Inventor of neutron bomb Samuel Cohen dies

LOS ANGELES - Samuel Cohen, the US physicist who invented the neutron bomb has died, according to a report Thursday in Los Angeles Times quoting his son.

The 89-year-old who had stomach cancer died at home in California Sunday.

Cohen, in an interview with the New York Times in September, described the controversial tactical nuclear bomb he developed at the height of the Cold War in 1958 as “the most sane and moral weapon ever devised”.

“It’s the only nuclear weapon in history that makes sense in waging war. When the war is over, the world is still intact,” he said.

Neutron weapons, which release a burst of neutron radiation rather than explosive energy, have the ability to destroy people and other living things while causing little material damage.

A succession of US presidents rejected the technology, with Jimmy Carter forced to postpone plans to deploy the warheads in 1978 amid protests.

In 1981, then president Ronald Reagan authorised the production of 700 neutron warheads to counter Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe. The weapons were later dismantled.