Curtis LeMay: Quotes about thinking

Curtis LeMay was American general and politician. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Curtis LeMay: 26 quotes2 likes

“China has The Bomb. […] Sometime in the future--25, 50, 75 years hence--what will the situation be like then? By that time the Chinese 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.”

Curtis LeMay

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 561.

“Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more. if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.”

Curtis LeMay

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.

“As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first 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.”

Curtis LeMay

The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series, p. 574

“Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war 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 good soldier.”

Curtis LeMay

On the morality of the firebombing campaign http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html)

“Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more.”

Curtis LeMay

if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.
Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.