Talk:Curtis LeMay

Frank Herbert and certifibles in the Pentagon

The late author of Dune commented often on the mental stability of professional military men, especially flag officers. The over the top performance by Sterling Hayden as General Jack D. Ripper in the film "Dr. Strangelove" was obviously intended as a satire, but I'm willing to bet that there and are more than a few generals with stars on their shoulders and bats in their belfrys.

To cite only one example, in the book "Area 51 - An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base" by Annie Jacobsen, looking back on the Bay Of Pigs fiasco, LeMay said regretfully that "If we'd had a little more time we could have started World War Three". A statement of this nature is actually cause for a psychiatric 911 phone call.

It's been said that every other flag officer in the Pentagon could be fired and we would still have more than enough to run the military. Aside from all the jostling for more rank and career backstabbing, which has always been rampant, it might be a good idea to maintain extra close and detailed psychological profiles on those who have the most military authority. USAFSS60 (talk) 03:39, 22 November 2016 (UTC) USAFSS60 11-21-16

Cuba NOT the only time nuclear authority was delegated

As of 2018-12-21 the section on the "Cuban Missile Crisis" includes the claim that, "Unknown to the US, the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch nuclear weapons under their control—the only time such authority was delegated by higher command.<ref name=Rhodes575/>

I'm deleting the phrase, "the only time such authority was delegated by higher command", because it is contradicted by multiple other sources including the following:

1. The discussion in Cuban Missile Crisis#Averted nuclear launch of a soviet submarine that almost launched nuclear-tipped torpedoes the US did not think they had.
2. Daniel Ellsberg (2017) The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a nuclear war planner, in which Ellsberg says that the authority to use nuclear weapons must be delegated, because otherwise a decapitation attack could succeed in incapacitating the opponent's nuclear arsenal.

DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:15, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Use of the phrase "strategic bombing" -- is a brief definition needed?

In several places the article uses the term "strategic bombing". I suggest that somewhere the term should be given a brief definition or explanation.

While the term is widely used in discussion of aerial warfare, it seems to me that the term is a euphemism, a sugar coating for a strategy encompassing large-scale attacks on cities, with major civilian casualties. The general reader of this article may not understand what is meant by the term, and hence it seems appropriate to me to give it some sort of brief, parenthetical definition somewhere in the article. CoffeeBeans9 (talk) 17:57, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

This is wikipedia, the term is linked so the reader can find out more. There's a specific article on Strategic bombing in World War II which describes it as "...the sustained aerial attack on railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory during World War II". This article itself mentions the incendiary raid on Tokyo and that the USAAF campaign "against Japan,...may have killed more than 500,000 Japanese civilians and left five million homeless". There is no whitewash. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:23, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Good Article Nomination

Ok, so I want to see if we could get a discussion on the matter going, but it is of my opinion that we should at least nominate this article for "Good Article Status".

This is a well-formated, extremely edited, and sourced article. While I suspect the ratings of the article (list in the project above) are out of date, I think this article would regardless qualify.

Prior to a nomination, we should try to discuss it(so please do so below), but I wanted to bring this to your attention. Willthehelpfuleditor (talk 17:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

He is very well known in popular culture

BilCat says they "Removed unsourced or improperly sourced pop culture items per WP:MILPOP - "'In popular culture' sections should be avoided unless the subject has had a well-cited and notable impact on popular culture." It's hard to think of a better known general in popular culture. According to Fred Kaplan in the New York Times: " 'Dr. Strangelove,' Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear-war plans run amok, is widely heralded as one of the greatest satires in American political or movie history....It was no secret -- it would have been obvious to many viewers in 1964 -- that General Ripper looked a lot like Curtis LeMay, the cigar-chomping, gruff-talking general." [Fred Kaplan, "Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove' " The New York Times Oct. 10, 2004.] As for cites: it is a Wikipedia policy that citing the title of a novel or film is adequate--it is citing a reliable primary source about that novel or film. Furthermore an editor can make noncontroversial factual statements based on the primary source according to WP:PRIMARY @Bilcat @BilCat:, Rjensen (talk) 06:49, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

You need to read WP:IPC and WP:MILPOP, and if you have, read them again more carefully. Pop culture sections are not simply a list of every film, TV, book, or comic appearance of the person, or of similar characters that might be based on the person. Citations have to cite a reliable source for the impact an appearance had on popular culture, not merely that the person was a character in a film, book, etc. The only entry that even attempted to do that was the Dr. Strangelove, which I purposely did not remove. I'm going to remove everything else again. Please do not restore it again without a clear consensus to do so. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 07:02, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

That seems to be a misreading of WP:PRIMARY. You can't just cite "X novel" because character Bob Smith seems like real life person John Doe. That's personal interpretation. Use the NYT article instead, since that's a secondary source which makes that connection directly. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:23, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Point of history

Implemented a controversial strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II.

