Alexander Haig Quotes
We cannot have as our goal a world that cannot conceivably come to pass unless all scientific knowledge of the atom is erased.
Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of State (Republican), White House Chief of Staff, Army General, Testimony, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 29, 1988
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There was no problem with Iran having nuclear power. However, they wanted to utilize a process with which fuel for nuclear bombs could be made. Russia had offered to provide them with nuclear fuel for any power plant that they might want to create, but Iran refused insisting that they had a right to enrich their own uranium. Then they lied to the inspectors for the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. They had threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” and the major Arab nations in the area secretly asked the United States to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons even if force had to be used. Economic sanctions were tried first.
There had been so much nuclear activity—military and civilian—that he thought it inevitable, either by intention or accident, that there would be some catastrophes. Chernobyl and the crash of a nuclear bomb equipped plane in Spain destroyed the two areas for years thereafter proved him prescient but fortunately none of the “incidents” were bad enough to affect millions of people significantly although the damage of Chernobyl is still being discovered.
Sandia is a company that has gotten almost all their business from the Federal Government for doing research and development of nuclear weapons. Based on this view and others the AEC and the military not only developed small atomic bombs with short range rockets that could be transported in jeeps, but actually developed a 51 lb. atomic bomb that a soldier carried on his back. The idea was for these solders to parachute behind enemy lines, place the bomb near an important enemy facility and escape the critical zone on foot before the bomb exploded. It was never used in combat and receded in interest except for the fact that it proved it was possible for a terrorist suicide bomber on foot to place and explode a nuclear weapon.
The alternative deterrent was to maintain an army of over 2 million men overseas in both Europe and Asia, and the cost was much greater than the then perceived cost of nuclear weapons. At the time no one figured the cost of coping with the radioactive material and waste as well as the cleanup of nuclear bomb factories like Hanford. These costs were still not known byt the 21st century.
The Iranian religious theocrat of Iran sees the issue as one where the United States is trying to keep nuclear technology from Iran and other Islamic countries. He seems to discount his own often uttered calls for “death to America” and the statements of intended war with the United States by the leading military officer of Iran. See {624408}.
One of the many Goldwater statements that made most Americans believe he was not prudent enough to trust with the nuclear “trigger”, See {622850}.
Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. was the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and the White House chief of staff under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to these cabinet-level positions, he retired as a general from the United States Army, having been Supreme Allied Commander Europe after serving as the vice chief of staff of the Army.
