Curtis LeMay Quotes

• If you are going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force. Use too much and deliberately use too much; you'll save lives, not only your own, but the enemy's too.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Enemy, Use

  145 Copy quote

• If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.

  Curtis LeMay

  War, Criminals, Lost

  81 Copy quote

• There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.

  Curtis LeMay

  Bystanders, Killing, Innocent

  123 Copy quote

• If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Fighting, Bad Ass

  141 Copy quote

• If we maintain our faith in God, love of freedom, and superior global air power, the future looks good.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Air, Looks

  122 Copy quote

• I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them.

  Curtis LeMay

  Country, Thinking, Hands

  101 Copy quote

• I don't have time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.

  Curtis LeMay

  Time, Unfortunate, Incompetent

  107 Copy quote

• 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

  Military, War, Thinking

  66 Copy quote

• You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting.

  Curtis LeMay

  Fighting, People, Enough

  "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". Book by Richard Rhodes, 1986.

  62 Copy quote

• We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too. Over a period of three years or so, we killed off - what - twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?

  Curtis LeMay

  War, Korea, Years

  "Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton". Book by Richard H. Kohn and Joseph P. Harahan, p. 88, 1988.

  77 Copy quote

• My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power - not with ground forces.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Age, Vietnam

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story". Book by Curtis E LeMay and MacKinlay Kantor, p. 565, 1965.

  88 Copy quote

• I don't mind being called tough, since I find in this racket it's the tough guys who lead the survivors.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Guy, Mind

  88 Copy quote

• Native annalists may look sadly back from the future on that period when we had the atomic bomb and the Russians didn't. Or when the Russians had aquired (through connivance and treachery of Westerns with warped minds) the atomic bomb - and yet still didn't have any stockpile of the weapons. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it.

  Curtis LeMay

  Russia, Mind, Eras

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story" by Curtis E. LeMay, MacKinlay Kantor, (p. 560-561), 1965.

  72 Copy quote

• Don't like to do anything half-heartedly, even if it is a wicked and self-destructive avocation like smoking cigars

  Curtis LeMay

  Self, Smoking, Wicked

  77 Copy quote

• We're at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?

  Curtis LeMay

  War, Japan, Want

  "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". Book by Richard Rhodes, p. 596, 1986.

  66 Copy quote

• Today, shooting wars are won or lost before they start. If they are fought at all, they would be fought principally to confirm which side had won at the outset.

  Curtis LeMay

  War, Would Be, Shooting

  64 Copy quote

• 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.

  Curtis LeMay

  Years, Chinese, Situation

  "Mission with LeMay: My Story". Book by Curtis E LeMay and MacKinlay Kantor, p. 561, 1965.

  42 Copy quote

• 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.

  Curtis LeMay

  War, Criminals, Killing

  44 Copy quote

• You [President Kennedy] have made some pretty strong statements about their being defensive and that we would take action against offensive weapons. I think that a blockade and political talk would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this [the Cuban missile crisis]. And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too. In other words, you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time.

  Curtis LeMay

  Strong, War, Thinking

  65 Copy quote

• I don't want to hear of any of you men getting into any fights with the British. But if you do, you'd better not get whipped.

  Curtis LeMay

  Peace, War, Fighting

  48 Copy quote

• My solution to the problem would be to tell the North Vietnamese Communists frankly that they've got to drawn in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the stone age.

  Curtis LeMay

  Horny, Age, Would Be

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story" by Curtis E. LeMay, MacKinlay Kantor, (p. 565), 1965.

  56 Copy quote

• I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war.

  Curtis LeMay

  Attitude, War, Mean

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story" by Curtis E. LeMay, MacKinlay Kantor, (p. 559), 1965.

  50 Copy quote

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