nuclear-news

France’s nuclear weapons program secretly was helped by USA

US secretly helped French nuclear program: documents, Google News By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – 26 May 11, WASHINGTON — The United States secretly helped France develop advanced nuclear weapons in the 1970s as part of a bid by the Nixon administration to sow divisions in Europe, declassified US documents showed.

Henry Kissinger, the senior aide to President Richard Nixon and apostle of realpolitik, is quoted as saying that he wanted to make the French “drool” and think they could compete with Britain, weakening efforts for European unity.

France first tested an atom bomb in 1960 in the Sahara, becoming the fourth nation after the United States, Soviet Union and Britain to go nuclear as President Charles de Gaulle tried to project France as a great world power.

The United States under three presidents refused atomic cooperation with France as it worried about de Gaulle’s foreign policy and feared he was setting off an arms race that would lead the divided Germanys to seek nuclear weapons.

The declassified documents confirmed suspicions that Nixon quietly shifted course after entering the White House in 1969, concluding the United States could not stop France’s program and should instead use it as leverage……..AFP: US secretly helped French nuclear program: documents

May 26, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA