Curtis
Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 October 1, 1990)
was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice
presidential running mate of American Independent Party
presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.
He
is credited with designing and implementing an effective,
but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign
in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war,
he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing
campaign against cities in Japan and a crippling minelaying
campaign of Japan's internal waterways. After the war,
he headed the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic
Air Command (SAC) into an effective instrument of nuclear
war.
Early
life and career
Curtis
Emerson LeMay was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November
15, 1906. His father, Erving LeMay, was at times an ironworker
and general handyman, but he never held a job longer than
a few months. His mother, Arizona Dove (Carpenter) LeMay,
did her best to hold her family together. With very limited
income, his family moved around the country as his father
looked for work, going as far as Montana and California.
Eventually, they returned to his native city of Columbus.
LeMay attended Columbus public schools, graduating from
Columbus South High School, and studied civil engineering
at Ohio State University. Working his way through college,
he graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering.
While at Ohio State he was a member of the National Society
of Pershing Rifles and the Professional Engineering Fraternity
Theta Tau. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in
the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929. He received a regular
commission in the United States Army Air Corps in January
1930. While finishing at Ohio State, he took flight training
at Norton Field in Columbus, in 193132. On June
9, 1934, he married Helen E. Maitland (died 1992), with
whom he had one child, Patricia Jane LeMay Lodge, known
as Janie.
LeMay
became a pursuit pilot and, while stationed in Hawaii,
became one of the first members of the Air Corps to receive
specialized training in aerial navigation. In August 1937,
as navigator under pilot and commander Caleb V. Haynes
on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, he helped locate the
battleship Utah despite being given the wrong coordinates
by Navy personnel, in exercises held in misty conditions
off California, after which the group of B-17s bombed
it with water bombs. For Haynes again, in May 1938, he
navigated three B-17s over 610 miles (980 km) of the Atlantic
Ocean to intercept the Italian liner Rex to illustrate
the ability of land-based airpower to defend the American
coasts. In 1940, he was navigator for Haynes on the prototype
Boeing XB-15 heavy bomber, flying a survey from Panama
over the Galapagos islands. War brought rapid promotion
and increased responsibility.
When
his crews were not flying missions, they were being subjected
to his relentless training, as he believed that training
was the key to saving their lives. LeMay was widely and
fondly known among his troops as "Old Iron Pants"
throughout his career, also the "Big Cigar".
World
War II
When
the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, LeMay
was a major in the United States Army Air Forces (he had
been a 1st lieutenant as recently as 1940), and the commander
of a newly created B-17 Flying Fortress unit, the 305th
Bomb Group. He took this unit to England in October 1942
as part of the Eighth Air Force, and led it in combat
until May 1943, notably helping to develop the combat
box formation. In September 1943 he became the first commander
of the newly-formed 3d Air Division. He personally led
several dangerous missions, including the Regensburg section
of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission of August 17, 1943.
In that mission he led 146 B-17s to Regensburg, Germany,
beyond the range of escorting fighters, and, after bombing,
continued on to bases in North Africa, losing 24 bombers
in the process. The heavy losses in veteran crews on this
and subsequent deep penetration missions in the autumn
of 1943 led the Eighth Air Force to limit missions to
targets within escort range. Finally, with the deployment
in the European theater of the North American P-51 Mustang
in January 1944, the Eighth Air Force gained an escort
fighter with range to match the bombers.
LeMay
became known for his massive incendiary attacks against
Japanese
cities during the war using hundreds of planes flying
at low altitudes.
Robert
McNamara described LeMay's character, in a discussion
of a report into high abort rates in bomber missions during
World War II:
"One of the commanders was Curtis LeMayColonel
in command of a B-24 [sic] group. He was the finest combat
commander of any service I came across in war. But he
was extraordinarily belligerent, many thought brutal.
He got the report. He issued an order. He said, 'I will
be in the lead plane on every mission. Any plane that
takes off will go over the target, or the crew will be
court-martialed.' The abort rate dropped overnight. Now
that's the kind of commander he was."
