ABSTRACT
The years from 1957 through 1973 mark Iran’s fi rst exposure to, raw fascination with, and unsophisticated socialization into the nuclear world. It was President Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms for Peace Program that initiated a host of Third World countries into the nuclear age. Iran was no exception to this unfolding trend as the enervated state was struggling to create modern foundations to assert domestic authority and redefi ne its regional and international identity following a cascade of strategically bruising experiences that included the Anglo-Soviet invasion of August 1941, the Soviet foot-dragging in withdrawing from Azerbaijan Province in 1946, and the CIA-orchestrated coup of 1953 that toppled Iran’s fi rst democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.
