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Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:35:08 -0400
To: Eva Revesz <erevesz &AElig hotmail.com>
CC: Robert Felty <robfelty &AElig umich.edu>, improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Andrew Reeves <andrew.reeves &AElig wayne.edu>
Subject: Re: "We GAVE Israel nuclear weapons"
Status: RO

Trixie:
   Your idea that the USA "dictate[s] who is allowed to have nuclear 
weapons and who isn't" has no historic validity. Those weapons were 
first developed in this country with British collaboration, and in the 
first few years after the war only these two countries had them. 
I think you can take it for granted that the USA would have liked 
nothing better than to keep it that way. However, by about 1949 the 
Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb (whether by research of 
their own or by spy services is uncertain) and France soon followed 
suit. The secret was out (by today's standards, it's scientifically 
no big deal, really) and in short order India got it and Pakistan too. 
Somewhere around then Israel also developed it, although as Rob pointed 
out, they never explicitly admitted that. Thus far, the "nuclear club" 
acted responsibly and avoided its use in local skirmishes. The collapse 
of the Soviet Union gave the world some anxious moments in this respect 
and I am afraid we haven't heard the last of that problem yet--but the
last thing the world should allow to happen is the spreading of this 
weaponry to the Ayatollahs of Iran or other crazies like Kim Jong Il. 
If you see this as arrogance of the USA then you are quite mixed up, 
Trixie--as you were in adding the last paragraph of your job-seeking 
letter to your e-mail!                      --love, Dad