In
August 1944, LeMay transferred to the China-Burma-India
theater and directed first the XX Bomber Command in China
and then the XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific. LeMay
was later placed in charge of all strategic air operations
against the Japanese home islands.
LeMay
soon concluded that the techniques and tactics developed
for use in Europe against the Luftwaffe were unsuitable
against Japan. His Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers flying
from China were dropping their bombs near their targets
only 5% of the time. Operational losses of aircraft and
crews were unacceptably high owing to Japanese daylight
air defenses and continuing mechanical problems with the
B-29. In January 1945, LeMay was transferred from China
to relieve Brig. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell as commander
of the XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas.
He
became convinced that high-altitude precision bombing
would be ineffective, given the usually cloudy weather
over Japan. Furthermore, bombs dropped from the B-29s
at high altitude (20,000+ feet) were often blown off of
their trajectories by a consistently powerful jet stream
over the Japanese home islands, which dramatically reduced
the effectiveness of the high-altitude raids. Because
Japanese air defenses made daytime bombing below jet stream-affected
altitudes too perilous, LeMay finally switched to low-altitude
nighttime incendiary attacks on Japanese targets, a tactic
senior commanders had been advocating for some time. Japanese
cities were largely constructed of combustible materials
such as wood and paper. Precision high-altitude daylight
bombing was ordered to proceed only when weather permitted
or when specific critical targets were not vulnerable
to area bombing. General LeMay was informed by a senior
staff member, Colonel William P. Fisher, that bomber pilots
were turning back from these low altitude bombing runs
due to heavy anti-aircraft fire from Japanese defense
forces. Fisher suggested to Lemay that crews who achieved
successful strike rates should be rewarded by being released
from their deployment. LeMay implemented this unorthodox
plan and the strike rate went up to eighty percent.
LeMay
commanded subsequent B-29 Superfortress combat operations
against Japan, including massive incendiary attacks on
67 Japanese cities. This included the firebombing of Tokyo
on the night of March 910, 1945, the most destructive
bombing raid of the war. For this first attack, LeMay
ordered the defensive guns removed from 325 B-29s, loaded
each plane with Model M-47 incendiary clusters, magnesium
bombs, white phosphorus bombs, and napalm, and ordered
the bombers to fly in streams at 5,000 to 9,000 feet over
Tokyo.
The
first pathfinder airplanes arrived over Tokyo just after
midnight on March 10. Following British bombing practice,
they marked the target area with a flaming "X."
In a three-hour period, the main bombing force dropped
1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, killing 100,000 civilians,
destroying 250,000 buildings, and incinerating 16 square
miles (41 km2) of the city. Aircrews at the tail end of
the bomber stream reported that the stench of burned human
flesh permeated the aircraft over the target.
Precise
figures are not available, but the firebombing campaign
against Japan, directed by LeMay between March 1945 and
the Japanese surrender in August 1945, may have killed
more than 500,000 Japanese civilians and left five million
homeless. Official estimates from the United States Strategic
Bombing Survey put the figures at 220,000 people killed.
Some 40% of the built-up areas of 66 cities were destroyed,
including much of Japan's war industry.
The
remaining Allied prisoners of war in Japan who had survived
imprisonment to that time were frequently subjected to
additional reprisals and torture after an air raid. The
massive bombing also hit a number of prisons and directly
killed a number of Allied war prisoners.
LeMay
was aware of the implication of his orders. The New York
Times reported at the time, "Maj. Gen. Curtis
E. LeMay, commander of the B-29s of the entire Marianas
area, declared that if the war is shortened by a single
day, the attack will have served its purpose."
The argument was that it was his duty to carry out the
attacks in order to end the war as quickly as possible,
sparing further loss of life. He also remarked that had
the U.S. lost the war, he fully expected to be tried for
war crimes.
Presidents
Roosevelt and Truman justified these tactics by referring
to an estimate of one million Allied casualties if Japan
had to be invaded. Japan had intentionally decentralized
90 percent of its war-related production into small subcontractor
workshops in civilian districts, making remaining Japanese
war industry largely immune to conventional precision
bombing with high explosives.
