Curtis LeMay Quotes

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.

Curtis LeMay

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

Curtis LeMay

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

Curtis LeMay

#7. We should bomb Vietnam back into the stone age.

Curtis LeMay

#8. We're going to bomb them back into the stone Age.

Curtis LeMay

#9. 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

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

Curtis LeMay

#11. 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

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

Curtis LeMay

#13. 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

#14. 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

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

Curtis LeMay

#16. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it.

Curtis LeMay

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. 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

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

Curtis LeMay