Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.
Any Ivy League academy asshole can issue orders and take the credit. What matters is when you place your own ass on the line, and your men know that you are not some armchair commander asking them to risk death while you enjoy the good life. Morale is everything, and you do not build it by typing goddamned reports and having cocktail parties.A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?Apply whatever force it is necessary to employ, to stop things quickly. The main thing isstop it. The quicker you stop it, the more lives you save.Crank her up. Let's go.
Dear Rosy, In June Strategic Air Command had fourteen accidents. Eleven of the fourteen were in the Fifteenth Air Force. Do something. Sincerely, Curtis E. LeMay, Lieutenant General, USAF, Commanding.
From a letter to Maj Gen Emmett O'Donnell Jr., Commanding General 15th AF
There are no innocent civilians. It is theirgovernment and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocentbystanders.
Sherry, Michael (September 10, 1989).The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon, p. 287 (from "LeMay's interview with Sherry," interview "after the war," p. 408 n. 108). Yale University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0300044140.
KillingJapanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as awar criminal....Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a goodsoldier.
We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town inNorth Korea anyway, someway or another, and some inSouth Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population ofKorea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?
Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals (1988), p. 88.
If I see that theRussians are amassing their planes for an attack, I'm going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground.
Conversation with presidential commissioner Robert Sprague (September 1957), quoted in Kaplan, F. (1991).The Wizards of Armageddon. Stanford University Press. Page 134.
She [America] escaped the ruin visited upon other nations because she was given time to prepare and because of distance. [In the next war] distance will be academic [and no preparation time, too].
November 19th 1945 New York speech, as quoted in 'Dark Sun' p.227 (sadly, direct link to the page to read was denied by Wikipedia).
As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack onTokyo with incendiaries than there were with thefirst use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference.A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.
The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series, p. 574
I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting.
General Curtis LeMay, commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command many years ago, used to insist that all his subordinates think positively. One day a colonel ran into General LeMay's office and shouted, "General, we have an insurmountable problem!"
LeMay banged his fist on the desk. "Colonel, in this command we don't have problems! We have opportunities!"
The Colonel saluted. "Yes, sir. General, we have an insurmountable opportunity."
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc. Co-written with MacKinlay Kantor. All quotes are from the original 1965 hardcover publication.
Again they thought of those pictures of the embers ofJapan, the black stuff hanging around on bulletin boards. I guess intermingled with that was the thought, "How soon can we go home?" Volunteers always think that in a war, and mainly ours was a volunteer or a drafted force, as we all know. You can't blame them for thinking that. You can thank them for working likedemons, which is what they did.
p. 370
Actually, I think it's more immoral to useless force than necessary, than it is to usemore. if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.
p. 382
TheGerman people themselves were historically responsible for the Nazi hierarchy and the Nazi war machine. No little band of hand-picked zealots alone could have wrought such a fantasticmassacre. It had to be done with people. It was done with and by the German people. We can look back and salute a comparative handful of clear-minded and courageous Teutonic humans who were tortured out of existence by theSchutzstaffel or who decayed inconcentration camps. But they were a distinct minority. The bulk of the German population was behindHitler, or pretended to be. The bulk of the population applauded him, sustained him, or (in the less evil instances) stood idly by, or turned their backs on the whole thing.
p. 420
Point is, the person in public life is bound to receive a lot of half-witted criticism. He's a natural-born target for it. It is unnecessary to go to any extraordinary lengths to maintain a picture of lily-white purity and innocence. If you let things like that worry you, very soon you run out of worrying time. There are too many real problems up there on the board. Whatever you do, somebody's going to criticize you. Forget criticism.
p. 484
My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going tobomb them into theStone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.
Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 565. In an interview two years after the publication of this book, General LeMay said, "I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it. I want to save lives on both sides"; reported inThe Washington Post (October 4, 1968), p. A8. Many years later LeMay would claim that this was his ghost writer's overwriting.
Today we hear much discussion about "overkill." The people who are talking "overkill" knowingly or unknowingly support the adoption of a minimum-deterrence strategy. In advocating that strategy, they are addressing thewrong problem. Instead of belaboring our ability to destroy the population of an aggressor nation, they should consider what we require to save American lives and property by preventing war, or by gaining a decision as quickly as possible if war occurs. That is the proper and traditional task of the United States armed forces. The counterforce strategy which we are pursuing and analyzing today provides our best prospect for success in that task.
p. 521
I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of theUnited States. That doesn't mean launching an immediatepreventive war...
p. 559.