As
the firebombing campaign took effect, Japanese war planners
were forced to expend significant resources to relocate
vital war industries to remote caves and mountain bunkers,
reducing production of war material. As a Lieutenant Colonel
who served under LeMay, Robert McNamara was in charge
of evaluating the effectiveness of American bombing missions.
Later, McNamara, as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy
and Johnson, would often clash with LeMay.
LeMay
also oversaw Operation Starvation, an aerial mining operation
against Japanese waterways and ports that disrupted Japanese
shipping and food distribution. Although his superiors
were unsupportive of this naval objective, LeMay gave
it a high priority by assigning the entire 313th Bombardment
Wing (four groups, about 160 airplanes) to the task. Aerial
mining supplemented a tight Allied submarine blockade
of the home islands, drastically reducing Japan's ability
to supply its overseas forces to the point that postwar
analysis concluded that it could have defeated Japan on
its own had it begun earlier.
JapanWashington
flight
LeMay
piloted one of three specially modified B-29s flying from
Japan to the U.S. in September 1945, in the process breaking
several aviation records at that date, including the greatest
USAAF takeoff weight, the longest USAAF non-stop flight,
and the first ever non-stop JapanChicago flight.
One of the pilots was of higher rank: Lieutenant General
Barney Giles. The other two aircraft used up more fuel
than LeMay's in fighting headwinds, and they could not
fly to Washington, DC, the original goal. Their pilots
decided to land in Chicago to refuel. LeMay's aircraft
had sufficient fuel to reach Washington, but he was directed
by the War Department to join the others by refueling
at Chicago. The order was ostensibly given because of
borderline weather conditions in Washington, but according
to First Lieutenant Ivan J. Potts who was on board, the
order came because LeMay had one fewer general's stars
and should not be seen to outperform his superior.
Cold
War
Berlin
Airlift
After
World War II, LeMay was briefly transferred to The Pentagon
as deputy chief of Air Staff for Research & Development.
In 1947, he returned to Europe as commander of USAF Europe,
heading operations for the Berlin Airlift in 1948 in the
face of a blockade by the Soviet Union and its satellite
states that threatened to starve the civilian population
of the Western occupation zones of Berlin. Under LeMay's
direction, Douglas C-54 Skymasters that could each carry
10 tons of cargo began supplying the city on July 1. By
the fall, the airlift was bringing in an average of 5,000
tons of supplies a day. The airlift continued for 11 months213,000
flightsthat brought in 1.7 million tons of food
and fuel to Berlin. Faced with the failure of its blockade,
the Soviet Union relented and reopened land corridors
to the West. Though LeMay is sometimes publicly credited
with the success of the Berlin Airlift, it was, in fact,
instigated by General Lucius D. Clay when General Clay
called LeMay about the problem. LeMay initially started
flying supplies into Berlin, but then decided that it
was a job for a logistics expert and he found that person
in Lt. General William H. Tunner, who took over the operational
end of the Berlin Airlift.
General Curtis E. LeMay
Strategic
Air Command
In
1948, he returned to the US to head the Strategic Air
Command (SAC) at Offutt Air Force Base, replacing Gen
George Kenney. When LeMay took over command of SAC, it
consisted of little more than a few understaffed B-29
bombardment groups left over from World War II. Less than
half of the available aircraft were operational, and the
crews were undertrained. Base and aircraft security standards
were minimal. Upon inspecting a SAC hangar full of US
nuclear strategic bombers, LeMay found a single Air Force
sentry on duty, armed only with a ham sandwich. After
ordering a mock bombing exercise on Dayton, Ohio, LeMay
was shocked to learn that most of the strategic bombers
assigned to the mission missed their targets by one mile
or more. "We didn't have one crew, not one crew,
in the entire command who could do a professional job"
noted LeMay.
In
1949, LeMay was first to propose that a nuclear war be
conducted by delivering the nuclear arsenal in a single
overwhelming blow, going as far as "killing a nation".
