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Curtis Lemay, the firebombing of Tokyo and the road to the atomic bomb.

James Scott, the historian, is the author and he's here to help us understand Curtis Lemay's success.

We begin, however, with Curtis Lemay's biography.

James, you have introduced me to the possibility that Lemay is extremely admirable.

He's biased bootstraps. He's a poor kid who's given a bad break in life

and he doesn't let him push him down.

Where does he come from?

What do we make of his...

What you have to say is self-invention.

Exactly. I mean, he comes from this hard-scrabble childhood.

I mean, his father was kind of a drifty, near-do-well,

who uproots the family repeatedly as he sort of goes from one manual labor job

to the next. They move from Ohio to Montana to California.

His mother cleans houses to help make ends meet.

...