This is John Batchel, a conversation with Brandon Weikert, the author of the book The Shadow

War, about the long history and run-up to the Islamic Republic of Iran's hostility, not only to the

United States, but to the whole neighborhood it lives in and making more on Israel, especially

about the non-proliferation policy that was signed on by Iran early on, however, is now clearly threatened at every moment by Iran's suspect nuclear weapons program.

What we're looking at here is a long road to arrive at a hostile power that is failing badly. Where did the

atomic energy part come in? How is it that Iran started on the path to building a weapon?

Brandon Weikert explains in the Shadow War, much more of this tonight. Well, basically, back in the

Eisenhower administration, remember, President Eisenhower

was doing a bunch of stuff to try to compete with the Soviets at sort of the soft power

level.

So basically we were funding dam projects in Afghanistan before the Soviets could build dams

there.

We were funding, you know, other humanitarian aid programs in Egypt and throughout the Middle East to try to prevent the Soviets could build dams there. We were funding other humanitarian aid programs in Egypt and throughout the Middle East

to try to prevent the Soviets from gaining access to the region through humanitarianism.

And Adams for Peace was not about spreading nuclear weapons.

It was about saying, hey, nuclear energy could be the wave of the future,

and we're willing to share with you civilian nuclear

technology so that you can become a modern country. And the Shah was very much interested in

becoming a modern, making Iran a modern power not reliant on fossil fuel, even though they were

one of the largest producers of it. But of course, any nuclear technology is dual use.

So what can be used for generation of nuclear power could very easily be tweaked by scientists to be made into a nuclear weapon.

Hi, Georgia.

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