Upon
receiving his fourth star in 1951 at age 44, LeMay became
the youngest four-star general in American history since
Ulysses S. Grant and was the youngest four-star general
in modern history as well as the longest serving in that
rank. In 1956 and 1957 LeMay implemented tests of 24-hour
bomber and tanker alerts, keeping some bomber forces ready
at all times. LeMay headed SAC until 1957, overseeing
its transformation into a modern, efficient, all-jet force.
LeMay's tenure was the longest over an American military
command in close to 100 years.
Despite
popular claims that LeMay advanced the notion of preventive
nuclear war, the historical record indicates LeMay actually
advocated justified preemptive nuclear war. Several documents
show LeMay advocating preemptive attack of the Soviet
Union, had it become clear the Soviets were preparing
to attack SAC or the US. In these documents, which were
often the transcripts of speeches before groups such as
the National War College or events such as the 1955 Joint
Secretaries Conference at the Quantico Marine Corps Base,
LeMay clearly advocated using SAC as a preemptive weapon,
if and when such was necessary.
The
"Airpower Battle"
General
LeMay was instrumental in SAC's acquisition of a large
fleet of new strategic bombers, establishment of a vast
aerial refueling system, the formation of many new units
and bases, development of a strategic ballistic missile
force, and establishment of a strict command and control
system with an unprecedented readiness capability. All
of this was protected by a greatly enhanced and modernized
security force, the Strategic Air Command Elite Guard.
LeMay insisted on rigorous training and very high standards
of performance for all SAC personnel, be they officers,
enlisted men, aircrews, mechanics, or administrative staff,
and reportedly commented, "I have neither the time
nor the inclination to differentiate between the incompetent
and the merely unfortunate."
A
famous legend often used by SAC flight crews to illustrate
LeMay's command style concerned his famous ever-present
cigar. In the first known published account of the story,
Life Magazine reporter Ernest Havemann related that LeMay
once took the co-pilot's seat of a SAC bomber to observe
the mission, complete with lit cigar. When asked by the
pilot to put the cigar out, LeMay demanded to know why.
When the pilot explained that fumes inside the fuselage
could ignite the airplane, LeMay reportedly growled, "It
wouldn't dare." The incident in the article was later
used as the basis for a fictional scene in the 1955 film
Strategic Air Command. In his highly controversial and
factually disputed memoir War's End, Major General Charles
Sweeney related an alleged 1944 incident that may have
been the basis for the "It wouldn't dare" comment.
Despite
his uncompromising attitude regarding performance of duty,
LeMay was also known for his concern for the physical
well-being and comfort of his men. LeMay found ways to
encourage morale, individual performance, and the reenlistment
rate through a number of means: encouraging off-duty group
recreational activities, instituting spot promotions based
on performance, and authorizing special uniforms, training,
equipment, and allowances for ground personnel as well
as flight crews.
On
LeMay's departure, SAC was composed of 224,000 airmen,
close to 2,000 heavy bombers, and nearly 800 tanker aircraft.
LeMay
was an active amateur radio operator and held a succession
of call signs; K0GRL, K4FRA, and W6EZV. He held these
calls respectively while stationed at Offutt AFB, Washington,
D.C. and when he retired in California. K0GRL is still
the call sign of the Strategic Air Command Memorial Amateur
Radio Club. He was famous for being on the air on amateur
bands while flying on board SAC bombers. LeMay became
aware that the new single sideband (SSB) technology offered
a big advantage over amplitude modulation (AM) for SAC
aircraft operating long distances from their bases. In
conjunction with Art Collins (W0CXX) of Collins Radio,
he established SSB as the radio standard for SAC bombers
in 1957.
LeMay
was appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the United States
Air Force in July 1957, serving until 1961, when he was
made the fifth Chief of Staff of the United States Air
Force on the retirement of Gen Thomas White. His belief
in the efficacy of strategic air campaigns over tactical
strikes and ground support operations became Air Force
policy during his tenure as chief of staff.
