[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12119-S12120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO SENATOR NUNN

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, we who have the privilege of serving in this 
body soon find that we may not always be in agreement with friends and 
colleagues for whom we have high regard.
  The senior Senator from Georgia (Mr. Nunn) is such a colleague. I 
have always found him to be a man of singular ability, rectitude and 
decency. He came here as a youthful successor to a legendary 
predecessor, Senator Richard B. Russell, and quickly established 
himself as a serious and studious Member who could and did thoroughly 
master the intricacies of national defense policy.
  Senator Nunn's term of service coincided with the last two decades of 
the cold war, and he leaves his mark as one of the architects of U.S. 
defense policy during that trying epoch. I sometimes found myself in 
disagreement with his emphasis on large defense budgets, since I was 
primarily committed to the cause of arms control and restraint in the 
nuclear arms race. History seems to have demonstrated that it took a 
balance of the two views we represented to assure our national 
survival.
  Senator Nunn and I not only shared a common preoccupation with the 
major international issues of the time, but we brought to the task one 
very basic common thread of experience which may have colored our 
responses, and that was the fact that we were among the few members of 
the Senate who had served in the U.S. Coast Guard. I served as an 
enlisted man on convoy duty in the North Atlantic in World

[[Page S12120]]

War II and Sam Nunn enlisted as a seaman some 20 years later when the 
world faced other stresses.
  Sam Nunn leaves the Senate at a relatively early age with a solid 
record of accomplishment. I wish him well in the years ahead.

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