Constituent Mail Analysis Project > Analysis of 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War Correspondence

In early 1991, Senator Nunn, then Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, created a whirlwind of controversy when he chose not to support a Senate resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. Iraq had invaded neighboring Kuwait on 2 August 1990, and President George H. W. Bush had started moving U.S. troops to the region three days later. Nunn believed that continuing the economic blockade and sanctions against Iraq would break that nation's will and prevent costly conflict. He never doubted America's resolve or military preparedness, however. Indeed, he and Senator Barry Goldwater were the primary architects of the 1985 Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act which stripped away layers of military bureaucracy and laid the basis for more interservice cooperation and which therefore made the swift U.S. victory possible. (Please see the Gulf War Resources page for more information about the war.)

Because he was the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Nunn received letters regarding the Persian Gulf from citizen's throughout the United States. This section of the CMAP site allows researchers to explore constituent support for the war by analyzing the number of letters received by Senator Nunn expressing support for or opposition to the war.

The dataset used for this section of the CMAP site includes only correspondence management system records dated August 1990-December 1991 with the subtopic "Iraq-Kuwait." Documents in Senator Nunn's papers state that his staff decided use the subtopic "Iraq-Kuwait" for all correspondence related to the war. Constituent opinions expressed in the correspondence (pro/con/other) were derived by analyzing the reply paragraphs used in the response letter. An index to those paragraphs indicates that some were intended as responses to letters from people who supported the war, while others were intended as responses to letters from people who opposed the war. In addition, some correspondents wrote in on other aspects of the war, including the condition of the troops, Iraqi compliance with U.N. sanctions, and delivery of mail in the Gulf. Records for letters related to these other topics have been coded as "other" for the purposes of this pilot project.