| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
By the time of Richard Nixon's arrival in office Iran had already become America's single largest arms purchaser. This was the result of an evolutionary process that had been underway for two decades. Nixon did not just change that evolutionary pattern of arms sales with Iran, he completely revised U.S. thinking on Iran's regional role. By the end of his first term in office, Nixon had leveraged U.S. Middle Eastern regional policy primarily around the focal point of a militarily strong, pro-U.S. Iran. In concert, the shah was encouraged to begin an unprecedented military spending spree. Consequently, in mid-1972 following a meeting of the two leaders in Tehran, Iranian annual purchases went, virtually overnight, from being measured in the tens of millions to being measured in the multi-billions. Tracing the complex evolution toward that meeting, and the accompanying policy shifts, form an underappreciated part of Cold War history.
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