As
chief of staff, LeMay clashed repeatedly with Secretary
of Defense Robert McNamara, Air Force Secretary Eugene
Zuckert, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Army General Maxwell Taylor. At the time, budget constraints
and successive nuclear war fighting strategies had left
the armed forces in a state of flux. Each of the armed
forces had gradually jettisoned realistic appraisals of
future conflicts in favor of developing its own separate
nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities. At the height of
this struggle, the U.S. Army had even reorganized its
combat divisions to fight land wars on irradiated nuclear
battlefields, developing short-range atomic cannon and
mortars in order to win appropriations. The United States
Navy in turn proposed delivering strategic nuclear weapons
from supercarriers intended to sail into range of the
Soviet air defense forces. Of all these various schemes,
only LeMay's command structure of SAC survived complete
reorganization in the changing reality of Cold War-era
conflicts.
Though
LeMay lost significant appropriation battles for the Skybolt
ALBM and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress replacement, the
North American XB-70 Valkyrie, he was largely successful
at expanding Air Force budgets. He advocated the introduction
of satellite technology and pushed for the development
of the latest electronic warfare techniques. By contrast,
the U.S. Army and Navy frequently suffered budgetary cutbacks
and program cancellations by Congress and Secretary McNamara.
During
the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again
with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary
McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear
missile sites in Cuba. He opposed the naval blockade and,
after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded
anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. LeMay
called the peaceful resolution of the crisis "the
greatest defeat in our history". Unknown to the US,
the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority
to launchthe only time such authority was delegated
by higher command. They had twenty nuclear warheads for
medium-range R-12 Dvina (NATO Code SS-4 Sandal) ballistic
missiles capable of reaching US cities (including Washington)
and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers
had launched them, many millions of US citizens could
have been killed. The ensuing SAC retaliatory thermonuclear
strike would have killed roughly one hundred million Soviet
citizens. Kennedy refused LeMay's requests, however, and
the naval blockade was successful.
The
memorandum from LeMay, Chief of Staff, USAF, to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, January 4, 1964, illustrates LeMay's
reasons for keeping bomber forces alongside ballistic
missiles: "It is important to recognize, however,
that ballistic missile forces represent both the U.S.
and Soviet potential for strategic nuclear warfare at
the highest, most indiscriminate level, and at a level
least susceptible to control. The employment of these
weapons in lower level conflict would be likely to escalate
the situation, uncontrollably, to an intensity which could
be vastly disproportionate to the original aggravation.
The use of ICBMs and SLBMs is not, therefore, a rational
or credible response to provocations which, although serious,
are still less than an immediate threat to national survival.
For this reason, among others, I consider that the national
security will continue to require the flexibility, responsiveness,
and discrimination of manned strategic weapon systems
throughout the range of cold, limited, and general war."
LeMay's
dislike for tactical aircraft and training backfired in
the low-intensity conflict of Vietnam, where existing
Air Force fighter aircraft and standard attack profiles
proved incapable of carrying out sustained tactical bombing
campaigns in the face of hostile North Vietnamese antiaircraft
defenses. LeMay said, "Flying fighters is fun.
Flying bombers is important." Aircraft losses
on tactical attack missions soared, and Air Force commanders
soon realized that their large, missile-armed jet fighters
were exceedingly vulnerable not only to antiaircraft shells
and missiles but also to cannon-armed, maneuverable Soviet
fighters.
LeMay
advocated a sustained strategic bombing campaign against
North Vietnamese cities, harbors, ports, shipping, and
other strategic targets. His advice was ignored. Instead,
an incremental policy was implemented that focused on
limited interdiction bombing of fluid enemy supply corridors
in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. This limited campaign
failed to destroy significant quantities of enemy war
supplies or diminish enemy ambitions. Bombing limitations
were imposed by President Lyndon Johnson for geopolitical
reasons, as he surmised that bombing Soviet and Chinese
ships in port and killing Soviet advisers would bring
the Soviets and Chinese more directly into the war.
Evidence
of LeMay's thinking is that, in his 1965 autobiography
(co-written with MacKinlay Kantor) LeMay is quoted as
saying his response to North Vietnam would be to demand
that "theyve got to draw in their horns and
stop their aggression, or were going to bomb them
back into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back
into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval powernot
with ground forces."
