Le May.

This is coolbert:

During the height of the Cold War, General Curtis Le May, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command [SAC] was widely misquoted as saying that in case of sufficient provocation from the Soviet Union, General Le May would launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviets and wipe them out.

For supposedly saying this, the General was widely criticized as advocating his own policy that went against stated U.S. government policy. At the time the U.S. gov publicly stated that nuclear weapons would only be used in retaliation mode for a nuclear strike on the U.S. by Soviet forces. For saying such things, General Le May was viewed with suspicion by many persons, and ridiculed by others.

What is the full story behind what the General is supposed to have said?

Well, the General did say something along these lines. But the context is what is important.

What the General did say was that the U.,S. gov would have five days warning prior to the Soviets launching a nuclear attack upon the U.S [it would have taken the Soviets five days to get their own populace into nuclear shelters. Presumably U.S. intelligence would have detected this and given warning of the forthcoming attack]. Having received this warning, General Le May stated that it would have been his duty to approach the President and advise him that he would have been able to hit the Soviets first and wipe out their nuclear strike force.

Preemptive attack was in the cards, but only if the context was right [U.S. detecting a forthcoming attack from the Soviets, and permission of the President being granted first].

Now, General Le May's reasoning behind such a strategy went like this. Ferret flights [electronic reconnaissance] from Thule, Greenland, had disclosed that over the Arctic approaches to Siberia, the Soviets did not have radar coverage. They could not have detected incoming U.S. bomber aircraft of SAC! General Le May's bomber force could have penetrated Soviet air space and caught the Soviet attack force on the ground and wiped them out!

Project Homerun, in the fifties, consisting of a flight of about twenty five U.S. aircraft of SAC, actually did simulate such an approach to Soviet airspace. The lack of Soviet response seemed to indicate that such an attack would have been feasible. General Le May was not a war-mongering General out for glory but a prudent commander disliked by persons who opposed him out of hate for the military, misquoting him and trying to make him look like a fool.

It would have been totally within his duty as an advisor to the President to approach the Pres and present his thoughts to him. To say that Le May would have acted recklessly and without heed to the consequences is without foundation. Yet the misquoting goes on and the erroneous perceptions continue!

coolbert.