I introduced this study by raising the question of the U.S. government's competence in fulfilling one of its most challenging policy responsibilities. The development and spread of nuclear technologies with a weapons potential is a problem that sets an unusually high performance standard. It is well suited for revealing government's abilities and limitations. In addition to the issue's great intrinsic importance, the handling of nuclear power questions gives us a look at the system under stress. Washington has been asked to do things that it normally finds uncongenial – planning carefully synchronized programs, projecting their results well into the future, and subtly phasing them into a diplomatic strategy. The sense of urgency felt after 1974, with the collapse of earlier policies, made the task that much harder. Even under less strained circumstances, the kinds of dilemmas posed by spreading nuclear capabilities test policy-making institutions, as well as intellect and diplomatic skill. They are exceptional in several respects. They cut across the conventional axes – running from the domestic to the international, from economic to security spheres – that normally arrange the position of subject areas in the universe of governmental affairs. They starkly draw the challenge of developing and applying new, sophisticated technologies so that they will accord with divergent social needs and political purposes. And they demand the reconciliation of an issue's long life cycle with the limited attention span of political leadership.