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Sam Nunn

American lawyer and politician (born 1938)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ946305
Source-derived summary

Samuel Augustus Nunn Jr. (born September 8, 1938) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia (1972–1997) as a member of the Democratic Party. While in the Senate, Nunn was involved in the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which aims to dismantle weapons of mass destruction, originally in the former Soviet Union. Nunn was also involved in the Goldwater–Nichols Act, which reformed the Department of Defense.

After leaving Congress, Nunn co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats imperiling humanity, for which he is the co-chair. His political experience and credentials on national defense reportedly earned him consideration as a potential running mate for presidential candidates John Kerry and Barack Obama after they became their party's nominees.

Early life

Nunn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Mary Elizabeth (née Cannon) and Samuel Augustus Nunn, who was an attorney and mayor of Perry, Georgia. Nunn was raised in Perry. He is a grandnephew of Congressman Carl Vinson.

Nunn is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.

Editorial summary

“Sam Nunn” enters the record as american lawyer and politician (born 1938). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nunn, American and lawyer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938, 1972, 1997—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1938-09-08. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Nunn, American and lawyer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Sam Nunn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Nunn, American and lawyer provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q946305. VIAF identifies the subject as 165248784. The Library of Congress control number is n50023343. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1972 and 1997.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Building a first chronology
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Sam Nunn primary sources, Sam Nunn archive and Nunn research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Sam Nunn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.