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COLD WAR: 1953-60 (4 of 18)

Another intensely anti-communist American was the commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), Airforce General Curtis LeMay. LeMay was more afraid of internal subversion than he was the threat from Moscow. He believed that he and his SAC bombers could readily eliminate any threat from Moscow, and he longed for permission to do so.

LeMay had taken command of SAC in 1948 and had built it into an efficient force. This was before Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). LeMay's bombers were the primary U.S. capability of striking the Soviet Union.

LeMay had voted for Eisenhower in 1952 but had become disappointed over the lack of intensity of Eisenhower concern about the communist menace. He was worried about a first strike by the Soviet Union and saw the way to eliminate this threat was for the U.S. to strike first.

LeMay was uninterested in the niceties of international law. In 1954 he sent his bombers on unauthorized flights over the Soviet Union, dodging MIG fighter planes in order to map potential targets. And LeMay would like to have had control over use of the atomic bomb rather than what he called politicians who happened to have been elected president.