...Native annalists may look sadly back from the future on that period when we had theatomic bomb and the Russians didn't. Or when the Russians had acquired (through connivance andtreachery of Westerns with warped minds) the atomic bomb - and yet still didn't have any stockpile of the weapons. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it.
p. 560-561.
China has The Bomb. [...] Sometime in the future--25, 50, 75 years hence--what will the situation be like then? By that time theChinese will have the capability of delivery too. That's the reason some schools of thinking don't rule out a destruction of the Chinese military potential before the situation grows worse than it is today. It's bad enough now.
p. 561.
We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?
From his autobiography, also requoted in Rhodes, 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', p. 596
Apply whatever force it is necessary to employ, to stop things quickly. The main thing isstop it. The quicker you stop it, the more lives you save.
p. 565.
I hope that the United States of America has not yet passed the peak of honor and beauty, and that our people can still sustain certain simple philosophies at which some miserable souls feel it incumbent to sneer. I refer to some of the Psalms, and to the Gettysburg Address, and the Scout Oath. I refer to the Lord's Prayer, and to that other oath which a man must take when he stands with hand uplifted, and swears that he will defend his Country. None of those words described, or the beliefs behind them, can be sung to modern dance music. But they are there, like rocks and oaks, structurally sound and proven. They are more than rocks and oaks; they are the wing and the prayer of the future. Whether we venture into realms of Space in our latest vehicles, or whether we are concerned principally with overhauling our engines and loading our ordinance here on the ground, we will still be part of a vast proud mechanism which must function cleanly if it is to function at all. Crank her up. Let's go.
From a 1986 interview with Colin Heaton, as quoted by Colin Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis,Above The Reich: Deadly Dogfights, Blistering Bombing Raids, and Other War Stories from the Greatest American Air Heroes of World War II, in Their Own Words (2021).
AnyIvy League academy asshole can issue orders and take the credit. What matters is when you place your own ass on the line, and your men know that you are not some armchair commander asking them to risk death while you enjoy the good life. Morale is everything, and you do not build it by typing goddamned reports and having cocktail parties. Strange,LBJ, and that ilk were like that. Those motherfuckers werewhores paid to screw the public. And you know what? They never lost one night's sleep over it. They never had their ass in danger, and they never waited for the knock on the door telling them that their son was killed, all because some asshole with an Ivy League degree and a champagne glass in his hand decided that their boy did not need the money or weapons or even the fucking political support to stay alive.
p. 348-349
You know the difference between a politician and a statesman? Here is the LeMay definition: a politician is a high-profile hooker looking for money to fund a campaign so that he can be in position to be owned by apolitical party, doing their bidding like aslave.Johnson fit that category. Astatesman is a politician whose allegiance is only to their nation, and who, despite the feelings of others, does what he believes in his gut is in the best interest of his country,politics be damned. That even means doing something that may cost him his career, but he takes the moral high ground as he sees it, to do what must be done. That wasChurchill. That's the difference.Ronald Reagan is a statesman, and make a note of it- we may not have any more in the future. They are a damned dying breed. That also applies to military commanders. You can have a charismatic, friendly, and amiable type of leader, but that is a difficult position to hold when you have to maintain discipline. It can be done, but it is hard. Then there is the hard-ass, no-holds-barred, get-it-fucking-done leader who pushes his men and expects ever-better results afterward. The easygoing leader may be liked more by his men, but the hard-ass will sure as shit have their attention, and if she shares the dangers with them, he will have their respect. Respect is everything.
