I forget who the Secretary of Defense was, but there was supposedly a conversation at a D.C. Party in the late 70s where the Russian Ambassador asked him,
“You wouldn’t actually use those Neutron Bombs on us, would you?”
Our guy smiled and said,
“In a heartbeat.”
The time frame (before 1981) suggests Jimmy Carter’s Harold Brown, but the comment seems more like Reagan’s Cap Weinberger. Sadly, the US never developed a neutron bomb, but I imagine that if we needed one or two in a pinch, our friends the Israelis might oblige.