 When he was being promoted, a number of colleagues warned that he was not a decision maker.Early in his tenure, Nuckolls joined Lowell Wood and Edward Teller in a visit to the White House to brief President George Bush Sr. on Wood's Brilliant Pebbles concept for the Strategic Defense Initiative.This was a break with tradition, where Directors generally remained aloof from such actives, and a number of commenters stated this made the lab "like any other defense contractor".