Yellow Light for the Neutron Bomb

A wave of Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers rolls across the northern German plain. Unable to stem the tide, NATO generals request permission to use tactical nuclear weapons. According to an alliance agreement, the President of the U.S. must give his assent before battlefield nukes can be fired. He does. Scores of heavy artillery pieces are aimed at the invaders. Nuclear devices, each packing the equivalent of ten kilotons (10,000 tons) worth of TNT, halt the aggressors. But in the process, West Germany's cities and factories are leveled, and civilian casualties run into the millions. An American military spokesman, paraphrasing another from the Viet Nam War era, explains, "We had to destroy Germany in order to save it. "

At his press conference last week.

President Jimmy Carter flashed a yellow light--proceed with caution--for the funding of a weapon that most U.S. military strategists consider necessary to avoid such a scenario. The neutron bomb,* they argue, would enable NATO commanders to foil an attack without virtually destroying West Germany in the process, as would be the case if existing tactical nukes were used.

The neutron bomb would be delivered by Lance missiles to battlefield targets as far distant as 75 miles, or by 8-in. artillery shells to objectives up to 20 miles away. It gets its name from the fact that on detonation, unusually large quantities of radioactive neutrons are released, which are effective in killing people without destroying buildings or vehicles. They can, for example, penetrate enemy armor at considerable ranges, though such armor can be made resistant to the blast and heat of a regular nuclear explosion, except in direct or near-direct hits. "Large yield" nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are designed to enhance heat and blast--the major killing factors in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

The neutron bomb that is slated for production packs a one-kiloton punch. By contrast, most of the tactical nukes that are stockpiled in Europe come in sizes often, 20 and 50 kilotons. If a standard ten-kiloton warhead were detonated, it would level nearly every building within a radius of over a mile. A neutron bomb exploded 130 yds. in the air would destroy all structures within only a 140-yd. radius. It would instantly kill anyone within a half-mile radius, and for people within a one-mile range would cause delayed deaths up to a month after the blast (see chart). But because of its low-yield blast and heat effect, it would spare all buildings beyond a 140-yd. radius of ground zero. Moreover, the radiation dissipates quickly, and would not affect an area beyond a radius of 1% miles. More than other nukes, the bomb is thus very much a precision weapon, designed for battlefields of limited size.

Recent Push. Under development since 1959 and first tested underground in Nevada in 1963, the neutron bomb received its most recent push in 1975 from then Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. He concluded that the threat to use NATO's tactical nukes was losing its credibility and therefore its deterrent power. Schlesinger reasoned that neu tron bombs would constitute a credible deterrent. President Ford approved production funds for two new warheads in the fiscal 1978 budget that is now making its way through Congress. The cost is classified but is estimated to be between $10 million and $20 million. It went almost unnoticed--and unpublicized--until debate began on the appropriation for the Energy Research and Development Administration, which handles development and production of all nuclear weapons. In the bill, the neutron bombs were only labeled as "enhanced radiation weapons." leaving some legislators in the dark as to their precise nature. The House quickly approved the item, but the Senate went into a rare closed session--only five such sessions have been held in the past 20 years--and later, by only one vote, defeated a proposal to delete funds for the weapon.

In the Senate, the fight against the bomb was led by Oregon's Republican Senator Mark Hatfield, whose chief worry was that the very precision of the weapon invites its use and would encourage escalation of conventional conflict into nuclear holocaust. Agreed Iowa Democrat Dick Clark: "I find the concept of a limited nuclear exchange extremely dubious. It is vitally important to retain the distinction between conventional and nuclear war."

That point was underlined by Herbert Scoville Jr., a former Pentagon special weapons project chief and former deputy CIA director. Scoville, whose objections apply not only to the neutron bomb but to all tactical nukes, wrote in the New York Times: "Our security depends on strengthening, not breaking, the barrier between nuclear and conventional conflicts. The neutron bomb should be put back on the shelf, and we should instead concentrate on developing ways of deterring aggression by conventional means."

As Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn sees it, Hatfield's argument requires the West to practice "self-deterrence." Said Nunn: "I remind my colleagues that the purpose of deterrence is to deter Soviet aggression, not to deter ourselves from responding to that aggression."

Senate backers of the neuts were strongly supported by the military. One Pentagon official said, "NATO is a defense alliance. It won't attack. Any attack will be conducted on friendly territory. We want to deter attack and defend territory without destroying what we want to save." In Belgium, NATO Commander General Alexander Haig Jr. said that America's allies had given the bomb their "enthusiastic support."

As in the B-1 debate (TIME, July 11), Carter will be the final arbiter. Though he approved funding the weapon's production, he made it clear that "I have not yet decided whether to advocate the deployment of the neutron bomb." The prospect of using any nuclear weapon was "sobering," he told his news conference. But Carter also said that since "the destruction would be much less" if a neutron bomb were used within allied territory, the weapon "ought to be one of our options." In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter made what is the central point for some of the bomb's supporters. "By enhancing deterrence," he wrote, neutron weapons "could make it less likely" that he would have to use any nuclear weapons at all. After Carter's statement on the bomb, the Senate passed the funding bill by a comfortable 58-to-38 margin.

Before Carter makes any final decision--probably late next month--he will study reports from both the Pentagon, which will certainly recommend a go-ahead, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, whose duty it is to analyze the impact of any new nuclear weapon on arms control negotiations. A draft report from ACDA says the neutron bomb--at least those carried in the 8-in. artillery shells--would not appreciably affect the SALT talks. At this point, Carter appears to have bought the argument.

* "Bomb" is actually a misnomer, since the neut is delivered by an artillery shell or missile warhead and not dropped from a plane.

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