Foreword
In December
1971 the Trustees of the Ford Foundation authorized the
organization of the Energy Policy Project. In subsequent decisions
the Trustees have approved supporting appropriations to a total of
$4 million, which is being spent over a three-year period for a
series of studies and reports by responsible authorities in a wide
range of fields. The Project Director is S. David Freeman, and the
Project has had the continuing advice of a distinguished Advisory
Board chaired by Gilbert White.
This analysis
of "Nuclear Theft" is an early result of the Project. As Mr.
Freeman explains in his Preface, neither the Foundation nor the
Project presumes to judge the authors' specific conclusions and
recommendations. We do commend this report to the public as a
serious and responsible analysis which has been subjected to review
by a number of qualified readers.
This study,
like many others in the Project, deals with a sensitive and
difficult question of public policy. Not all of it is easy reading,
and not all those we have consulted have agreed with all of it. Nor
does it exhaust a subject which is complex, rapidly moving, and
partly hidden under classifications both reasonable and
unreasonable. The matters it addresses are of great and legitimate
interest not only to those who are investing heavily in nuclear
power but also, by their very nature, to every citizen and
community in the country, and the perspectives of these interested
parties are not likely to be identical.
In this last
respect the present study reflects tensions which are intrinsic to
the whole of the Energy Policy Project—tensions between one
set of objectives and another. As the worldwide energy crisis has
become evident to us all, we have had many graphic illustrations of
such tensions, and there are more ahead. This is what usually
happens when a society faces hard choices, all of them carrying
costs that are both human and material.
But it is
important to understand that there is a fundamental difference
between present tension and permanent conflict. The thesis accepted
by our Board of Trustees when it authorized the Energy Policy
Project was that