ABSTRACT
Policymakers who accepted the plutonium fuel cycle with equanimity were being exposed to the unfortunate and inescapable consequences of reliance on commercial nuclear power. In educational value alone, the unenacted legislative efforts were not so much unsuccessful as premonitory. According to one analyst, most legislative endeavors aimed at controlling nuclear exports in the 94th Congress "evidenced little concern for their own consequences or, indeed, for striking at the real source of the problem." Following Jimmy Carter's election, but before the convening of the 95th Congress, several of the major actors in efforts for nuclear reform on the legislative side made a crucial decision. The spirit of reform in the 94th Congress was a necessary adjunct to nuclear reform in the 95th. Hot all early attempts at nuclear export reform, however, were sufficiently well-guided, nor was there an adeguate grasp of the complexity of the proliferation web.
