Nunn

Sen. Sam Nunn, who had been considered a potentially strong conservative candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said today that he would not run for the presidency in 1988 because of his family and Senate responsibilities. "I know myself pretty well, and I have concluded that if I attempted to run for president and also carry out my Senate duties I would wind up doing neither well," Nunn said in a letter to supporters. Nunn's decision was announced one day after a Republican candidate, former Sen. Paul Laxalt, dropped out of his party's race, saying he had been unable to raise enough money to conduct a viable campaign.

The John Tower confirmation fight turned doubly nasty yesterday, with Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), under fire from Tower's defenders, acknowledging that he had an alcohol-related car accident 25 years ago. "That evening I had enough to drink so that both my driving and judgment were impaired. I pled guilty to leaving the scene, paid my fine, apologized to all concerned, and at the age of 26 learned a valuable lesson which I have not forgotten," Nunn, 50, said in a prepared statement released by his office.

Sen. Sam Nunn yesterday pledged that the Senate Armed Services Committee he chairs would not "play the old-boy game" and would thoroughly investigate former Sen. John G. Tower, the nominee for secretary of defense in the Bush administrartion. At his confirmation hearing, Tower could be held up to more scrutiny than that he gave to Pentagon nominees when he chaired the Armed Services Committee from 1981 to 1984, Nunn indicated. "John Tower is a friend and people on the committee who worked with him know him, and, certainly, I believe he has the qualifications to be the secretary of defense, but we're not going to play the old-boy game this go- around," said Nunn (D., Ga.)

Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.) yesterday upped the ante in his long-running dispute with the administration over how far President Reagan's "Star Wars" antimissile system legally can be developed. In an ominously worded letter to the White House, Nunn warned Reagan that the Senate might have to delay its ratification of any new treaty to ban intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe because of doubts the President has raised about interpreting treaties. Nunn's aides denied that the powerful senator and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee was threatening to scuttle treaties that could crown the final months of the Reagan administration.

To the victors of last Tuesday's elections belong the spoils - but some seem mostly to be spoiling for a fight. Outspoken Delaware County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn yesterday lambasted U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, a fellow Republican from Pennsylvania, calling Specter's criticism of the GOP's right wing a divisively insulting attempt to enhance his presidential prospects. In announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 on Monday, Specter declared that the strong conservative/Christian wing of the Republican Party was destroying the political process.

Delaware County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn announced yesterday that he would hand off the job of director of the county's Veterans Affairs Department to William A. Lovejoy Jr., the county's public relations director. Nunn, who served as a helicopter door gunner during an Army tour in Vietnam, took on the job without pay in 1994. County officials said at the time that the move would save $38,300 a year, the salary paid to the previous director, who retired in 1992. The councilman, a Drexel Hill resident, said that he would continue to be involved in veterans affairs but that he was giving up the director's job because of time constraints.

Delaware County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn, the point man in the effort to contract out construction and operation of its new prison to a private jailer, announced yesterday that he was recusing himself. Nunn presented the council with a letter saying that his investment banking firm, Smith Barney Shearson Inc., has had dealings with the Tennessee-based Corrections Corp. of America, a firm the county is considering, and may continue a relationship in the future. Nunn, who has visited the firm's Nashville facility with other county officials, said he would abstain from voting or otherwise participating in the project to build a new prison in Thornton.

W. Stanley Nunn took charge at the Gloucester County Jail amid controversies surrounding the death of an inmate, staph infection outbreaks, and complaints of cell overcrowding at the 180-bed facility. Yesterday, a little more than a year after county freeholders tapped Nunn to overhaul the troubled jail, officials announced his retirement, saying he had made significant progress in revamping the facility. The freeholders said Nunn, a Bridgeton resident, is leaving his job as director of the Department of Correctional Services for health reasons.

Delaware County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn has found a new way to cut the budget in his ongoing quest for lower taxes. Moonlighting. Today, Nunn will be appointed director of the county's Veteran's Affairs Department by the County Council. Nunn, a freshman council member and Vietnam veteran, will do the job for free, according to county officials. The move will save the county the $38,300 salary that was paid to the former director. "I hope we can continue the same quality of service we have offered to help people deal with the governmental bureaucracy," Nunn said.

Delaware County's most outspoken critic of SEPTA management soon will be in a better position to do something about the butt of his complaints. County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn, who accused outgoing SEPTA General Manager Louis Gambaccini of running a bloated and inefficient operation, is expected to be appointed by his fellow council members today to the transit authority's board of directors. His five-year term would begin Sunday. "I've always been critical of people who complain about something but don't do anything about the thing that they're criticizing," Nunn said.

