LeMAY, Curtis Emerson

(b. 15 November 1906 in Columbus, Ohio; d. 1 October 1990 on March Air Force Base, near Riverside, California), U.S. army and air force officer who established the ability of bombers to locate small targets at sea, created pattern bombing, oversaw the development of modern jet aircraft for the air force, and served as U.S. Air Force chief of staff from 1961 to 1965.

LeMay was the son of Erving LeMay, an occasional iron-worker who often worked odd jobs, and Arizona (Carpenter) LeMay, who was a teacher when she met Erving in 1902. Erving had trouble keeping jobs, and the family relocated as he wandered the United States seeking work. LeMay resolved to become a pilot when, as a boy, he saw an airplane flying overhead.

LeMay hoped to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. However, in 1924 he failed to gain an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and instead enrolled at Ohio State University, where he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). He worked in a steel foundry to pay his way through college. In 1928, not yet having completed college, he enlisted in the Ohio National Guard, and in 1930 he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the artillery. LeMay served at Fort Knox, Kentucky, for a time, then was assigned to Columbus, Ohio, where he finished his studies at Ohio State, earning a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1932. On 9 June 1934 he married Helen Estelle Maitland; they had one daughter.

In 1937 LeMay was chosen to lead a small squadron of B-17 heavy bombers on a flight to South America to demonstrate the United States' ability to defend that continent. In March 1941 he attained the rank of major and was assigned to pioneer air routes in England, Africa, and South America. When the United States entered World War II, LeMay was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given the command of the 305th Bombardment Group. He trained the group and personally led them in attacks on Germany. While in command of the 305th, LeMay developed the pattern attack strategy that all U.S. bomber groups would eventually embrace. On 2 March 1944 he became a major general; at thirty-seven years old he was the youngest person to have held that rank since Ulysses S. Grant.

On 13 August 1944 LeMay was assigned to the China-Burma-India war theater, where he was in charge of the new B-29 Superfortress. This heavy bomber had been plagued by defects, but LeMay reengineered it, turning it into an asset. On 7 January 1945 he became head of the 21st Bomber Command in Guam. He sent bombers on massive, low-level daylight raids, dropping incendiary bombs in dense packs on industrial centers of Japanese cities, markedly diminishing Japan's ability to produce armaments. LeMay was convinced that his tactics were forcing Japan to the point of surrender, but he made no comment about orders to drop atomic bombs on Japan.

In the National Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was established. LeMay was assigned command of U.S. air forces in Europe. On 26 June 1948 the Soviet Union blocked access by land to West Berlin. LeMay advocated forcing open the route from West Germany to West Berlin but was overruled. Instead he organized "Operation Vittles," an airlift of supplies to West Berliners; on 30 September 1948 the Soviets gave up their blockade.

In October 1948 LeMay was given command of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), which was supposed to protect the United States from attack. He found a badly organized and demoralized organization equipped with outdated aircraft. His reorganization of SAC into one of the world's premier military commands is considered LeMay's greatest achievement. By the mid-1950s SAC had bombers, and 80 percent of its nuclear bombs were in the air at all times.

On 4 April 1957 LeMay was appointed U.S. Air Force vice-chief of staff and assumed his new duties in July, in Washington, D.C. There he oversaw the day-to-day operations of the air force, while General Thomas D. White, the chief of staff, concentrated on his duties for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While vice-chief, LeMay's efforts to develop new, more advanced aircraft for the air force met with initial success, with the building of prototypes of the B-70 bomber approved by Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

President Kennedy appointed LeMay his air force chief of staff in 1961. Almost immediately LeMay had problems with the new secretary of defense, Robert McNamara. McNamara had run the Ford Motor Company and had a reputation for being an outstanding manager of resources. He wanted to cut costs in the military and to begin by eliminating the B-70, the intended replacement for the B-52. Both the navy and air force wanted new jet fighters, and in spite of the very different needs of the two services, McNamara decided that instead of two new jet fighters he would approve only one, to be used by both services.

In 1961 LeMay believed the Soviet Union had outpaced America's jet fighters; if there were an air war involving fighters, he thought the United States could lose to the Soviet Union. He believed that to ensure peace, the United States should always have clearly superior armaments to discourage Soviet aggression. Kennedy, McNamara, and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disagreed, adopting a policy of parity with the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the House of Representatives, although controlled by Democrats (the party of Kennedy), agreed with LeMay and appropriated all the money needed to develop and deploy the B-70. McNamara refused to spend most of the money appropriated. This happened every year during LeMay's two terms as Air Force Chief of Staff.

