- Was the inspiration for warmongering Gen. Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
- US Air Force general.
- US Air Force Chief of Staff, 1961-1965.
- US Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, 1957-1961.
- Vice presidential candidate in 1968 on the ticket of the American Independent Party of presidential candidate and Alabama governor George Wallace.
- Called the Cuban Missile Crisis the worst defeat the US had suffered in its entire history. The John F. Kennedy administration secretly agreed to remove US missiles from Italy and Turkey in exchange for the Soviets removing their missiles from Cuba. The US also publicly promised not to invade Cuba gain. LeMay called for a nuclear attack on Cuba and, if the Soviets objected, a nuclear attack on them, also.
- Was responsible for the controversial firebombing of Japanese cities near the end of World War II.
- Remained active in far-right political activism until his death.
- Mentioned in Twelve O'Clock High (1949).
- One of his most controversial statements during his political campaign occurred when he was asked about his demand that the Kennedy administration initiate a first-strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union, his outrage when his demand was turned down, and if he realized that such an attack would lead to a worldwide nuclear war. He said that while the American people may have been afraid of nuclear war, he was not.
- Youngest appointed as well as longest serving four star officer from any branch of the United States Armed Forces. He was 44 when he was promoted to full General in the United States Air Force and remained on active duty In that top rank for 14 years before finally retiring in 1965.
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