Frank N. von Hippel replies

I included Germany (and Sweden) in a long list of countries which I said “have all pursued the development of nuclear weapons under the cover of ‘civilian’ plutonium programmes”. The following sentence began: “Fortunately, internal political changes and external pressures have aborted most of these programmes⃛”.

Germany and Sweden both abandoned their nuclear-weapons programmes before they signed the non-proliferation treaty of 1970, almost 30 years ago. I am sorry that the reader misunderstood me as impugning Germany's — or Sweden's — subsequent faithful adherence to that treaty. That was not my intention.

Similarly, my phrase that the “danger is not past” was not aimed at Germany. Indeed, the next sentence discusses the danger that the spread of reprocessing in east Asia could exacerbate the danger of proliferation there.