Dinner and A Nuclear Deal

Note: Transcript is from an earlier broadcast and may contain some inaccuracies.

BRIAN: Welcome to the show. I’m Brian Balogh.

ED: I’m Ed Ayers.

PETER: And I’m Peter Onuf.

SHAH OF IRAN: Mr. President, Mrs. Carter–

MALE SPEAKER: On New Year’s Eve, 1977, the Shah of Iran hosted a banquet for the President of United States.

SHAH OF IRAN: This reception is particularly auspicious, since it takes place on the eve of 1978. Since the distinguished guest tonight is such a person of good will and achievement, nationally, we consider it as a most excellent omen.

ED: In hindsight, this may have been a case of wishful thinking. Seeds of discontent were already visible in Iran. Street demonstrations against the Shah had started cropping up the previous fall. But when Carter stood up to toast his counterpart, it was evident that he didn’t think much of those protests either.

PRESIDENT CARTER: Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. This is a great tribute to you, your majesty, and to the respect, and the admiration, and love which your people give to you.

BRIAN: Carter was in Tehran to discuss, among other issues, a deal that had been in the works for years, the sale of nuclear processing equipment to Iran. The agreement had been initiated under the previous President, Gerald Ford. It was pushed by Ford’s chief of staff, a young Donald Rumsfeld, as well as by Rumsfeld’s successor, a man named Dick Cheney. Most of the Shah should be taken at his word when he said that his oil rich country needed a renewable energy source for the future. Of course, not everybody in Washington agreed.

GARY SICK: There were a number of people who were very concerned that the Shah secretly wanted to build a nuclear weapon, and that in fact, we were giving him the capability of doing that.

BRIAN: This is Gary Sick. He was a member of the National Security Council who accompanied Carter on his New Year’s trip. And Sick says those voices of caution, well, they didn’t have much of an impact. The Shah was a trusted ally. There was a lot of money to be made, billions of dollars, in fact. And as for the possibility that these enrichment facilities could one day fall into the wrong hands, Sick says nobody gave that much thought.

GARY SICK: There really was not any great concern. The Shah was not an old man. He had lots of experience. He seemed to be in complete control of everything. He had a powerful army. He had a very sinister and effective security service. He had everything that you could imagine going for him, and there really was no speculation about the Shah falling.

BRIAN: The deal never came off.

MALE SPEAKER: The Ayatollah Khomeini appears tonight to have come to full power in Iran, as he said he would, in another of those bloody convulsions that have recently swept the country.

BRIAN: In just over a year, the Shah of Iran would be fleeing his country, with the Iranian revolution on the brink of victory. Within a few years, Iran’s new leaders had secretly jumpstarted their nation’s nuclear processing capabilities. And when discovered, they claimed they were doing it for peaceful purposes, and the regime has maintained that line in the year since. Now, Gary Sick doesn’t take their claim at face value. But he’s quick to point out that when it comes to nuclear enrichment, their ulterior motives do have a precedent.

GARY SICK: The policies they’re pursuing basically are no different at all than what the Shah was pursuing. In the Shah’s case, I think what he wanted was for everybody to know that he could go for a nuclear weapon if he needed to. And I would say that the present government in Iran has the same view in the back of their mind. They want everybody to know that Iran is a real power, that if you push them around, they are going to have the capacity to respond to you.

BRIAN: There is one more similarity between then and now, the cast of characters on the American side. People like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. It’s just that in the first case, they were advocating for the nuclear deal. But in recent years, they’ve been some of the biggest skeptics of Iran’s claims.

GARY SICK: It is ironic. But basically, if you have a real problem with hypocrisy, you’re in the wrong business of international relations. Basically, that’s the way the game is played. It’s not a matter of principle. It’s a matter of whether you’re friends or not friends.

ED: Whether you’re friends or not friends. In other words, huge international policy decisions often come down to a matter of trust. In the case of Iran’s success, that trust was all but hollowed out during the hostage crisis of ’79 and ’80. At the same time, he’s very hopeful about a new deal that would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for allowing nuclear processing there to continue on a limited basis. If this deal is approved, as expected this week, Sick says Iran will have its first opportunity in 35 years to demonstrate that it can indeed be trusted.

GARY SICK: I think a lot of the people who are highly critical of the agreement right now as being less than perfect in the sense, Iran will find a way to cheat. That’s their whole criticism of the agreement. If it turns out that Iran doesn’t cheat, then in fact, it will take the wind out of those criticisms. And I think slowly, but surely, there will be some kind of a change.

BRIAN: So you can imagine the day when Dick Cheney returns to his roots and is back in Tehran, selling nuclear technology to Iran?

GARY SICK: Not Dick Cheney.

[LAUGHING]

ED: That’s a bridge too far obviously?

GARY SICK: That’s a little too far. But I can imagine a US president going to Tehran, as Jimmy Cartier did, and basically, discussing technological exchange. I can imagine that situation at some point in the future.