June 1976: Symington Amendment Passed Restricting Aid to Nuclear Proliferators

Senator Stuart Symington. [Source: Bettman / Corbis]Legislation introduced by Stuart Symington, a Democratic senator from Missouri, is passed by the US Congress to set out the US position on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. The legislation, which becomes known as the “Symington amendment,” bans US assistance to any country found to be trafficking in nuclear enrichment or reprocessing technology that is not governed by international safeguards. Authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento will later comment that this puts “both Pakistan [which is thought to be involved in such trafficking] and the Ford administration on notice that nonproliferation would now be taken seriously.” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62]