No other U.S. military force commander so imprinted his personality and ideals upon his organization as did LeMay. SAC became LeMay personified- but only after tremendous effort on his part. There were no criticisms of his intellect or industry, nor any suggestion of patronage, but the hard, and often seemingly cold, manner in which he drove SAC gave rise to many stories about him, most of them apocryphal. ~ Walter J. BoyneWhen the author joined the Strategic Air Command in January 1953, as a green second lieutenant freshly graduated from flying school, he was puzzled by the flying club atmosphere. Flying the big Boeing B-50s was done as a sport, radar bombing, navigation, and gunnery scores were fudged, and the principle occupation seemed to be playing hearts in the briefing room. Then one bright day Lemay's inspection team came in. Heads rolled, rigorous standards were introduced and enforced, and reporting became squeaky clean. Oddly enough, everyone still retaining his head was happier with the new system. ~ Walter J. BoyneI used to receive a hundred calls a year from people who wanted me to get into the Green Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because that's where the Air Force stored all the material gathered on UFOs. I once asked Curtis LeMay if I could get in that room, and he just gave me holy hell. He said, 'Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again.' ~Barry GoldwaterWhen LeMay scared the hell out of his people, he made something out of them that I don't think was their true nature. He made them cringe and hide the truth. He made them say, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," becoming chronic liars protecting their own skins... I had a bunch of really great friends in SAC, but a big group of guys were developed into people who were afraid to think for themselves. They damn near destroyed the Air Force in the process. ~Robin Olds
No other U.S. military force commander so imprinted his personality and ideals upon his organization as did LeMay. SAC became LeMay personified- but only after tremendous effort on his part. There were no criticisms of his intellect or industry, nor any suggestion of patronage, but the hard, and often seemingly cold, manner in which he drove SAC gave rise to many stories about him, most of them apocryphal. In 1951, at the age of forty-six, he was confirmed as a full four-star general, the youngest sinceUlysses S. Grant. LeMay was "the Iron Eagle" to his admirers, and simply "Iron Ass" to detractors who feared him. Some of his seemingly tough demeanor probably stemmed from a deadened nerve that left his face immobile and unsmiling. In practice, LeMay took better care of his troops than anyone else in the Air Force, and his tenure at SAC was filled with achievements such as improved housing, pay, recreation, promotion,medical care, and other vital personnel requirements. The most important assessment of LeMay was defined by the loyalty and the high morale of the people he commanded.
Walter J. Boyne,Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-1997 (1997), p. 99
After his retirement in 1965, LeMay ran as a Vice Presidential candidate inGeorge Wallace's 1968 third-party bid, a move that tarnished his reputation in the eyes of many. One time, later in his life, he was in the company of several other retired four-star generals, including his former aideDavid C. Jones, himself a former Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The evening had been mellowed with some drinks, and the conversation took a daring turn- for retired or not, LeMay was still LeMay- to the question of why the general had supported Wallace. Jones recalls LeMay saying that he had not run because of political ambition- he had none, and knew that Wallace could only lose- but because he feared the direction the country would take if theDemocratic candidate won. LeMay told the little group of intimates, friends for many long years, "Don't tell me about George Wallace. I know all about George Wallace. I knew he had no chance of winning. But I ran with him anyway because I thought he could take enough votes away fromHumphrey. Humphrey would have been a disaster for this country as President." Always the strategist, LeMay wanted to add enough strength to Wallace's ticket to split the Democratic vote and thus defeat Humphrey. In essence, LeMay was making a last great sacrifice, his political reputation, to serve his country's cause as he saw it.
Walter J. Boyne,Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-1997 (1997), p. 99-100
If his politics offended some, there could be no censure of his military record. No one, friend or foe, doubted for a moment that he made SAC into an elite force, capable of strategic operations on a scale never before conceived and conducted at a level of proficiency that became the standard for the USAF. Inevitably the USAF became the benchmark to which the Army and the Navy, not to mention many foreign armed forces around the world, would aspire... LeMay was a genius at organization, and the Management Control System (MCS) he installed at SAC Headquarters (and which was replicated at lower levels of command) is but one example of his style. The MCS gave LeMay the capability to spot every breakdown or potential breakdown within the SAC system, and because lower-echelon commanders were aware of his system and used it themselves, potential breakdowns were usually detected and corrected before they occurred. LeMay also had the capacity for choosing good subordinates, delegating authority to them and letting them do their job. Not all of his choices were popular. His deputy and later successor at SAC, General Thomas S. Power, had a reputation for cold-hearted efficiency that many considered bordering on sadism. LeMay knew that Power was tough- but he also knew that he got his job done, and that was what counted.
Walter J. Boyne,Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-1997 (1997), p. 100
When LeMay arrived to take over command, he was disappointed but not surprised at what he found- senior Air Force officers were aware that the Strategic Air Command in 1948 was woefully lacking in proficiency, discipline, and professionalism. He went to work immediately to correct things, using on-the-spot leadership to do so.
