S8 Ep191: LeMay's Post-War Legacy — James M. Scott — Following World War II, LeMay ascends to command the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and eventually assumes the position of Air Force Chief of Staff, though he struggles to navigate the complex political environment
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 14 December 2025
⏱️ 5 minutes
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Summary
- LeMay's Post-War Legacy — James M. Scott — Following World War II, LeMay ascends to command the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and eventually assumes the position of Air Force Chief of Staff, though he struggles to navigate the complex political environment and institutional constraints characterizing Washingtonbureaucracy and civilian oversight. Scott documents that LeMay never publicly expressed remorse or moral regret regarding the firebombing campaign, consistently maintaining that the campaign was militarily necessary to prevent a catastrophically expensive ground invasion of the Japanese mainland requiring massive American casualty expenditures. Scott notes that LeMay's historical reputation suffers significantly in subsequent decades due to his controversial "bomb them back to the Stone Age" rhetoric regarding Vietnam policy and his catastrophically ill-conceived decision to accept the Vice Presidential nomination on George Wallace's segregationist ticket in 1968, thereby associating him with explicit racial segregation advocacy and political extremism.
Transcript
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| 0:34.8 | I'm John Batchel with James Scott. |
| 0:36.9 | His new book is Black Snow, Curtis Ley, the firebombing of Tokyo, |
| 0:40.2 | and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. The firebombing of Tokyo in March is unique in human history. |
| 0:45.6 | The atomic bomb used over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unique in human history. What after the war happens is we know the Cold War. |
| 0:55.2 | And Curtis LeMay rises in ranking because it's a younger man. |
| 1:00.0 | He's 38, 39 at the end of the war, rises through the 1950s. |
| 1:05.1 | He becomes, I don't know, James, I didn't write this down. |
| 1:08.2 | Is he an early commander of SAC, strategic air command? Is he the first? |
| 1:12.2 | Yeah, and under, under LeMay, I mean, you see strategic air command really become a much greater organization. |
| 1:19.4 | I mean, he moves it to Nebraska. He brings his war-winning team of guys over from World War II and really gives it the gravitas and the in the in and what I said he he deserves |
| 1:29.7 | a lot of credit for the success of strategic air command right the big Boeing bombers the B36 the B |
| 1:35.5 | the B 47 the B 52 these are LeMay's concepts and the end of the world from LeMay's point of view he rises |
| 1:43.9 | to be a chief of staff of the Air Force. |
| 1:47.0 | I remember a picture during the human missile crisis of John Kennedy in his rocking chair |
| 1:53.0 | and his joint chiefs of staff before him, and there's the fat one, the chubby one, |
| 1:58.0 | sitting there, staring back in Kennedy. |
| 2:00.0 | He didn't get along with McNamara, who had been his subordinate. |
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