Logic of the N-bomb. [Neutron bombs]

President Reagan's deferral to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) resistance against deploying neutron weapons on European soil climaxes 20 years of US indecision on whether the use of such weapons would escalate to full-scale nuclear war. Arguments against the use of battlefield nuclear weapons have been public and have spread from the media to the national and international scene. An explanation of the bomb's history notes that military technology is always antipersonnel because people are easier to destroy than structures and that efforts to develop a clean class of thermonuclear weapons focused on reducing widespread fallout rather than a low yield. A review of enhanced radiation (ER) weaponry and the debates of the past three decades emphasizes the implications to NATO defense and the credibility of our tactical nuclear posture. (DCK)