W. Stanley Nunn took charge at the Gloucester County Jail amid controversies surrounding the death of an inmate, staph infection outbreaks, and complaints of cell overcrowding at the 180-bed facility. Yesterday, a little more than a year after county freeholders tapped Nunn to overhaul the troubled jail, officials announced his retirement, saying he had made significant progress in revamping the facility. The freeholders said Nunn, a Bridgeton resident, is leaving his job as director of the Department of Correctional Services for health reasons.

In 1995, Wallace H. Nunn had a memorable response for a man who complained to the Delaware County Council that his house, built on a flawed landfill, was sinking. "Lose your job, go on drugs, have some illegitimate children," Nunn said. "Then we might be able to help you. " Nunn, elected to the all-Republican council in 1993, has come to be known for his biting speeches and his conservative ideology, which sometimes jolts even his allies in a county GOP that sees itself as pragmatic and moderate.

Americans have become isolated and separated amid a feeling of powerlessness and cynicism that is contributing to a civic and moral decline, according to a report released yesterday by the nonprofit National Commission on Civic Renewal. "Too many of us wait for somebody else to solve the nation's problems," said former Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), who chairs the commission along with former Education Secretary William Bennett. In releasing the report, "A Nation of Spectators," the two men called for a new birth of civic engagement and activity.

Trying to break the Republicans' nearly 20-year stranglehold on Delaware County Council, Democratic challengers have made ousting incumbent GOP Councilman Wallace H. Nunn their mission this fall. "Stop the Nunnsense" bumper stickers announce the campaign theme of candidates Martin Berger, 68, of Ardmore, and Wilma Hutcheson-Williams, 45, of Rose Valley. They are facing Nunn and Timothy Murtaugh, 53, president of the Ridley Township commissioners, in Tuesday's election for two council seats, with Republicans holding nearly a 2.5-to-1 countywide advantage in voter registration.

Delaware County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn announced yesterday that he would hand off the job of director of the county's Veterans Affairs Department to William A. Lovejoy Jr., the county's public relations director. Nunn, who served as a helicopter door gunner during an Army tour in Vietnam, took on the job without pay in 1994. County officials said at the time that the move would save $38,300 a year, the salary paid to the previous director, who retired in 1992. The councilman, a Drexel Hill resident, said that he would continue to be involved in veterans affairs but that he was giving up the director's job because of time constraints.

Ask Sam Nunn to name the weirdest thing that happened to him during his years in the U.S. Senate and he immediately answers Haiti. Nunn had been dispatched with former President Jimmy Carter and retired Gen. Colin Powell in 1994 on a last-minute mission to persuade Haiti's military leaders to step down. As their motorcade drove into Port-au-Prince from the airport, a mob of Haitian soldiers armed with automatic weapons flowed around the cars. "They weren't in uniform. They'd taken their uniforms off. And they had these AK-47s and they were pointing them all over the place and so forth," Nunn recalled.

Over the last decade, as the South steadily fell into their hands, Republicans eagerly awaited the retirement of Sam Nunn, Georgia's dean of Democratic lawmaking. They thought his seat would be theirs for the taking. Now Nunn has retired. But the story isn't unfolding the way the Republicans figured it would. Georgia's longtime secretary of state, Max Cleland, is leading in the polls and is given a better than even chance of defeating businessman Guy Millner and holding the state for the Democrats.

Delaware County's most outspoken critic of SEPTA management soon will be in a better position to do something about the butt of his complaints. County Councilman Wallace H. Nunn, who accused outgoing SEPTA General Manager Louis Gambaccini of running a bloated and inefficient operation, is expected to be appointed by his fellow council members today to the transit authority's board of directors. His five-year term would begin Sunday. "I've always been critical of people who complain about something but don't do anything about the thing that they're criticizing," Nunn said.

If SEPTA can't find a way to pay $250,000 for Phoenix Management Services' audit of its operations, Delaware County Councilman Wally Nunn vows he will. "SEPTA's board and management should find the funds from the $800 million that flows through the transit authority each year," Nunn said yesterday. If somebody at SEPTA doesn't take charge soon, Nunn will ask Delaware County to pay the $250,000 as part of the $6 million it spends yearly to subsidize SEPTA. After laboring two months without pay, Phoenix Management Services staffers yesterday suspended work on the audit.

When supplicants approach the Delaware County Council to appeal for this grant or that appropriation, they can pretty much count on a grilling from Councilman Wallace H. Nunn. How much? What for? Who's getting it? The Drexel Hill Republican has to know. In his nearly two years on the all-Republican council, Nunn has made a point of wearing his role as tax-dollar watchdog on his sleeve. "People come to us as self-described victims," Nunn said. "And I'm in the position of saying, 'Well, to help you, I have to make a victim out of somebody else.