It was Uncle Sam who first gave Iran nuclear equipment
Washington - For all the recent uproar over Iran's nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States.
In 1967, under the "Atoms for Peace" program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold the Shah of Iran's government a 5-megawatt, light-water type research reactor. This small dome-shaped structure, located in the Tehran suburbs, was the foundation of Iran's nuclear program. It remains at the center of the controversy over Iranian intentions, even today...
... The Shah of Iran was a US ally. But even so, the US had qualms about providing him with nuclear technology. The worries were very like those of today: officials thought it possible that Iran would build on nuclear power programs to develop nuclear weapons technology.
A 1974 Defense Department memorandum, recently declassified and posted on-line by the National Security Archive, noted that stability in Iran depended heavily on the Shah's personality. Should he fall, "domestic dissidents or foreign terrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear materials stored in Iran for use in bombs"...
Read entire article at The Christian Science Monitor
In 1967, under the "Atoms for Peace" program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold the Shah of Iran's government a 5-megawatt, light-water type research reactor. This small dome-shaped structure, located in the Tehran suburbs, was the foundation of Iran's nuclear program. It remains at the center of the controversy over Iranian intentions, even today...
... The Shah of Iran was a US ally. But even so, the US had qualms about providing him with nuclear technology. The worries were very like those of today: officials thought it possible that Iran would build on nuclear power programs to develop nuclear weapons technology.
A 1974 Defense Department memorandum, recently declassified and posted on-line by the National Security Archive, noted that stability in Iran depended heavily on the Shah's personality. Should he fall, "domestic dissidents or foreign terrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear materials stored in Iran for use in bombs"...