[R. Scott]

It wasn’t a “Death Ray” type of weapon?
We were led to believe we could blanket the major cities of the Eastern Block, wait a few days and walk in and take over - all buildings intact, all people and other critters dead!
Oh well, so much for that.

[AFPhys]

I have no idea where that concept came from.

I can tell you there is no physics I know of or engineering concepts I have been able to discover or knowledgeable unclassified discussion of any such "Death-Ray" weapon.

I've posted similar responses to people in the past five or so years, and have never gotten further information, although I have elicited much corroborating information. Like "nuclear winter", the "no-damage neutron bomb" appears to be strictly the result of projecting a headline read by an imaginative fiction writer into a full-blown story based on that headline.

[AFPhys]

Ahh... should have read a bit more between the lines of your post.

I suspect that, similar to the arguments against SDI, the were a great many peaceniks who spread the drivel about "neutron bombs". They maintained fear of such a weapon since it would "encourage the use" of such a weapon by the military planners. This dynamic may have "spread the word" of its existence in an attempt to disarm the US of nuclear weaponry.

Again, my best cut at this is that someone used the short-hand term "neutron bomb" when they were talking about the existence of Enhanced Radiation Weapons, which DO enhance neutron radiation, and they expanded that into a fictional work. All I've ever seen or studied about this subject is consistent with that interpretation.