Buy Now:

Finally, a definitive biography of General Curtis LeMay

"... a fine, candid book ..." --R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

"... an excellent biography." --James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense

"Warren Kozak has captured brilliantly the essence of one of America’s greatest generals and combat commanders." --Lt. General Thomas McInerney, retired, former assistant vice chief of staff of the United States Air Force

Reviews

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

"AFA Members, Congressional Staffers, Civic Leaders, and DOCA members, this past weekend I read a great book – one that anyone who cares about airpower should consider. The book is entitled: LEMAY – The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay. It is written by Warren Kozak, published in 2009, and came to me via a staff member from a former Chairman of the Board of AFA. Simply put – the book destroyed all the preconceived notions I had about General LeMay – most of which were formed by his run for Vice President, the movie Dr. Strangelove, and his often quoted statement of 'bombing the North Vietnamese back to the stone age.'

Here is a sampling of what I found in the book:

'It should be remembered that generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant fought seventeen battles in each of their careers. LeMay fought one almost every day for three years. And unlike any other general in modern times, he did not send his men out on perilous missions, he led them. On the most dangerous missions, LeMay insisted on flying the lead aircraft in the formation himself, in the first plane the enemy would target. No other general in WWII did this.'

The Army Air Corps chose the B-18 over the B-17 in the 1935 heavy bomber competition. The country was in the midst of the great depression and leaders were looking for the 75% solution [my words] when it came to recapitalizing the Army Air Corps. However, this compromised approach yielded an aircraft that lacked both the payload capacity and range to effectively engage in most combat scenarios—including those anticipated in Europe and the Pacific. Fortunately, Congress had the wisdom to add money for the B-17 – to keep both the bomber … and the Boeing Company alive for what was to come. By the end of the war 12,000 B-17s had been constructed, with nearly half of these lost in combat.

'...the start of the military buildup in the fall of 1941 hardly relieved LeMay's anxiety. The US was starting from nothing. It was impossible, he thought to correct twenty years of neglect in just six months or even a year, and he was right.'

'The entire American effort managed just over seventy sorties in August of 1942, compared to ... more than 20,000 [sorties] a month later in the war.'

'He had no tolerance whatsoever for stupidity, incompetence, or laziness, and he was brutal when he witnessed these cardinal vices... his consistent refrain was: whoever didn't cut it or didn't like it here could always go to the infantry.'

'Undergirding all Japanese strategy was a dismissive view that Americans [were] products of liberalism and individualism and incapable of fighting a protracted war.'

'In any given month in the first half of 1945, upwards of 250,000 Asians were dying at the hands of the Japanese – a quarter of a million lives every thirty days.'

'All told, the Air Force dropped over 12,000 mines and brought Japan's shipping down to one-tenth of what it had been before the mining.'

LeMay in a speech in 1945: 'It is beyond my powers of description to picture to you the difference between the bomb-blackened ruins and the desolation of our enemy's cities and the peaceful Ohio cities and landscape, untouched and unmarred by war. I can only say to you, if you love America, do everything you can do to make sure that what happened to Germany and Japan will never happen to our country. Our preparedness for war should be the measure of our desire for peace. The last war was started by airpower and finished by [airpower]. America, if attacked must be able to take the initiative immediately. It must attack in turn.'

LeMay (in 1965): '[The enemy asked for it and they got it.] In reverse fashion, if we keep listening to the gospel of apology and equivocation which all too many politicians and savants are preaching today in the US, we will be asking for the same thing. And in time may achieve it.'

'Whatever you do, somebody's going to criticize you. Forget criticism,' was the advice he gave to Air Force personnel.

A list of LeMay's accomplishments is staggering.

He developed heavy bombing tactics in the European Theater of Operations … replacing ineffective and haphazard methods with disciplined combat formations that maximized the bombers' ability to defend themselves against enemy fighters and increase bombing accuracy over the target.

He developed the tactics that transformed B-29 operations in the Pacific from an utter failure into an overwhelming success by adopting unorthodox tactics and low altitude bombing runs.

He created the RAND Corporation

He started the ICBM program

He was the Commander of the Air Force in Europe at the start of the Berlin Air Lift

He built the Strategic Air Command into a force second to none Despite his legendary differences with SECDEF McNamara (who earlier served under him as a Lt Col), the latter said about him: 'Without question, Curtis LeMay was the finest combat commander the US has ever produced.'

On balance, this book is important for many reasons. Gen LeMay stood up against group-think. He understood airpower and the human dimension of war. He stood by his principles, shunned popularity, argued for a strong deterrent. And … he was right. We owe him a ton. The legacy of his efforts still grace our Air Force today in Minutemen missiles, B-52 bombers, and KC-135 tankers." --Michael M. Dunn, President/CEO, AFA

"Almost every aspect of the Dr. Strangelovian image surrounding Gen. Curtis LeMay was in some way misleading. The tough-guy cigar provocatively dangling from his mouth had little to do with cultivating his iron-pants image. Instead LeMay, in worry that he might be grounded after suffering Bell's palsy, had originally stuck it in his mouth to hide a sagging lip.

Bombing Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' was probably not LeMay's own infamous Neanderthal advice about winning the Vietnam War, but a toss-off line inserted into his autobiography by an overzealous co-author that slipped by LeMay during copy editing. Later, when pressed, he asserted that such a nightmarish strategy reflected only American capability, not American intent.

Did the mad bomber of Japan gleefully and without regret burn its cities to the ground, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians in them? LeMay, in fact, thought carefully about the strategy, approved leaflets warning of the conflagration to come, and, after the war, confessed that he would understandably have been tried as a war criminal if the U.S. had lost.

Why did LeMay accept the offer from the racist Alabama governor George Wallace to serve as his running mate on the 1968 third-party ticket? LeMay knew almost nothing about either Wallace or politics, but with all his fiery rhetoric about not losing in Vietnam or coddling the Russians, apparently a great deal about scaring voters to death. What little campaigning LeMay engaged in was a tragicomedy, as the old fire bomber vainly tried to instruct a horrified public about the possibility of still winning wars in the nuclear age. (It is now forgotten that he ended the campaign in liberal fashion, advocating far-seeing and often quite humane environmentalism.)

The invasion of Japan was avoided by the dropping of two atomic bombs, but had LeMay had his way, by late 1945 and early 1946 there would have been few Japanese industries or urban areas left to fuel the Japanese resistance. We often calculate that the atomic strikes saved a million American lives, but forget that without Hiroshima and Nagasaki another six months of incendiary attacks — perhaps enhanced by shorter flights from newly acquired bases in Okinawa and augmented by transfers of European-theater B-17s and B-24s — would have taken millions more Japanese lives.

Warren Kozak's new biography is not meant to hide LeMay's abrasiveness and absence of tact. And he does not claim that his revisionist account is the last word about the controversial general, or that he has unearthed radically new information from private LeMay papers or Air Force archives — although Kozak was given access to LeMay's memorabilia and terse correspondence. Rather, Kozak's achievement in this engaging portrait is to have provided a twofold reminder. First, like him or not, Curtis LeMay's brilliance and expertise saved thousands of American lives during World War II, helped to shorten the war, and then restored the American strategic deterrence that was essential in keeping the peace during the Cold War.

Second, the larger LeMay paradox is an old one in American military history, one that has also involved the likes of William Tecumseh Sherman and George Patton: Peace-loving democratic peoples fear fiery warriors in times of calm as much as they clamor for them in extremis. Those whom we applaud in wartime, we usually damn later during peace. So it was with LeMay, who graced the cover of Time magazine and, by the end of World War II, was a national icon.

We sometimes forget that LeMay's war career started as commander within the 305th Bomb Group, which began bombing occupied Europe in 1942, in daylight, without fighter escort — and with little strategic effect. Those early missions were suicidal. Green navigators got lost over cloudy, unfamiliar Europe. Inexperienced squadrons were blasted apart by some of the best fighters and pilots in the world. Amid the general American panic, Major and soon Colonel LeMay devised new formations, figured out how to get more bombs over the targets, and was soon flying lead plane on the most dangerous missions of the war, most notably the ill-fated Schweinfurt raid that nearly devastated the morale of the Eighth Air Force.

By late 1944, LeMay was the natural choice to save the faltering B-29 bombing campaign based on the Marianas. Despite the exorbitant cost of the B-29 program — far more than the government investment in the Manhattan Project — the high-altitude bombers were inflicting little damage on the Japanese mainland, even as hundreds were grounded or crashed owing to mechanical mishaps. LeMay's answer was to transform the precisely targeted bomber into a low-flying, overloaded napalm carrier — often at altitudes scarcely over 5,000 feet. Hundreds of B-29s with 20,000 pounds of incendiaries apiece rode in fast on the evening Japanese jet stream, ignited the wooden cities of Japan, and left vast urban swaths in ashes.

My father, who flew on 40 such missions over Japan, often voiced the general ambivalence of the rank and file — furor at the new general who worked the crews to exhaustion and took away their high-altitude immunity, coupled with post-war realization that the often callous-sounding LeMay's radical transformations had saved their lives and shortened the war. As Kozak puts it, 'Curtis LeMay understood that if he was going to do his job well, he would have to give up any chance at being liked. Not just by the enemy combatants and civilians whom he destroyed by the thousands, but by his own men, whom he pushed without letup.'

For the next 20 post-war years, LeMay was at the center of America's military challenges: reforming a struggling Strategic Air Command, initiating the Berlin airlift, clamoring for the use of overwhelming force in Korea, decrying the new doctrine of limited war in Vietnam, and dealing with the threat from newly Communist Cuba. As Kozak points out, it was rather easy to caricature the bulky LeMay as a nut when he advocated sustained, provocative bombing campaigns in an age of mutually assured destruction. But the alternative strategy of limited engagement, as LeMay also foresaw, ultimately cost tens of thousands of lives in Vietnam with no real objective or end in sight.

Kozak does a good job of uncovering the studious and thoroughly professional side of LeMay, one that belies his image as an out-of-control saber-rattler. Even before World War II, he was a flight engineer and an astute navigator, pioneering long-range navigation techniques on the new B-17 bomber. His work led to record-breaking missions to South America and publicity flights that reconnoitered battleships and ocean liners far out at sea.

LeMay was the longest-serving general in our history, and the youngest to reach four-star rank. President Kennedy was no fan of LeMay, but astutely appointed him to the Joint Chiefs, remarking, 'I like having LeMay at the head of the Air Force. Everybody knows how he feels. That's a good thing right now.' And even LeMay's perennial liberal foe, Robert McNamara, once concluded that Lemay — his former wartime boss — was 'the finest military strategist the nation has ever produced.'

What are we left with, then, in assessing Curtis E. LeMay? Kozak suggests a tragedy of sorts. LeMay grew up in an age when public-relations ability was largely irrelevant in comparison with personal courage and proven expertise. LeMay's approach — a combination of reticence and occasional blunt talk about victory at any cost — privileged action over rhetoric; it was perfectly suited for the conventional struggle of World War II, and even to the frightening, but far more complex, early years of the Cold War.

But by 1961, Kennedy nuance and cool were in, most people had only foggy memories of B-17s, Russia had nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at our cities, and corporate whiz-kids like Robert McNamara thrived amid the new nexus of Washington politics, media, and corporate interests. LeMay was reduced to the status of a plodding stegosaurus clumsily batting away critics with his spiked swats. In the new calculus, he was not so much uncharismatic as having no charisma whatsoever. George C. Scott's portrayal of Gen. Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove was inspired by popular caricatures of LeMay, and Scott's theatrical genius reduced the reserved student of air power to a loudmouthed, demonic psychopath.

Yet LeMay's competence and honesty were never questioned. He did not cash in — as so many have since — by hawking superfluous new weaponry to former subordinates in the Pentagon. And, like a Sophoclean character, LeMay would rather have perished than have changed to facilitate new doctrines of limited war and faith in international peace-keeping organizations. In this sympathetic biography, Warren Kozak lets facts about LeMay speak for themselves and reminds us why one of our greatest soldiers is today hardly recognized.

In short, the LeMay DNA was almost divinely engineered for America's ordeal between 1930 and 1960. When that era passed — and passed without Armageddon, thanks, in large part, to a few brilliant and courageous warriors like LeMay — we were to be done with him as well."-- Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution

"Military buffs will delight at the colorful details that punctuate LeMay's life. Kozak's meticulous retelling of key war decisions and the reasons a particular air raid met with spectacular success -- or failure -- will grab even casual military buffs.

And when Kozak isn't describing the horrors of war, he turns to the men and women who lived through it to paint the picture."
-- Christian Toto, HumanEvents.com

"Kozak's biography of U.S. Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay (1906-1990) won't convert those utterly convinced that he was a bomb-happy maniac. The more open-minded, however, will find in it a broader perspective on this controversial officer than we have had elsewhere. His outstanding competence as leader and organizer of strategic airpower in World War II and during the cold war is convincingly presented; so are his limitations in the Pentagon and his poor judgment in being George Wallace's running mate in 1968. Kozak suggests that LeMay was utterly dedicated to the mission of destroying his country's enemies and to the men under his command charged with carrying out that mission. This led to what can only be called a certain lack of the social graces and a good many of what might charitably be called misinterpretations of where LeMay's patriotism led him. A book that definitely belongs in aviation and modern military history collections."
-- Roland Green, Booklist

" As the daughter of Curtis LeMay I found this book the most cogent and descriptive of my father the man. Many of the myths that frequently clouded the facts and lead to a misunderstanding are dispelled. Kozak has done extensive research and presented a candid and unbiased account of his colorful career.

I never saw my father as anything less than honest, fair and a willing leader beloved and respected by those he commanded. Frequently he has been quoted as having said of the Vietnam War "bomb them back to the stone age". Personally I can set the record straight. This was not his quote but MacKinlay Kantor's statement missed in my father's early editing of the manuscript for "Mission with LeMay". My family is heartened to know that his sacrifices, contributions and patriotism are being recognized."
-- Jane LeMay Lodge, Curtis LeMay's daughter

"A splendid analysis of and tribute to one of America’s great, if underappreciated, war fighters. LeMay had a genius for organizing forces and campaigns – reflected in the World War II air campaigns against both Germany and Japan, the Berlin airlift, and the crated of the Strategic Air Command from the shambles of post World War II demobilization. While he may have had "almost no social graces" – as an Air Force Chief observed – he was a disciplinarian who served the nation effectively in war and peace. This is an excellent biography."
-- James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense

"Fearless, innovative, shrewd, abrasive, LeMay is the father of modern air power and the man Robert McNamara has called "the finest combat commander the United States has ever produced." His flaws are famous, but this fine, candid book also shows how much we owe him."
– R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
"Warren Kozak has captured brilliantly the essence of one of America’s greatest generals and combat commanders. I knew General LeMay when I was a captain and he was chief of staff. LeMay was the Air Force’s greatest strategist and tactician. He led the way in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with airpower, was instrumental in deterring the Soviet Union during his leadership of the Strategic Air Command. He was not widely liked, but he was respected by those who served under him.
– General Thomas McInerney, United States Air Force retired, former assistant chief of staff. United States Air Force.


HOME ABOUT THE BOOK The Basics Sneak Peek Reviews More About Curtis LeMay PHOTOS & VIDEO Photo Gallery Video Links NEWS ABOUT WARREN Bio Other Works Speaking Services ASK WARREN CONTACT
Buy Now: Amazon Borders Barnes & Noble Finally, a definitive biography of General Curtis LeMay "... a fine, candid book ..." --R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency "... an excellent biography." --James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense "Warren Kozak has captured brilliantly the essence of one of America’s greatest generals and combat commanders." --Lt. General Thomas McInerney, retired, former assistant vice chief of staff of the United States Air Force	Reviews Wednesday, September 2, 2009 "AFA Members, Congressional Staffers, Civic Leaders, and DOCA members, this past weekend I read a great book – one that anyone who cares about airpower should consider. The book is entitled: LEMAY – The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay. It is written by Warren Kozak, published in 2009, and came to me via a staff member from a former Chairman of the Board of AFA. Simply put – the book destroyed all the preconceived notions I had about General LeMay – most of which were formed by his run for Vice President, the movie Dr. Strangelove, and his often quoted statement of 'bombing the North Vietnamese back to the stone age.' Here is a sampling of what I found in the book: 'It should be remembered that generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant fought seventeen battles in each of their careers. LeMay fought one almost every day for three years. And unlike any other general in modern times, he did not send his men out on perilous missions, he led them. On the most dangerous missions, LeMay insisted on flying the lead aircraft in the formation himself, in the first plane the enemy would target. No other general in WWII did this.' The Army Air Corps chose the B-18 over the B-17 in the 1935 heavy bomber competition. The country was in the midst of the great depression and leaders were looking for the 75% solution [my words] when it came to recapitalizing the Army Air Corps. However, this compromised approach yielded an aircraft that lacked both the payload capacity and range to effectively engage in most combat scenarios—including those anticipated in Europe and the Pacific. Fortunately, Congress had the wisdom to add money for the B-17 – to keep both the bomber … and the Boeing Company alive for what was to come. By the end of the war 12,000 B-17s had been constructed, with nearly half of these lost in combat. '...the start of the military buildup in the fall of 1941 hardly relieved LeMay's anxiety. The US was starting from nothing. It was impossible, he thought to correct twenty years of neglect in just six months or even a year, and he was right.' 'The entire American effort managed just over seventy sorties in August of 1942, compared to ... more than 20,000 [sorties] a month later in the war.' 'He had no tolerance whatsoever for stupidity, incompetence, or laziness, and he was brutal when he witnessed these cardinal vices... his consistent refrain was: whoever didn't cut it or didn't like it here could always go to the infantry.' 'Undergirding all Japanese strategy was a dismissive view that Americans [were] products of liberalism and individualism and incapable of fighting a protracted war.' 'In any given month in the first half of 1945, upwards of 250,000 Asians were dying at the hands of the Japanese – a quarter of a million lives every thirty days.' 'All told, the Air Force dropped over 12,000 mines and brought Japan's shipping down to one-tenth of what it had been before the mining.' LeMay in a speech in 1945: 'It is beyond my powers of description to picture to you the difference between the bomb-blackened ruins and the desolation of our enemy's cities and the peaceful Ohio cities and landscape, untouched and unmarred by war. I can only say to you, if you love America, do everything you can do to make sure that what happened to Germany and Japan will never happen to our country. Our preparedness for war should be the measure of our desire for peace. The last war was started by airpower and finished by [airpower]. America, if attacked must be able to take the initiative immediately. It must attack in turn.' LeMay (in 1965): '[The enemy asked for it and they got it.] In reverse fashion, if we keep listening to the gospel of apology and equivocation which all too many politicians and savants are preaching today in the US, we will be asking for the same thing. And in time may achieve it.' 'Whatever you do, somebody's going to criticize you. Forget criticism,' was the advice he gave to Air Force personnel. A list of LeMay's accomplishments is staggering. He developed heavy bombing tactics in the European Theater of Operations … replacing ineffective and haphazard methods with disciplined combat formations that maximized the bombers' ability to defend themselves against enemy fighters and increase bombing accuracy over the target. He developed the tactics that transformed B-29 operations in the Pacific from an utter failure into an overwhelming success by adopting unorthodox tactics and low altitude bombing runs. He created the RAND Corporation He started the ICBM program He was the Commander of the Air Force in Europe at the start of the Berlin Air Lift He built the Strategic Air Command into a force second to none Despite his legendary differences with SECDEF McNamara (who earlier served under him as a Lt Col), the latter said about him: 'Without question, Curtis LeMay was the finest combat commander the US has ever produced.' On balance, this book is important for many reasons. Gen LeMay stood up against group-think. He understood airpower and the human dimension of war. He stood by his principles, shunned popularity, argued for a strong deterrent. And … he was right. We owe him a ton. The legacy of his efforts still grace our Air Force today in Minutemen missiles, B-52 bombers, and KC-135 tankers." --Michael M. Dunn, President/CEO, AFA "Almost every aspect of the Dr. Strangelovian image surrounding Gen. Curtis LeMay was in some way misleading. The tough-guy cigar provocatively dangling from his mouth had little to do with cultivating his iron-pants image. Instead LeMay, in worry that he might be grounded after suffering Bell's palsy, had originally stuck it in his mouth to hide a sagging lip. Bombing Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' was probably not LeMay's own infamous Neanderthal advice about winning the Vietnam War, but a toss-off line inserted into his autobiography by an overzealous co-author that slipped by LeMay during copy editing. Later, when pressed, he asserted that such a nightmarish strategy reflected only American capability, not American intent. Did the mad bomber of Japan gleefully and without regret burn its cities to the ground, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians in them? LeMay, in fact, thought carefully about the strategy, approved leaflets warning of the conflagration to come, and, after the war, confessed that he would understandably have been tried as a war criminal if the U.S. had lost. Why did LeMay accept the offer from the racist Alabama governor George Wallace to serve as his running mate on the 1968 third-party ticket? LeMay knew almost nothing about either Wallace or politics, but with all his fiery rhetoric about not losing in Vietnam or coddling the Russians, apparently a great deal about scaring voters to death. What little campaigning LeMay engaged in was a tragicomedy, as the old fire bomber vainly tried to instruct a horrified public about the possibility of still winning wars in the nuclear age. (It is now forgotten that he ended the campaign in liberal fashion, advocating far-seeing and often quite humane environmentalism.) The invasion of Japan was avoided by the dropping of two atomic bombs, but had LeMay had his way, by late 1945 and early 1946 there would have been few Japanese industries or urban areas left to fuel the Japanese resistance. We often calculate that the atomic strikes saved a million American lives, but forget that without Hiroshima and Nagasaki another six months of incendiary attacks — perhaps enhanced by shorter flights from newly acquired bases in Okinawa and augmented by transfers of European-theater B-17s and B-24s — would have taken millions more Japanese lives. Warren Kozak's new biography is not meant to hide LeMay's abrasiveness and absence of tact. And he does not claim that his revisionist account is the last word about the controversial general, or that he has unearthed radically new information from private LeMay papers or Air Force archives — although Kozak was given access to LeMay's memorabilia and terse correspondence. Rather, Kozak's achievement in this engaging portrait is to have provided a twofold reminder. First, like him or not, Curtis LeMay's brilliance and expertise saved thousands of American lives during World War II, helped to shorten the war, and then restored the American strategic deterrence that was essential in keeping the peace during the Cold War. Second, the larger LeMay paradox is an old one in American military history, one that has also involved the likes of William Tecumseh Sherman and George Patton: Peace-loving democratic peoples fear fiery warriors in times of calm as much as they clamor for them in extremis. Those whom we applaud in wartime, we usually damn later during peace. So it was with LeMay, who graced the cover of Time magazine and, by the end of World War II, was a national icon. We sometimes forget that LeMay's war career started as commander within the 305th Bomb Group, which began bombing occupied Europe in 1942, in daylight, without fighter escort — and with little strategic effect. Those early missions were suicidal. Green navigators got lost over cloudy, unfamiliar Europe. Inexperienced squadrons were blasted apart by some of the best fighters and pilots in the world. Amid the general American panic, Major and soon Colonel LeMay devised new formations, figured out how to get more bombs over the targets, and was soon flying lead plane on the most dangerous missions of the war, most notably the ill-fated Schweinfurt raid that nearly devastated the morale of the Eighth Air Force. By late 1944, LeMay was the natural choice to save the faltering B-29 bombing campaign based on the Marianas. Despite the exorbitant cost of the B-29 program — far more than the government investment in the Manhattan Project — the high-altitude bombers were inflicting little damage on the Japanese mainland, even as hundreds were grounded or crashed owing to mechanical mishaps. LeMay's answer was to transform the precisely targeted bomber into a low-flying, overloaded napalm carrier — often at altitudes scarcely over 5,000 feet. Hundreds of B-29s with 20,000 pounds of incendiaries apiece rode in fast on the evening Japanese jet stream, ignited the wooden cities of Japan, and left vast urban swaths in ashes. My father, who flew on 40 such missions over Japan, often voiced the general ambivalence of the rank and file — furor at the new general who worked the crews to exhaustion and took away their high-altitude immunity, coupled with post-war realization that the often callous-sounding LeMay's radical transformations had saved their lives and shortened the war. As Kozak puts it, 'Curtis LeMay understood that if he was going to do his job well, he would have to give up any chance at being liked. Not just by the enemy combatants and civilians whom he destroyed by the thousands, but by his own men, whom he pushed without letup.' For the next 20 post-war years, LeMay was at the center of America's military challenges: reforming a struggling Strategic Air Command, initiating the Berlin airlift, clamoring for the use of overwhelming force in Korea, decrying the new doctrine of limited war in Vietnam, and dealing with the threat from newly Communist Cuba. As Kozak points out, it was rather easy to caricature the bulky LeMay as a nut when he advocated sustained, provocative bombing campaigns in an age of mutually assured destruction. But the alternative strategy of limited engagement, as LeMay also foresaw, ultimately cost tens of thousands of lives in Vietnam with no real objective or end in sight. Kozak does a good job of uncovering the studious and thoroughly professional side of LeMay, one that belies his image as an out-of-control saber-rattler. Even before World War II, he was a flight engineer and an astute navigator, pioneering long-range navigation techniques on the new B-17 bomber. His work led to record-breaking missions to South America and publicity flights that reconnoitered battleships and ocean liners far out at sea. LeMay was the longest-serving general in our history, and the youngest to reach four-star rank. President Kennedy was no fan of LeMay, but astutely appointed him to the Joint Chiefs, remarking, 'I like having LeMay at the head of the Air Force. Everybody knows how he feels. That's a good thing right now.' And even LeMay's perennial liberal foe, Robert McNamara, once concluded that Lemay — his former wartime boss — was 'the finest military strategist the nation has ever produced.' What are we left with, then, in assessing Curtis E. LeMay? Kozak suggests a tragedy of sorts. LeMay grew up in an age when public-relations ability was largely irrelevant in comparison with personal courage and proven expertise. LeMay's approach — a combination of reticence and occasional blunt talk about victory at any cost — privileged action over rhetoric; it was perfectly suited for the conventional struggle of World War II, and even to the frightening, but far more complex, early years of the Cold War. But by 1961, Kennedy nuance and cool were in, most people had only foggy memories of B-17s, Russia had nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at our cities, and corporate whiz-kids like Robert McNamara thrived amid the new nexus of Washington politics, media, and corporate interests. LeMay was reduced to the status of a plodding stegosaurus clumsily batting away critics with his spiked swats. In the new calculus, he was not so much uncharismatic as having no charisma whatsoever. George C. Scott's portrayal of Gen. Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove was inspired by popular caricatures of LeMay, and Scott's theatrical genius reduced the reserved student of air power to a loudmouthed, demonic psychopath. Yet LeMay's competence and honesty were never questioned. He did not cash in — as so many have since — by hawking superfluous new weaponry to former subordinates in the Pentagon. And, like a Sophoclean character, LeMay would rather have perished than have changed to facilitate new doctrines of limited war and faith in international peace-keeping organizations. In this sympathetic biography, Warren Kozak lets facts about LeMay speak for themselves and reminds us why one of our greatest soldiers is today hardly recognized. In short, the LeMay DNA was almost divinely engineered for America's ordeal between 1930 and 1960. When that era passed — and passed without Armageddon, thanks, in large part, to a few brilliant and courageous warriors like LeMay — we were to be done with him as well."-- Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution "Military buffs will delight at the colorful details that punctuate LeMay's life. Kozak's meticulous retelling of key war decisions and the reasons a particular air raid met with spectacular success -- or failure -- will grab even casual military buffs. And when Kozak isn't describing the horrors of war, he turns to the men and women who lived through it to paint the picture." -- Christian Toto, HumanEvents.com "Kozak's biography of U.S. Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay (1906-1990) won't convert those utterly convinced that he was a bomb-happy maniac. The more open-minded, however, will find in it a broader perspective on this controversial officer than we have had elsewhere. His outstanding competence as leader and organizer of strategic airpower in World War II and during the cold war is convincingly presented; so are his limitations in the Pentagon and his poor judgment in being George Wallace's running mate in 1968. Kozak suggests that LeMay was utterly dedicated to the mission of destroying his country's enemies and to the men under his command charged with carrying out that mission. This led to what can only be called a certain lack of the social graces and a good many of what might charitably be called misinterpretations of where LeMay's patriotism led him. A book that definitely belongs in aviation and modern military history collections." -- Roland Green, Booklist " As the daughter of Curtis LeMay I found this book the most cogent and descriptive of my father the man. Many of the myths that frequently clouded the facts and lead to a misunderstanding are dispelled. Kozak has done extensive research and presented a candid and unbiased account of his colorful career. I never saw my father as anything less than honest, fair and a willing leader beloved and respected by those he commanded. Frequently he has been quoted as having said of the Vietnam War "bomb them back to the stone age". Personally I can set the record straight. This was not his quote but MacKinlay Kantor's statement missed in my father's early editing of the manuscript for "Mission with LeMay". My family is heartened to know that his sacrifices, contributions and patriotism are being recognized." -- Jane LeMay Lodge, Curtis LeMay's daughter "A splendid analysis of and tribute to one of America’s great, if underappreciated, war fighters. LeMay had a genius for organizing forces and campaigns – reflected in the World War II air campaigns against both Germany and Japan, the Berlin airlift, and the crated of the Strategic Air Command from the shambles of post World War II demobilization. While he may have had "almost no social graces" – as an Air Force Chief observed – he was a disciplinarian who served the nation effectively in war and peace. This is an excellent biography." -- James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense "Fearless, innovative, shrewd, abrasive, LeMay is the father of modern air power and the man Robert McNamara has called "the finest combat commander the United States has ever produced." His flaws are famous, but this fine, candid book also shows how much we owe him." – R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency "Warren Kozak has captured brilliantly the essence of one of America’s greatest generals and combat commanders. I knew General LeMay when I was a captain and he was chief of staff. LeMay was the Air Force’s greatest strategist and tactician. He led the way in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with airpower, was instrumental in deterring the Soviet Union during his leadership of the Strategic Air Command. He was not widely liked, but he was respected by those who served under him. – General Thomas McInerney, United States Air Force retired, former assistant chief of staff. United States Air Force.
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