I wish to respectfully say that it wasn't controversial during the Pacific theater of World War II. 96.55.136.16 (talk) 08:35, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Move info from Early life to Career section

Lemay joining the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929 would seem to be part of his career?

I suggest moving, without edits, the text referring to this at the bottom of the Early life section;

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929. He received a regular commission in the United States Army Air Corps in January 1930. While finishing at Ohio State, he took flight training at Norton Field in Columbus, in 1931–32. On June 9, 1934, he married Helen Maitland.

..to the start of the Career section. SmallMoves (talk) 06:08, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

This edit was completed. Seemed reasonable and correct. SmallMoves (talk) 07:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

War criminal?

Could we please establish a quick and firm consensus that LeMay, aside from being George Wallace's running mate in a segregationist Dixiecrat ticket in 1968, was a war criminal per the sources I cited earlier, which were removed by another editor because of a lack of consensus? LeMay admitted to being a war criminal himself and his actions of indiscriminately bombing cities obviously qualify as violations of the Geneva Convention. It seems like a pretty clear cut case to me, even if you believe that his actions were necessary to defeat Japan and North Korea/the PVA. Maurnxiao (talk) 11:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Do most WP:SECONDARY sources call him a war criminal? No. That's the answer here, since secondary sources define the topic. Binksternet (talk) 15:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I provided a secondary source and the sources that describe his actions are describing war crimes. Do most secondary sources in English describe Prince Yasuhiko Asaka as a war criminal? 15:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC) Maurnxiao (talk) 15:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Unless multiple reliable sources specifically describe him as a war criminal (not just describing his actions which a separate source claims similar actions are war crimes), this should not be included. I would argue that since he was never tried and convicted as a war criminal, even if multiple reliable sources could be found, it would need to be described as something akin to “often described as a war criminal for his actions”, since he is technically not a war criminal. But even that probably goes too far without a real consensus of sources. Rcarter555 (talk) 16:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the article could mention that Curtis LeMay might have been a war criminal.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Maurnxiao (talk) 18:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

LeMay was racist and hateful toward Japanese people but the most you can say in this Wikipedia biography about the "war criminal" label is that this or that observer applied it to him, following the hard policy of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Binksternet (talk) 19:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think you responded too quickly to be able to have read all those articles, but LeMay has described himself as a war criminal, various sources have described him as a war criminal, and LeMay, OBJECTIVELY, committed war crimes in Japan and Korea, and possibly Vietnam too -- unless, of course, the Geneva Convention does not apply to American and America adjacent militaries, like Shirō Ishii and LeMay himself. Maurnxiao (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

LeMay never said he was an actual war criminal. He said the US generals would be tried as war criminals if they lost the war. He was lobbing a hypothetical about what Japan would think of him if they had won the war, which of course was never going to happen, seeing as how the USA had ten times the industrial capacity of Japan at the start of the war, and a much higher ratio afterward. His observation touched upon how the victors in a war define the terms for the losers.[11] Note that LeMay was talking about the firebombing of Japan, not about atomic bombs.[12][13] Another thing to note was the LeMay was merely a cog in the wheel of destruction; he was supplied with napalm cluster bombs that had been in preparation by USAAF chiefs for two years, the chiefs gearing up a huge American napalm industry for the exact purpose of firebombing cities. LeMay's instructions were to wait until he had collected enough planes and cluster bombs in the theater to make a big impression on the Japanese, which is exactly what he did. His actions were not those of a rogue general doing whatever he pleased. He was following the established plan. Binksternet (talk) 02:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, it seems to me you are getting closer to understanding the point. LeMay objectively committed war crimes, and sources have described him as a war criminal. His superiors, like Henry H. Arnold and Matthew Ridgway, should also be described as war criminals in their articles. The same is true for war criminals like Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, who until recently was also not described as a war criminal in his article. Maurnxiao (talk) 12:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, no. WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV is the closest you'll get to the label of war criminal: telling the reader explicitly who has considered him a war criminal. He was a right bastard but he cannot be labeled a war criminal in Wikipedia's voice. Binksternet (talk) 13:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So in your eyes, Japanese war criminals in WWII who were given amnesty by America for practical reasons should not be called war criminals simply because they weren't convicted and because of a local media effort to whitewash their crimes? Maurnxiao (talk) 14:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Now YOU’RE getting closer to understanding how Wikipedia works. When you say he “objectively” committed war crimes, that is your opinion. It may be the opinion of others, which you could attribute to them, but barring a conviction as a war criminal, there is no “objective” fact to claim that. Rcarter555 (talk) 14:33, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That's twice you've launched thinly veiled personal attacks. Thanks. Killing civilians deliberately is a war crime regardless of whether or not there is a conviction. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Nope. Binksternet (talk) 15:26, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So a war criminal is only a war criminal if the US says so? If so do you also believe Shirō Ishii was just a crazy scientist? Maurnxiao (talk) 16:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

There have been no personal attacks, thinly veiled or otherwise. Rcarter555 (talk) 16:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)