Word: bombs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
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...
...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...
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...
...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...