ABSTRACT
Two post-Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act (NNPA) vignettes capture the tensions, compartmentalization, and confusion within the Jimmy Carter administration about preventing nuclear weapons spread. Reformers within the administration recognized immediately that Smith was proposing a unilateral rewriting of both the letter and the spirit of NNPA. The divergent interpretations, qualifications, and ambiguities brought out during the prolonged struggle to reformulate a US policy indicated to foreign observers that the NNPA was a compromise that grudgingly recognized a special status for the trilateral countries. The cases of India and Pakistan proved the greatest challenge to the principles laid down in the NNPA and demonstrated "the difficulty of exporting virtue by statute." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found congressional intent to be that "the full-scope safeguards criterion would come into effect at a date certain and that the application of the criterion would have a 'guillotine' effect." Nuclear managers trumpeted the success of the conference in controlling an acrimonious debate.