Walter J. Boyne,Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-1997 (1997), p. 101
Lemay's style was to have his best crews set the highest standards, then provide more than adequate training and flying time for other crews to reach those standards of proficiency. He also insisted on scrupulously accurate records and very demanding evaluation procedures, knowing that he had inherited an air force that had reflexively gone from the rigors of war to the pleasures of a really well equipped flying club, one that paid you for belonging. It was a long process, for SAC was expanding rapidly. When the author joined the Strategic Air Command in January 1953, as a green second lieutenant freshly graduated from flying school, he was puzzled by the flying club atmosphere. Flying the big Boeing B-50s was done as a sport, radar bombing, navigation, and gunnery scores were fudged, and the principle occupation seemed to be playing hearts in the briefing room. Then one bright day Lemay's inspection team came in. Heads rolled, rigorous standards were introduced and enforced, and reporting became squeaky clean. Oddly enough, everyone still retaining his head was happier with the new system.
Walter J. Boyne,Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-1997 (1997), p. 102
The practical effects of the policies are less interesting to policy makers inWashington than the spirit in which they’re intended. When you’re pulling the trigger, the spirit is always pure.Liberals believed thatCurtis LeMay droppedbombs because he was a crazed warmonger who took pleasure in hurting people. Liberals believe they bomb countries for the same reason they once opposed bombing countries, because they want to make the world a better place.
Tucker Carlson,Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (2018)
After the firstInternational Days of Protest in October, 1965,Senator Mansfield criticized the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by the demonstrators. He had nothing to say then, nor has he since, about the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by Senator Mansfield and others who stand by quietly and vote appropriations as the cities and villages ofNorth Vietnam are demolished, as millions ofrefugees in theSouth are driven from their homes by American bombardment. He has nothing to say about the moral standards or the respect forinternational law of those who have permitted this tragedy. I speak of Senator Mansfield precisely because he is not a breast-beating superpatriot who wants America to rule the world, but is rather an Americanintellectual in the best sense, a scholarly and reasonable man -- the kind of man who is the terror of our age. Perhaps this is merely a personal reaction, but when I look at what is happening to our country,what I find most terrifying is not Curtis LeMay, with his cheerful suggestion that we bomb everybody back into the stone age, but rather the calm disquisitions of thepolitical scientists on just how much force will be necessary to achieve our ends, or just what form of government will be acceptable to us inVietnam. What I find terrifying is the detachment and equanimity with which we view and discuss an unbearable tragedy. We all know that if Russia or China were guilty ofwhat we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes.
I used to receive a hundred calls a year from people who wanted me to get into the Green Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because that's where the Air Force stored all the material gathered onUFOs. I once asked Curtis LeMay if I could get in that room, and he just gave me holy hell. He said, 'Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again.'
Barry Goldwater, quoted inThe New Yorker, April 25, 1988, p. 70
An excellent pilot and officer equally capable in both combat and staff, LeMay was typical of the bomber-minded generals who emerged fromWorld War II to dominate the Air Force during theCold War.
James F. Dunnigan & Albert A. Nofi,The Pacific War Encyclopedia, Volume 1: A-L (1998), p. 363
Precisely to compensate for an impression of inexperience after the events of the last few months,Kennedy just then named as chief of staff of the Air Force General Curtis LeMay, the man with the toughest militarist image in the armed services. This despite the fact that a number of observers, includingRobert Kennedy, would report incidents when certain military men—LeMay above all—would give Kennedy the impression that they were essentially insane, madly reckless, or out of touch with reality. (These included, the next year, LeMay’s strongly worded advice on the Sunday morning in 1962 whenKhrushchev announced he was dismantling hismissiles in Cuba that the president should go ahead and attackCuba anyway.) Yet it was Kennedy who had named LeMay as chief of staff of the Air Force on June 30, 1961, and kept him there.
