Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am going to try to make sense out of some of the discussion that has been going on, which has been quite detailed and very esoteric, with regard to the Russian rocket engine which is the main engine in the tail of the Atlas V rocket--the first stage of the Atlas V. Why is there a Russian engine? In the early 1990s, at the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States went in to try to help secure the nuclear material and nuclear weapons. It was clearly in the interests of the United States and her allies that loose nukes not get into the hands of rogue nations or rogue groups. At the same time, it was clearly in the interests of the United States that we try to prevent all of the experts, the Russian scientists and engineers that had been involved in the Russian or the Soviet Union's rocket program--and it was an exceptional program--from going to rogue nations or to rogue groups. Read: Iran. Thus it became apparent, when U.S. scientists, engineers, and space pioneers visited the Russian engine plant, that it was this extraordinary engine that had this high compression with liquid oxygen as a fuel and also kerosene. As a result, it was clearly in the interests of the United States not only to prevent loose nukes and scientists leaving but to keep them interested and employed. Remember, this was in a Soviet Union that was disintegrating at the moment.…”