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Ford's team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium -- the two pathways to a nuclear bomb. Either can be shaped into the core of a nuclear warhead, and obtaining one or the other is generally considered the most significant obstacle to would-be weapons builders.

Iran, a U.S. ally then, had deep pockets and close ties to Washington. U.S. companies, including Westinghouse and General Electric, scrambled to do business there.

"I don't think the issue of proliferation came up," Henry A. Kissinger, who was Ford's secretary of state, said in an interview for this article.

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It seems we were building some of those nuclear power plants for Iran when the Shaw was in power. They had even more oil then.

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Originally posted by Dude

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It seems we were building some of those nuclear power plants for Iran when the Shaw was in power. They had even more oil then.

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Yeah, to bad the killed him.

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But there is very little reason to not hook them up with the no-meltdown plants. They don't use fuel that can be used for weapons.

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Instead we have these assholes playing the tired old bully game. Threats and insults.

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The Shah wasn't murdered, Dude. He was over here for medical treatment and was deposed in absentia. The Shah later died from complications of the medical condition he was victim of.

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Originally posted by Dude

heh, don't know why I was thinking they assassinated the Shah.

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Originally posted by Dude

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It seems we were building some of those nuclear power plants for Iran when the Shaw was in power. They had even more oil then.

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Yeah, to bad the killed him.

But there is very little reason to not hook them up with the no-meltdown plants. They don't use fuel that can be used for weapons.

Instead we have these assholes playing the tired old bully game. Threats and insults.

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Originally posted by filthy

I could be wrong here -- memory gets hazy sometimes, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but didn't the Shah die in France after being asked by the Reagan administration to leave this country?

I seem to recall commenting at the time that we tended to be a less than reliable friend, as it was us that put him in power in the first place.

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The exiled monarch had become unpopular in much of the world, especially in the liberal West, ironically his original backers and those who had most to lose from his downfall. He travelled from country to country in his second exile seeking what he hoped would be a temporary residence. First he went to Egypt, and got an invitation and warm welcoming from president Anwar el-Sadat. He later lived in Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico. But his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma began to grow worse, and required immediate and sophisticated treatment. Reluctantly, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to make a brief stopover in the United States to undergo medical treatment. The compromise was extremely unpopular with the revolutionary movement, which were against the United States' years of support of the Shah's rule, and demanded his return to Iran to face a show trial and execution. This resulted in the capture of a number of American diplomats, military personnel and intelligence officers in what became known as the Iran hostage crisis. Once the Shah's course of treatment had finished, the American government, eager to avoid further controversy, pressed the former monarch to leave the country. He left the United States and lived for a short time in Panama. Finally he went back to Egypt where he passed away on July 27, 1980.

— Wikipedia