US secretly helped French nuclear program: documents

[bananas]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hsX0VfFdt066Wd61dMkiS6toN5EA?docId=CNG.6d368e1b8c6c3ad77e8681f96fb6d5ee.cd1

US secretly helped French nuclear program: documents

By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – May 25, 2011

WASHINGTON — The United States secretly helped France develop advanced nuclear weapons in the 1970s as part of a bid by the Nixon administration to sow divisions in Europe, declassified US documents showed.

Henry Kissinger, the senior aide to President Richard Nixon and apostle of realpolitik, is quoted as saying that he wanted to make the French "drool" and think they could compete with Britain, weakening efforts for European unity.

France first tested an atom bomb in 1960 in the Sahara, becoming the fourth nation after the United States, Soviet Union and Britain to go nuclear as President Charles de Gaulle tried to project France as a great world power.

The United States under three presidents refused atomic cooperation with France as it worried about de Gaulle's foreign policy and feared he was setting off an arms race that would lead the divided Germanys to seek nuclear weapons.

<snip>

[ImNotTed]

1. Good!

France, after all, is our ally, unlike some "friends" I could name.