I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing.  But all war is immoral and if you that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

Curtis LeMay was a genuine war hero leading his men in various theaters leading his men with the every present cigar clinched between his teeth. When he lead an operational group, he was in the lead plane showing the way to the target. He believed that the only way to win a war is to destroy the enemy.

He had no lack of confidence as one mission he sat in the co-pilot's seat to observe one of his veteran pilots. The pilot asked him to put out the cigar and LeMay asked why only to be told that the smoke or a spark could set off one of the bombs. “It wouldn't dare” was his response.

Robert McNamara accompanied him as they were looking to end the war in the Pacific. Projections for an invasion of Japan called for an unappealing one million American casualties.

Incendiary bombs were developed along with techniques for creating a firestorm on the ground below.

March 8-9, 1945 turned out to be the most destructive raid of the war. He had the guns removed from 325 B-29s and loaded them with a variety of incendiary bombs for a night time raid on Japan. It was estimated that half a million Japanese died and five million more were made homeless. Official estimates were lower for expediency but the wood and paper construction of the most of the homes and buildings made them especially vulnerable to this kind of attack. This was just a precursor to the atomic bombs dropped in August. As an aside LeMay had a hand in planning those attacks as well.

George Patton was not the only general to war of the Soviet menace. LeMay was certain there would be an eventual nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. President Truman did not want to go along with LeMay's plan for a first strike on the country that had just helped us defeat the greatest evil of that generation.

Under Dwight Eisenhower he developed a plan for hitting the Soviet Union with 80% of the US nuclear arsenal in the first strike believing it would put an end to the red threat. Fortunately it was never necessary to implement the plan.

LeMay was a warrior who believed you use the most effective weapons you have and when Fidel Castro began to be recognized as a threat 90 miles off the shore if the United States as well as throughout Central and South America his solution was to drop a couple nuclear bombs on Cuba to straighten things out.

LeMay did not think much of the young pretty boy president and when General Lyman Lemnitzer presented his Operation Northwoods plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was all for it... as were the chiefs of the other services. History records that the plan was rejected and the relationship between President Kennedy and the military brass further deteriorated.

Suggestions to throw a couple of nukes at Cuba when the Soviet missiles were discovered, were also rejected.

LeMay was in Washington when the assassination took place and when the president's body was wheeled into Walter Reed Hospital there was a full house in the operating theater to observe. When someone asked who was in charge, it wasn't one of the doctors doing the autopsy, but the response “I am” came back from the gallery through the teeth clinching a big old cigar. The official autopsy report agreed with the official account of the assassination much to the chagrin of the emergency room doctors in Dallas.

After retirement from active duty Curtis LeMay was induced to run as a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with segregationist George Wallace. It seems the million dollar offer from Bunker Hunt, son of Texas oil man HL Hunt sweetened the offer. The pair succeeded in garnering 46 electoral votes in 1968 – taken mostly from the southern Democrats enabling Richard Nixon to win an easy victory.

LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay
by Warren Kozak

The firebombing of Tokyo.Strategic Air Command. John F. Kennedy. Dr. Strangelove. George Wallace. All of these have one man in common - General Curtis Lemay, who remains as enigmatic and controversial as he was in life.Until now. Warren Kozak traces the trajectory of America's most infamous general , from his firebombing of Tokyo, guardianship of the U.S. Nuclear arsenal in the Cold War, frustrated career in government and short lived political run. Curtis Lemay's life spanned an epoch in American military history, from the small U.S. army air corps of the interwar years to the nuclear age.

Superfortress: The Boeing B-29 and American Airpower in World War II
by Curtis LeMay, Bill Yenne

Among the most sophisticated aircraft flown during World War II, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was designed to replace the B-17 as the primary long-range bomber of the U.S. Army Air Forces. With its distinctive glazed nose and long, thin wings that provided both speed at high altitude and stability at takeoff and landing, the Superfortress was the first operational bomber with a pressurized crew cabin and featured advanced radar and avionics. Armed with remote-controlled machine gun turrets and a 20,000 pound bomb load, it was the first USAAF bomber capable of mastering the vast distances of the Pacific Theater of World War II.