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And finally on November 18 Brezhnev, hosting a visit of twelve United States
Senators to the Kremlin, said that the U.S.S.R. did not want to cause a nuclear war
 because we are not crazy and claimed that the Soviet Union had tested a neutron
weapon many years previously but had never produced it on a mass scale.296
In April of 1979 the Soviet Union commenced deployment of its new nuclear-armed
SS-21 short-range missile in the Warsaw Pact - the first new nuclear missile to be deployed
in eastern Europe in over a decade.297 No subsequent announcement concerning possible
deployment of the neutron warhead was made by the Carter Administration; it was only
during the opening months of the Reagan Administration that the issue would resurface.
292
New York Times, April 26, 1978, page #3.
293
New York Times, May 27, 1978, page #1.
294
New York Times, September 26, 1978, page #69.
295
New York Times, October 25, 1978, page #48.
296
New York Times, November 18, 1978, page #1. Note also the statement of Igor Neverov in this regard; see Note #285.
297
New York Times, April 24, 1978, page #1.
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Chapter Nine: Neutrons for the 1980s?
Rumors of French experimentation with the neutron bomb were finally confirmed in
June of 1980, when the party of French President Valery Giscard d Estaing strongly
endorsed the weapon in a white paper on defense policy. There was immediate opposition,
both from the Gaullists (who felt that the neutron bomb was not as convincing a deterrent
as France s normal tactical nuclear weapons) and from the Communists (who echoed the
1978 Soviet line). French General Pierre Gallois, principal strategist of French nuclear
planning under de Gaulle, objected to the neutron bomb on grounds of its theoretical
utility:
The neutron bomb is a form of Maginot Line. It is a typical idea of generals who want to
fight the 1940 war over again in 1980. But why should the Soviets give up the idea of surprise
they would get from a strike with their SS-20 missiles against Western Europe? If they massed
100 tank divisions, that would give NATO time to react.
Besides, nobody stops to think that since the second world war, West Europeans have
unconsciously built a real Maginot Line 400 miles long and more than 50 miles wide - the
continuous urban strip that stretches from Holland to Switzerland. Can you imagine the Soviets
engaging their tanks in trying to conquer that non-stop city in house-to-house warfare?
If we build the neutron bomb, it would be just another case of copying what the
Americans do - or, in this case, don t do.298
Gaullist Party leader Jacques Chirac argued that a national defense strategy based on
the use of neutron warheads would create the impression of a French move towards the
U.S./NATO doctrine of  flexible response . Existing plans, which the Gaullists support,
call for a tactical nuclear strike against invading forces, followed by a  massive retaliation
strategic nuclear attack on the principal cities of European Russia.299
Two weeks after the appearance of the white paper, the French President confirmed
in an interview that France had developed and tested a neutron bomb prototype. Research
concerning the weapon, he added, had commenced in 1976.300
French Socialists were quick to add their criticism to that of the Gaullists; Socialist
leader Francois Mitterrand, who in May 1981 would defeat Giscard for the French
Presidency, accused Giscard of  lacking, the character to push the button for a massive
retaliation nuclear strike; hence Giscard s quest for a less-drastic nuclear option. The
Socialists and the Gaullists went on record as favoring neutron technology development
but as opposing its deployment in lieu of existing French nuclear weapons.301
Giscard denied that he was backing down on France s tough national defense posture,
saying,  Any nuclear attack against French soil will automatically elicit a strategic nuclear
response. He did not, he continued, advocate any single nuclear weapons system. He
compared such an approach as similar to that of French reliance on the Maginot Line. A
nation s defense, he said, involves the  soul of the people rather than weaponry alone.302
The White House, asked to comment on the French neutron bomb developments,
said that there would be  no change in the President Carter s 1978 deferment decision.
Of Giscard s statement a Presidential aide remarked:  That was the decision we expected
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