Word: bomb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Most military experts expect that France will proceed with production of the neutron bomb, if only because a long delay might appear as backing down under Soviet disapproval. For once, if he proceeds, Giscard will have the backing of both his West German and U.S. allies. Pentagon sources feel that, if Western Europeans accept a French decision to make a neutron warhead, allied governments might be more willing eventually to accept the U.S. equivalent on their soil...
President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing announced last month that France had tested its own Enhanced Radiation Weapon (ERW), commonly known as the neutron bomb. Military experts point out that the neutron bomb is not a bomb at all, since it is not designed to be dropped from a plane. It is actually a "clean" nuclear warhead, small enough to fit onto a missile or even into a 155-mm howitzer. A modified hydrogen bomb, the ERW produces minimal heat and blast and virtually no residual radiation and fallout (see chart...
...been the object of controversy since the announcement in 1977 that President Carter was considering its deployment in Western Europe. He later announced that the U.S. would temporarily shelve production of the neutron bomb in hopes of gaining fresh Soviet concessions in the SALT II negotiations. Meanwhile, a highly emotional debate arose on the "morality" of a weapon that is designed to destroy people but not property...
...first envisioned in the 1950s by a group of Rand Corp. scientists. They were seeking ways of modifying the hydrogen bomb to enhance and focus its radiation effects while reducing its devastating explosive blast...
...hydrogen bomb, a fission reaction at the core triggers a fusion reaction,* which releases a rapid burst of neutrons. These neutrons have to penetrate an outer shield of uranium 238, which reduces their velocity, increases the bomb's explosive punch and releases harmful radioactivity...