Curtis LeMay - Post-military Career

Post-military Career

Owing to his unrelenting opposition to the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy and what was widely perceived as his hostility to Secretary McNamara, LeMay was essentially forced into retirement in February 1965 and seemed headed for a political career. Moving to California, he was approached by conservatives to challenge moderate Republican Thomas Kuchel for his seat in the United States Senate in 1968, but he declined. For the presidential race that year, LeMay originally supported Richard Nixon; he turned down two requests by George Wallace to join his American Independent Party that year on the grounds that a third-party candidacy might hurt Nixon's chances at the polls (by coincidence, Wallace had served as a sergeant in a unit commanded by LeMay during World War II). LeMay gradually became convinced that Nixon planned to pursue a conciliatory policy with the Soviets and accept nuclear parity rather than retain America's first-strike supremacy. LeMay felt that Lyndon Johnson had lied to him on several occasions, and Hubert Humphrey, if elected, would do the same. Consequently LeMay, while being fully aware of Wallace's segregationist platform, decided to throw his support to Wallace and eventually became Wallace's running mate. The general was dismayed to find himself attacked in the press as a racial segregationist because he was running with Wallace; he had never considered himself a bigot. When Wallace announced his selection in October 1968, LeMay opined that he, unlike many Americans, clearly did not fear using nuclear weapons. His saber rattling did not help the Wallace campaign.

During the 1968 campaign, LeMay became widely associated with the "Stone Age" comment, especially because he had suggested use of nuclear weapons as a strategy to quickly resolve a deeply protracted conventional war which eventually claimed over 50,000 American lives. This reputation did nothing to diminish perceptions of extremism in the Wallace-LeMay ticket. General LeMay disclaimed the comment, saying in a later interview: “I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it."

The Wallace-LeMay AIP ticket received 13.5 percent of the popular vote, higher than most third-party candidacies in the US, and carried five states for a total of 46 electoral votes, but this was not enough to deny Nixon his election as 37th President of the US. It was enough to stop Hubert Humphrey, and Nixon's ground breaking success as a Republican winning electoral votes from Democratic southern states, was partly due to Democrats not voting for the Democratic ticket. Following the 1968 election, LeMay returned to private life, including pursuing several charitable projects. He declined further suggestions to run for political office.

He was honored by several countries, receiving the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the French Légion d'honneur and the Silver Star. On December 7, 1964 the Japanese government conferred on him the First Order of Merit with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. He was elected to the Alfalfa Club in 1957 and served as a general officer for 21 years.

According to historian Warren Kozak, Wallace's defeat left LeMay's public reputation in tatters. LeMay was commonly assumed to share Wallace's widely unpopular racist views, even though LeMay had enthusiastically supported racial integration in the US military publicly and privately. He fought segregation in the Air Force before Executive Order 9981 systemically banned the practice.