Preface

The Energy Policy Project was initiated by the Ford Foundation in 1971 to explore alternative national energy policies. This book, one of the series of studies commissioned by the Project, is presented here as a timely and carefully prepared contribution to today's public discussion about nuclear energy. It is our hope that each of these special reports will stimulate further thinking and questioning in the specific areas that it addresses. The special reports are being released as they are completed rather than delaying their release until the report of the Energy Policy Project is completed because I believe they can make a timely contribution to the public discussion of energy policies. At the very most, however, each special report deals with only a part of the energy puzzle; our final report, to be published later in 1974, will attempt to integrate these parts into a comprehensible whole, setting forth the energy policy options available to the nation as we see them.

This book, like the others in the series, has been reviewed by scholars and experts in the field not otherwise associated with the Project in order to be sure that differing points of view were considered; when, in our judgment a reviewer has presented an especially important argument or conclusion with which the authors do not agree, we shall publish those views as an appendix to the book. Needless to say, the authors give careful consideration to reviewer's suggestions and criticisms in preparing their reports, but in the final analysis, the authors, alone, are responsible for material they present.

Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards is the author's report to the Ford Foundation's Energy Policy Project and neither the Foundation, its Energy Policy Project or the Project's Advisory Board have assumed the role of endorsing its contents or conclusions. We will express our views in the Project's final report that will culminate this series of publications.

S. David Freeman
Director
Energy Policy Project