La nascita del programma nucleare iraniano. Washington e Teheran tra alleanza e reciproci sospetti 1956-1979

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and understand the role of the Shah of Iran, and his close relationships with the United States, in the development of the Iranian nuclear program before the Revolution of 1979. The period covered goes from the assignment of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran in 1946 to the 1979 when finally Iran and United States found an agreement about mutual nuclear cooperation. The first part of this study examines the situation when Mohammed Reza Pahlavi became Shah of Iran and then during the ’50 when the role of the Shah was consolidated and the United States gradually gave greater support to the Iranian regime. The first step to develop nuclear energy is traced back to 1957, in connection with the increasing military and economic assistance to Iran from the Eisenhower’s Administration. In the same year, the two countries announced an agreement for cooperation and research in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. This first agreement came under the auspices of the Atoms for Peace program launched by Eisenhower. Two years after the agreement Mohammed Reza Pahlavi ordered the establishment of an institute at Teheran University, the Teheran Nuclear Research Center, and negotiated with the United States the supply of a five-megawatt reactor. Despite this important steps the Iran was not prepared to develop such an important technology and during the ’60 the United States provided nuclear fuel and equipment that Iran used to start its research up. The second part of the dissertation examines the development of the program during the ’70 and the relation between Teheran and the Gerald Ford’s Administration. In March 1974, the Shah established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and announced plans to get 23,000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear power stations. By the mid-1970s Iran had signed contracts with several Western Countries, including France and Germany, for the construction of nuclear plants and supply of nuclear fuel. At the same time the Ford’s administration began to suspect about the real intentions of the Shah and worked out several solutions to try to control the developments of Iran’s nuclear program. The mutual suspicions led to various deadlocks in the negotiations between the two countries. In this situation the United States tried to adopt some solutions that would have allowed control of the program like for example the “multinational reprocessing plant” or the “buy back solution”. The third part examines the development of the program during the Carter’s administration. President Jimmy Carter, agreed to accommodate the Shah’s requests, but still only to the extent that U.S. proliferation concerns were met. Under Carter, finally, the Shah was willing to make all the concessions that proved he was not trying to build a bomb such as forgoing plans for plutonium processing plants and the President permitted U.S. companies to sell reactors to Iran in 1978. In 1979 the revolution was imminent and the nuclear program had to be abandoned.