From Wikipedia:
The foundations for Iran’s nuclear program were laid in the 1960s under auspices of the U.S. within the framework of bilateral agreements between the two countries. In 1967 the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) was built and run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The TNRC was equipped with a US supplied 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and ratified it in 1970. With the establishment of Iran’s atomic agency and the NPT in place plans were drawn by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (Iran’s monarch) to construct up to 23 nuclear power stations across the country together with USA by the year 2000.
By 1975, The U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, had signed National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation,” which laid out the details of the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran projected to bring U.S. corporations more than $6 billion in revenue. At the time, Iran was pumping as much as 6 million barrels (950,000 m³) of oil a day, compared with about 4 million barrels (640,000 m³) daily today.
President Gerald R. Ford even signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete “nuclear fuel cycle”. The Ford strategy paper said the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.”
soopadoopa says
Gordon Prather’s columns over at Antiwar.com are an excellent resource on the neoconservative push to cobble together a case for U.N. sanctions against Iran for its ongoing efforts to develop the nuclear cycle.
lynne says
Unfortunately, I think that was one where the former call to help Iran was probably somewhat justified (or at least not completely stupid) but when the revolution happened, it left the country in possession of previous materials and knowledge with a hostile government…
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But yes, all roads lead to Rome eventually. Or the US. Whatever.
david says
I’ve known Bill Beeman for years. In addition to being a well-respected professor at Brown, he is an opera singer who actually took two years away from Brown to sing full-time in Germany. What a curiously small world we live in.
ron-newman says
When I arrived as a student at MIT in 1975, the hot issue of the day was a special program to train Iranian nuclear engineers. A student group, CATNES (Committee Against Training Nuclear Engineers for the Shah) had organized to try to shut the program down. I no longer remember what came of the protests.