Dear Editor:

I realize that the Boothbay Register usually does not cover national news. However, I believe most of its readers are aware of the Iran nuclear talks and Israel’s, the United States’, and the world’s desire that Iran not develop nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, very little is heard about Israel’s hundreds of nuclear weapons (atomic and hydrogen) and its ability to deliver them anywhere in the world, including the USA.

My wife, Dotty, and I are summer residents of Sprucewold in Boothbay Harbor. My parents purchased our log home there in 1964, and we have come here ever since.

We are permanent residents of Los Alamos, New Mexico. For 38 years I was employed as a physicist in Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). My field is nuclear safeguards, nonproliferation and arms control. My group at LANL worked since 1965 with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that is often called the “United Nation’s Nuclear Watchdog” by our media. The IAEA inspects countries all over the world who are signatories of the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

I have traveled and worked with the IAEA in over 50 countries and am very familiar with the nuclear facilities around the world and the nuclear arsenals of the nine Weapons States.

Only three countries have not signed the NPT: Israel, India and Pakistan.

NPT signatories pledge to not develop nuclear weapons, but may develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran is a full signatory of the NPT and is inspected regularly by the IAEA.

Since 1979, all IAEA inspectors have spent two or more weeks at LANL as part of their initial training. One of my jobs was to design and manage that training program and do likewise for personnel of national nuclear agencies all over the world. I had a fascinating career, and I am appalled that Israel’s nuclear behavior is so little known in the U.S. and ignored in our media.

Iran has pledged to not develop nuclear weapons; Israel has not and may very well be the fourth largest weapon’s state after the U.S., Russia and China.

Douglas Reilly, Ph.D.

Retired from LANL, US DOE,

IAEA, and EURATOM