La scelta nucleare come reazione brasiliana allo shock petrolifero del 1973

Major oil consumer among the Third World countries, Brazil, seeking an alternative energy source for supporting its economic industrial growth, attempted to develop its nuclear sector. Brasilia aimed at becoming autonomous from external fuel supply through the acquisition of nuclear technologies with a foreign partner. Since the U.S. was not available to cooperate to this project, Brazil decided to collaborate with West Germany, given its readiness to transfer the complete nuclear fuel cycle. Through an accurate use of recently declassified U.S. and Brazilian diplomatic records, this article has the goal to describe how Brazil, a country non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, chose to develop a nuclear program and how the United States, between 1974 and 1975, sought to impede the technology transfer from West Germany to Brazil, considered with military nuclear ambitions.