation appropriations in the third quarter of 2012. Nunn is also tied to other companies that would benefit from Fix the Debt's corporate tax-cutting proposals, including Coca Cola (board of directors, $212,977 annual compensation in 2011 ), the venture capital firm RRE Ventures LLC (senior advisor), Chevron (board member from 1997-2011), Dell computers (board member from 1999-2011), and the Hess Corporation (currently on the board of directors, compensation figures not yet available, but directors made between $250,000 and $300,000 in 2011 ). Nunn is also chair of the board at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. A CSIS project, Strengthening of America, (on whose steering committee Jim Nussle sits, see below) is a partner organization of Fix the Debt. It has been backed by the Concord Coalition, a deficit hawk initiative co-founded by Nunn and Pete Peterson in 1992. Peterson's foundation gave the Concord Coalition, which Nunn chairs, $6,036,060 from 2009-2012. Nussle is also on the steering committee of the CSIS project, Strengthening of America, which is listed as a partner organization of Fix the Debt.

Other Affiliations

 * Member, Aspen Strategy Group
 * Advisory Board, Partnership for a Secure America
 * International Advisory Board, Center for Nonproliferation Studies
 * International Board, U.S./Middle East Project

Background
According to his biography the Concord Coalition's website, "Raised in the small town of Perry in middle Georgia, he attended Georgia Tech, Emory University and Emory Law School, where he graduated with honors in 1962. After active duty service in the U.S. Coast Guard, he served six years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. He first entered politics as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1968.

"During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Senator Nunn served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He also served on the Intelligence and Small Business Committees. His legislative achievements include the landmark Department of Defense Reorganization Act, drafted with the late Senator Barry Goldwater, and the 'Nunn-Lugar' Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which provides assistance to Russia and the former Soviet republics for securing and destroying their excess nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

"In addition to his work with NTI, Senator Nunn has continued his service in the public policy arena as a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

He is or has been a board member of the following publicly-held corporations: ChevronTexaco Corporation (a Director of ChevronTexaco since 2001 and a Director of Texaco Inc. since 1997), The Coca-Cola Company, Dell Computer Corporation, General Electric Company, Internet Security Systems, Inc., and Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.

Nunn is also on the board of counselors for the Arabic media group Layalina Productions and the board of advisors of the Children's Scholarship Fund.

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