Daniel Ellsberg,The Doomsday Machine: Confessions from a Nuclear War Planner (2017)
In the course of our talk, I asked LeMay how concerned he had been, as commander of SAC, about the possibility of a surprise attack by aSoviet submarine onWashington. He said calmly that he had “felt satisfied” with his authority asCINCSAC to carry out his plans in that event, which was clearly a reference to theEisenhower delegation that I had reported on at the start of the year and which Kaysen had confirmed. But before I could pursue that—the first face-to-face reference to delegated authority from a military officer I had heard outside thePacific Command—LeMay took the discussion into territory I had never explored before. Suppose that Washington had not been hit, he said, when warning of an enemy attack came in. Should thepresident be part of the decision process at all, he asked us, even if he were alive and in communication? Neither Kaysen nor I had ever heard that question raised before. We waited for him to continue, which he seemed to have expected. He rolled hiscigar at the corner of his mouth in a way I’d seen imitated by some of his staff officers. (His ever-present half-smoked cigar gave him a tough look, befitting his reputation. I learned later that he used it to disguise a touch ofBell’s palsy.) Speaking gruffly, he asked rhetorically, “After all, who is more qualified to make that decision [of whether to go tonuclear war on the basis of warning]: somepolitician who may have been in office for only a couple of months … or a man who has been preparing all his adult life to make it?” Both his lips and his voice curled contemptuously around the words “some politician.” The “p” was an explosive puff. And the personal reference seemed pointed. This was the first year of the current politician’s presidential term, in which “Lieutenant Kennedy” had held back air support from his beleaguered invasion force at theBay of Pigs. (And, as I learned later, the year he had refrained from knocking down the newBerlin Wall and then refused to send combat troops toVietnam, having earlier rejected sending them toLaos.) The general making the comment, for years the commander of the Strategic Air Command, was the man who had planned and directed the immolation of a hundred thousand Japanese civilians in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9–10, 1945, and five months after that had commanded the atomic-bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Daniel Ellsberg,The Doomsday Machine: Confessions from a Nuclear War Planner (2017)
In 1943, 40,000 died in the German city ofHamburg, many in the firestorm that swept the city as a result ofAllied bombing, and in 1945 perhaps a further 35,000 inDresden. (The figure for the latter, like the choice of the target itself, remains highly controversial.) TheAmerican bombing of Tokyo that same year with incendiary bombs (a weapon chosen deliberately because so many structures in the city were made ofwood) destroyed sixteen square miles and left 80,000 to 100,000 dead and 1 millionhomeless. Major-General Curtis LeMay, whose responsibility the raid was, said the Japanese were ‘scorched and boiled and baked to death’. It was no oversight that mass bombings were not included in the Allied indictment of Nazi leaders at theNuremberg trials.
Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war. I was trying to help him keep us out of war. And General Curtis LeMay, whom I served under as a matter of fact inWorld War II, was saying "Let's go in, let's totally destroyCuba."
Why was it necessary to drop thenuclear bomb if LeMay was burning upJapan? And he went on fromTokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% ofYokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size ofCleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size ofNew York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent ofChattanooga, which wasToyama. 40% of the equivalent ofLos Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before thedropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.
LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted aswar criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
SAC had been established by belligerent old General Curt LeMay and General Tommy Power, both pronuclear nutcases. Under their rules, if a wing commander messed up even a little bit he was canned and gone forever, so SAC fostered attitudes about how tough they were. What they really did was made a bunch of liars out of many wing commanders, DMs, and DOs. Guys at wing level were scared people. They would lie, cheat, steal, and deny- anything to make themselves look good.
Robin Olds,Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds (2010), with Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus, p. 372
When LeMay scared the hell out of his people, he made something out of them that I don't think was their true nature. He made them cringe and hide the truth. He made them say, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," becoming chronic liars protecting their own skins. Whom were these guys going to promote? Whom were they going to favor in their OER (Officer Effectiveness Report) system? It wouldn't be somebody better, or even someone similar to them. A man like that has to have somebody working for him that he can dominate, and he is inevitably going to pick a lesser individual. After about twenty years of this system the incest destroys the force.I had a bunch of really great friends in SAC, but a big group of guys were developed into people who were afraid to think for themselves. They damn near destroyed the air force in the process.
Robin Olds,Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds (2010), with Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus, p. 374
Eventually the decision was reached to accept the armed chopper as an essential part of the air mobility concept but not to allow the Army to use the Mohawk as an attack aircraft, confining it to a reconnaissance role. Both were wise decisions. But prior to these decisions there were some hot and emotional sessions of the JCS. One concerned the armed Huey, which as then being used successfully in Vietnam to supportARVN operations, but which was considered by the Air Force as illegal poaching on their roles and missions. This was in the midsummer of 1964. General LeMay suddenly took his cigar out of his mouth and, gesticulating wildly, challenged General Johnson to an aerial duel. He screamed, "Johnson, you fly one of those damned Huey's and I'll fly an F-105, and we'll see who survives. I'll shoot you down and scatter your peashooter all over the goddamn ground." I was eager to defend my chief, both verbally and physically (LeMay would have made two Johnsons in body weight, if not in mental poundage) but Johnson motioned to me to keep quiet and responded quietly: "I'm not a flier, but I will be happy to get qualified and take you on- we can agree on a time and place later. But let's not waste the valuable time of our colleagues on such a trivial matter."
Bruce Palmer, Jr., in his bookThe 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 27