McNamara tended to reduce issues to numbers—the losses of lives that would be acceptable in different sorts of conflicts. LeMay foresaw U.S. pilots flying inferior aircraft against a better-armed enemy and was angered by McNamara's attitude. He and other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff became worried that they were not being fully informed about events. The Bay of Pigs disaster of 17–19 April 1961 had been partly blamed on them, even though they were not told about it until three days before it began. McNamara had implied that LeMay was at fault.

Given the antagonism between LeMay and McNamara, LeMay expected to retire after his 1961–1963 term ended. Yet it was the navy chief of staff, LeMay's close ally in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was dismissed. Strong support for LeMay in Congress and among servicemen made it politically expedient to keep him where he was. Matters between LeMay and the administration worsened, even after Lyndon B. Johnson became president following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. LeMay opposed committing ground troops to the Vietnam War; he believed that air power properly used could eliminate North Vietnam's war supplies and end the fighting. The policy of gradual escalation adopted by the administration seemed to be absolute folly to LeMay. Even so, the only time he publicly criticized the administration was when he was under oath before Congress in response to direct questions. McNamara told him to lie; Lemay responded that he had a constitutional duty to answer truthfully questions put to him by Congress while he was under oath.

In 1964 rumors circulated that LeMay advocated bombing North Vietnam "back into the Stone Ages" and launching nuclear weapons at Hanoi. Although these rumors appear in many reference works about LeMay, he never promoted either of them. Since LeMay was known for his tactless bluntness of speech, such remarks were attributed to him without substantiation. Meanwhile, LeMay found himself in a scandal. While Kennedy was still president, the awarding of the contract for the new jet fighter for both the navy and air force had come down to General Dynamics and Boeing. The armed services committee for studying the planes proposed by the two companies recommended Boeing's plane. The administration told them to redo their studies and make a new recommendation. They did, and they again recommended Boeing. This was repeated two more times, with Boeing consistently recommended because its aircraft would be more versatile than that of General Dynamics and hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper to develop. McNamara eventually chose General Dynamics and hinted that the military committee did not know what it was doing. Congress began an investigation into the matter and discovered many irregularities in the awarding of the contract, noting especially that General Dynamics would build its plane in Texas, which had numerous political connections to the administration, whereas Boeing would build its plane in Kansas. LeMay believed that McNamara was telling him to send pilots into combat with an inferior aircraft design.

LeMay's career ended in 1965 when he was not reap-pointed to his chief of staff position, and he retired as the longest-serving four-star general in U.S. history. Settling in southern California near his daughter and her family, he became a corporate executive. In 1968 Governor George Wallace of Alabama ran for president on the American Independent Party ticket. Twice LeMay was asked to join the ticket as the vice-presidential candidate and twice he declined, but he was very worried by how badly the war in Vietnam was being conducted and eventually agreed to run with Wallace in 1968, despite Wallace's racist views. His candidacy was a disaster for all concerned; LeMay said exactly what was on his mind, offending nearly everyone, and during a press conference with Wallace his hawkish statements seriously damaged an already floundering campaign.

After the election LeMay lived quietly, enjoying the company of his family. He died of a heart attack and was buried in the U.S. Air Force Academy Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. LeMay was probably the greatest air power strategist of the twentieth century. His innovations in strategy and tactics quite likely helped speed the end of World War II. LeMay molded SAC into a fighting force that served as an important deterrent to attacks on the United States during the cold war. During the 1960s he fought for and won a significant pay rise for all in the armed forces, and though he failed in his fight for significant improvements in armaments, he served as an example of integrity during an unhappy era in U.S. history.

Most of LeMay's papers are held in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Air Force Academy Library in Colorado Springs, Colorado, also have significant collections of his papers. LeMay and MacKinlay Kantor collaborated on LeMay's autobiography, Mission with LeMay (1965), which suffers somewhat from the fact that many of LeMay's exploits were still classified as secret when the book was published. Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (1986), the standard biography, offers a detailed and lucid account of LeMay's service during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. An obituary is in the New York Times (2 Oct. 1985).

Kirk H. Beetz