At the start of Jimmy Carter's Presidency, he appointed Dr. Joseph Nye to a high position at the State Department and as Chair of the National Security Council Group on Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Dr Nye was a prominent academic on the subject. He decided that the US should use it's position as the only supplier of uranium enrichment services for the fuel for non-Soviet Bloc civilian nuclear powerplants to get European Governments to agree not to reprocess their spent nuclear fuel.
This uranium enrichment business was a nice little earner for the US Taxpayer. It used excess capacity from the Gaseous Diffusion Enrichment Plants built during the Manhattan Project and earned about a billion dollars a year which went into the US Treasury General Fund, and also employed several thousand Americans at good paying jobs.
It fell to me, a thirty-something Chief of Commercial operations, to go over to the State Department and explain to Dr Nye that the US enjoyed it's monopoly because the cost of building the old diffusion-type plants, and the dedicated electricity generating plants to supply them was enormous. However, a new technology using Gas Centrifuges was much cheaper and if we pushed the Europeans into a corner, they would build their own gas centrifuge plants. The Europeans viewed reprocessing as integral to their plans for dealing with the nuclear waste and so were unwilling to forego the option. Nevertheless, Dr Nye persisted in his plans and the Europeans built their gas centrifuge plant. The US lost a lot of the business; two of the three gaseous diffusion plants closed, and with them their high-paying jobs; and the Europeans maintained their option to reprocess. Another, unintended effect was that the Europeans hired a brilliant young Pakistani engineer named A.Q. Kahn to work on their plant. He stole the designs; went back to Pakistan; built the Islamic Bomb; and sold the designs to North Korea, Iran, and Libya.
So, if I had been more persuasive with Dr Nye, history might have been different. Never doubt the ability for one person to make a difference. I'm older and more experienced, now. And I'm trying to make a difference, again. This time by running as the Democrat in TX-10 against Freshman Republican, Mike McCaul. If I, and a few more like me, can win next year; we'll take over the House and can stop funding for "staying the course". Then we take the Presidency and get this Country back on the right track. It doesn't matter which District you live in. The people will not take their Government back until a few long shots like me and the other Democrats running in Red Districts get elected. It is in the interests of the whole country to support we, the few.Contribute