Will Sam Nunn Give Political Cover’ to Left Disarmers?

In her column today, the Washington Post’s unreconstructed liberal columnist, Mary McGrory, spilled the beans on the new agitprop organization that former Senator Sam Nunn will be heading and CNN founder Ted Turner will be bankrolling — to the tune of $250 million over five years:

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are delighted that the Turner-Nunn team has taken the field. One of the welcome side effects is that it makes life easier for them when they question Rumsfeld at his confirmation hearings. Arms controllers were pleased when Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came out in favor of reviving the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty [sic]. Democrats who were humiliated by its rejection blame President Clinton for a limp performance on its behalf. They also fault him for not killing National Missile Defense when he had the chance. Now Sam Nunn will be providing them cover on these issues. (Emphasis added.)

Ms. McGrory has thus confirmed the essence of two articles by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. that have appeared in National Review Online in recent weeks: Senator Nunn is no conservative. He may not even qualify any longer as a "New Democrat" — to the extent that term still connotes greater robustness on national security positions in the wake of Senator Joe Lieberman’s dismal performance as the party’s Vice Presidential candidate.

If Sen. Nunn now proceeds to employ the Turner millions to promote anti-defense, pro- unilateral disarmament agreements — like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — far from providing political cover, he will be uncovering the left-of-center line to which he has been increasingly hewing.

One wonders whether, as the Soviets used to say, it is "a coincidence" that in the same week when Mr. Turner launches his $50 million a year agitprop campaign — a budget that would have been the envy of any Cold War era active measures agent — he has announced that he will seek Vladimir Putin’s approval to take a $100 million plus stake in fugitive Vladimir Gusinsky’s media empire. Putin — who Turner first met in his role as KGB official/Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg when Turner was promoting his Goodwill Games — could hold Turner’s investment hostage, because assuming he grants the license, as a strategic foreign investment it can be rescinded at any time.

Also curious is that this investment comes at a time when other foreign investors have fled and are staying away from the Russian market, state security organs have been implicated in a series of assassinations of journalists and human rights advocates and Turner himself has announced that he will lay off some 1,000 journalists in CNN’s U.S. offices.

Nunn, Turner Pick a Fight

By Mary McGrory

The Washington Post, 11 January 2001

Two big-footed Georgians came to town this week to announce their intention of getting the country’s attention on the subject of arms control, which hasn’t been seriously discussed since the Senate voted down the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty over a year ago. Media mogul Ted Turner thinks that nuclear weapons should be eliminated while former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) does not. But they’re teaming up because they think they offer a combination of money and clout that could get things going.

Turner is giving $ 250 million to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and Nunn, who was revered in the Senate for his military expertise, will be its chief executive.

Arms control may rank behind even campaign finance reform in the incoming administration’s preferences. George W. Bush is surrounded by veteran hawks such as Vice President-elect Cheney and Defense Secretary-designee Donald H. Rumsfeld. Except for a glancing reference to nuclear weapons as "expensive relics of dead conflicts" and a vague statement about reducing them, Bush has discussed his intentions of building up the military, tearing up the ABM treaty and putting up the National Missile Defense system.

NMD is a deal-breaker for any arms control accord — it roils the Russians and alienates allies. But the Bush circle is so keen about it that they have indicated that if the Russians refuse to cooperate in revising the ABM treaty so that deployment is allowed, they’ll blast forward anyway, even though the machinery doesn’t work.

At the Turner-Nunn press conference at the National Press Club, Nunn was serene about the adverse climate for official new measures. During his Senate career, he came to control as many as a dozen votes on military matters. He was treated like a god by both parties. When the Senate was wrestling with the nomination of Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.) to be secretary of defense, Nunn’s decision that Tower would not do was crucial. When, as they so often do, the Republicans were trying to torpedo the ABM treaty, Nunn delivered a series of three stately speeches against the notion, and the Republicans fell back.

With Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who is on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn pushed through a dubious Senate a bill that authorized cooperation with Russia on nuclear weapons and fissile materials and some kind of welfare for Russian nuclear scientists. It had been tough sledding at the beginning, Nunn said complacently.

Under the present charter, Nunn will not be using his formidable lobbying skills in the new venture. He will be organizing, choosing non-governmental peace groups like the Center for Defense Information, Peace Links and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities to help with additional funding for public campaigns.

Turner will write the checks. He has a weakness for endangered species. He has bought huge chunks of ranch lands in five western states and is trying to return them to a natural state. He has come to the rescue of the United Nations with a gift of $ 1 billion, and recently presented a check to cover our past-due arrearage to the U.N. Turner talks a lot, and puts his money where is mouth is.

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are delighted that the Turner-Nunn team has taken the field. One of the welcome side effects is that it makes life easier for them when they question Rumsfeld at his confirmation hearings. Arms controllers were pleased when Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came out in favor of reviving the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Democrats who were humiliated by its rejection blame President Clinton for a limp performance on its behalf. They also fault him for not killing National Missile Defense when he had the chance. Now Sam Nunn will be providing them cover on these issues.

Rumsfeld, who led a study commission on NMD, concluded that the United States is within a few years of being vulnerable to North Korea. Rumsfeld and company ignore the heroic efforts of South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung to reconcile the north and south and to coax the volatile northern leadership away from its preoccupation with missiles.

One of Capitol Hill’s stalwarts on arms control, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) of North Dakota, welcomes the addition of two strong voices such as Turner and Nunn to the small chorus on nonproliferation.

"I was excited to see what they are doing," he said. "We need to tell the American people that security just doesn’t come from military buildup and missile shields. It comes from moral leadership. We should be the leading nation on curbing the spread of nuclear weapons. Sam Nunn is conservative enough that he gives respectability to the cause. This is one of the most important issues facing humankind, and maybe Turner and Nunn can get Congress and the country to pay attention to it."