Some
military historians have argued that LeMay's theories
were eventually proven correct. Near the war's end in
December 1972, President Richard Nixon ordered Operation
Linebacker II, a high-intensity Air Force, Navy, and Marine
Corps aerial bombing campaign, which included hundreds
of B-52 bombers that struck previously untouched North
Vietnamese strategic targets, including heavy populated
areas in Hanoi and Haiphong. Linebacker II was followed
by renewed negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Agreement,
appearing to support the claim. However, consideration
must be given to significant differences in terms of both
military obejctives and geopolitical realities between
1968 and 1972, including the impact of Nixon's recognition
and exploitation of the Sino-Soviet split to gain a "free
hand" in Vietnam and the shift of Communist opposition
from a organic insurgency (the Viet Cong) to a conventional
mechanized offensive that was by its nature more reliant
on industrial output and traditional logistics. In effect,
Johnson and Nixon were waging two different wars.
Post-military
career
Owing
to his unrelenting opposition to the Johnson administration's
Vietnam policy and what was widely perceived as his hostility
to Secretary McNamara, LeMay was essentially forced into
retirement in February 1965 and seemed headed for a political
career.[citation needed] Moving to California, he was
approached by conservatives to challenge moderate Republican
Thomas Kuchel for his seat in the United States Senate
in 1968, but he declined. For the presidential race that
year, LeMay originally supported Richard Nixon; he turned
down two requests by George Wallace to join his American
Independent Party that year on the grounds that a third-party
candidacy might hurt Nixon's chances at the polls (by
coincidence, Wallace had served as a sergeant in a unit
commanded by LeMay during World War II). LeMay gradually
became convinced that Nixon planned to pursue a conciliatory
policy with the Soviets and accept nuclear parity rather
than retain America's first-strike supremacy. LeMay felt
that Lyndon Johnson had lied to him on several occasions
and that Hubert Humphrey, if elected, would do the same.[citation
needed] Consequently LeMay, while being fully aware of
Wallace's segregationist platform, decided to throw his
support to Wallace and eventually became Wallace's running
mate. The general was dismayed to find himself attacked
in the press as a racial segregationist because he was
running with Wallace; he had never considered himself
a bigot. When Wallace announced his selection in October
1968, LeMay opined that he, unlike many Americans, clearly
did not fear using nuclear weapons. His saber rattling
did not help the Wallace campaign.
During
the 1968 campaign, LeMay became widely associated with
the "Stone Age" comment, especially because
he had suggested use of nuclear weapons as a strategy
to quickly resolve a deeply protracted conventional war
which eventually claimed over 50,000 American lives. This
reputation did nothing to diminish perceptions of extremism
in the Wallace-LeMay ticket. General LeMay disclaimed
the comment, saying in a later interview: "I never
said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said
we had the capability to do it."
The
Wallace-LeMay AIP ticket received 13.5 percent of the
popular vote, higher than most third-party candidacies
in the US, and carried five states for a total of 46 electoral
votes.
He
was honored by several countries, receiving the Air Medal
with three oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Flying
Cross with two oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Service
Cross, Distinguished Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters,
the French Légion d'honneur and the Silver Star.
On December 7, 1964 the Japanese government conferred
on him the First Order of Merit with the Grand Cordon
of the Order of the Rising Sun. He was elected to the
Alfalfa Club in 1957 and served as a general officer for
21 years.
According
to historian Warren Kozak, Wallace's defeat left LeMay's
public reputation in tatters. LeMay was commonly assumed
to share Wallace's widely unpopular racist views, even
though LeMay had enthusiastically supported racial integration
in the US military publicly and privately. He fought segregation
in the Air Force before Executive Order 9981 systemically
banned the practice.
LeMay
and UFOs
The
April 25, 1988, issue of The New Yorker carried an interview
with retired Air Force Reserve Major General and former
US Senator from Arizona Barry Goldwater, who said he repeatedly
asked his friend General LeMay if he (Goldwater) might
have access to the secret "Blue Room" at Wright
Patterson Air Force Base, alleged by numerous Goldwater
constituents to contain UFO evidence. According to Goldwater,
an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and
said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't
you ever mention it to me again."
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay