Winning Armageddon: Curtis LeMay and Strategic Air Command 1948–1957

Air Force General Curtis LeMay: the name alone instills fear in many. The key architect behind the firebombing of Tokyo, and later the ardent supporter of a U.S. military airstrike during the Cuban Missile Crisis, has often been portrayed as a man who cared little for military ethics, and who was cavalier about the prohibition against the intentional bombing of civilians. Robert McNamara’s famous description of LeMay in the film Fog of War (2003) did little to change that image. In his book about LeMay’s tenure at Strategic Air Command (SAC), Trevor Albertson is not out to confirm – or gainsay – previous legends and perceptions, although he clearly wishes to bring them closer to reality. He concentrates squarely and in detail on LeMay’s tenure as Head of SAC, showing that LeMay’s ideas about nuclear preemption, while seemingly brutal, were very much an extension of the political developments and threats of the time, and the product of a keen and determined mind. To LeMay, one could all too easily come to the point where nuclear war was simply unavoidable. Through a strategy of targeted first strikes and heavy reliance on bomber-delivered nuclear payloads, such a war could be won, argued LeMay. For those accepting President Reagan’s famous doctrine that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, LeMay represents a truly different view, born of the Cold War at its most intense and chilly. Many will probably take issue with the book’s partly neutral, partly even admiring stance towards General LeMay. The firebombing of Japanese cities and the ensuing nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – while not the focus of this book – are described tersely as contributing to the shortening and winning of World War II. One finds little explicit discussion of the Laws of Armed Conflict or the rights of civilians. But for that very reason, it is also an instructive and useful book. In concise, clear prose it presents the essence of LeMay’s arguments for preemption and for the possible winning of a nuclear war. Instead of fixating on the most controversial events of LeMay’s career – and they were several – we get a clear-eyed description of the options that many believed the U.S. faced during the Cold War. Not least, it shows how LeMay argued, from a utilitarian, lesser-evil point of view, for what many would consider both illegal and immoral actions in war. Albertson leaves us in no doubt that LeMay’s aim was unequivocal: avoiding war if one can, fighting it effectively if one must. LeMay thought that the latter in the end was the more likely scernario. There is much to learn from this story, even if one concludes that LeMay’s strategic willingness to sacrifice civilians for the sake of winning a war is in the end unconscionable.