Curtis LeMay and John F. Kennedy

[William Kelly]

FYI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

(2) Curtis E. Le May, Scroll of Appreciation, presented to David Harold Byrd (24th May, 1963)

For rendering meritorious service to the United States Air Force from Dec. 1941 to April, 1960. Motivated by a strong sense of patriotism, Mr. Byrd played a major part in the successful operation of the Texas Wing, Civil Air Patrol, throughout World War II. After the war he assisted in the incorporation of the Civil Air Patrol and its designation as an Auxiliary of the Air Force. Mr. Byrd helped initiate the International Air Cadet Exchange and worked closely with the Air Cadet League of Canada. The many scholarships established or supported by Mr. Byrd have aided countless cadets in the attainment of additional training and higher education. His contributions of material and personal aircraft to the use of Civil Air Patrol materially aided in the performance of its mission.. The distinctive accomplishments of Mr. Byrd have earned for him the sincere gratitude of the United States Air Force.

[Kathleen Collins]

Kathleen wrote:

Did anyone actually investigate LeMay regarding the Assassination of John Kennedy? He was top dog in the autopsy room that night and would not allow certain procedures.

Kathleen, respectfully, what is your basis for asserting that LeMay was even in the autopsy room?

Here is what my quick research found:

In 1992, Dr. Humes recalled the scene: "The President's military aides from the Air Force, Army, and Navy were all present, and they were all in dress uniforms, but they weren't generals and their influence on the autopsy was zero," Humes recalled. "The only high-ranking officer was Admiral Burkley [JFK's personal physician] and he left shortly after the autopsy began to join Jackie and Bobby upstairs."

Time has passed, but I must have read it someplace. This is what I found:

"I remember Curtis LeMay sitting there [in the gallery at the JFK autopsy] with a big cigar in his hand." --Paul O'Connor, laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, quoted by William Law, In the Eye of History

Kathy C

[William Kelly]

Kathleen wrote:

Did anyone actually investigate LeMay regarding the Assassination of John Kennedy? He was top dog in the autopsy room that night and would not allow certain procedures.

Kathleen, respectfully, what is your basis for asserting that LeMay was even in the autopsy room?

Here is what my quick research found:

In 1992, Dr. Humes recalled the scene: "The President's military aides from the Air Force, Army, and Navy were all present, and they were all in dress uniforms, but they weren't generals and their influence on the autopsy was zero," Humes recalled. "The only high-ranking officer was Admiral Burkley [JFK's personal physician] and he left shortly after the autopsy began to join Jackie and Bobby upstairs."

Time has passed, but I must have read it someplace. This is what I found:

"I remember Curtis LeMay sitting there [in the gallery at the JFK autopsy] with a big cigar in his hand." --Paul O'Connor, laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, quoted by William Law, In the Eye of History

Kathy C

Hi Kathy,

I talked to Paul about that, over a beer at the hotel bar in Dallas and then again on the phone at length.

Paul said he remembers a four star general in the room with a cigar, and one of the doctors telling an aide to have whoever is smoking a cigar removed from the room, but when told who it was negated that order.

Paul was suspicious that it was LeMay but wasn't sure.

Fink also said that it was a military general - as opposed to a navy admiral, who ordered him not to further probe the back wound, but he didn't name names either. All those generals look alike, and smoke cigars.

LeMay's name is not on the FBI (Sibert & Oneil) list of those who were present at the autopsy, although that doesn't mean he wasn't there.

According to the Andrews Air Force base log, LeMay was at an air base in Canada when JFK was killed, and flew back to Andrews, so he was in DC at the time of the autopsy, though no one is on record of having seen him there, other than Paul's sense that it was LeMay's cigar that was smoking up the room.

BK

[Kathleen Collins]

Kathleen wrote:

Did anyone actually investigate LeMay regarding the Assassination of John Kennedy? He was top dog in the autopsy room that night and would not allow certain procedures.

Kathleen, respectfully, what is your basis for asserting that LeMay was even in the autopsy room?

Here is what my quick research found:

In 1992, Dr. Humes recalled the scene: "The President's military aides from the Air Force, Army, and Navy were all present, and they were all in dress uniforms, but they weren't generals and their influence on the autopsy was zero," Humes recalled. "The only high-ranking officer was Admiral Burkley [JFK's personal physician] and he left shortly after the autopsy began to join Jackie and Bobby upstairs."

Time has passed, but I must have read it someplace. This is what I found:

"I remember Curtis LeMay sitting there [in the gallery at the JFK autopsy] with a big cigar in his hand." --Paul O'Connor, laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, quoted by William Law, In the Eye of History

Kathy C

Hi Kathy,

I talked to Paul about that, over a beer at the hotel bar in Dallas and then again on the phone at length.

Paul said he remembers a four star general in the room with a cigar, and one of the doctors telling an aide to have whoever is smoking a cigar removed from the room, but when told who it was negated that order.

Paul was suspicious that it was LeMay but wasn't sure.

Fink also said that it was a military general - as opposed to a navy admiral, who ordered him not to further probe the back wound, but he didn't name names either. All those generals look alike, and smoke cigars.

LeMay's name is not on the FBI (Sibert & Oneil) list of those who were present at the autopsy, although that doesn't mean he wasn't there.

According to the Andrews Air Force base log, LeMay was at an air base in Canada when JFK was killed, and flew back to Andrews, so he was in DC at the time of the autopsy, though no one is on record of having seen him there, other than Paul's sense that it was LeMay's cigar that was smoking up the room.

BK

How convenient for LeMay to be in Canada when Kennedy was shot. Someone recently said, "A bum on the street would get a better autopsy than Jack Kennedy did." I've read it was a 3-ring circus, with military men, FBI, etc. Humes was told not to do certain procedures. And Humes had no experience with gunshot wounds or their trajectories.

Kathy C

[Kathleen Collins]

Kathleen wrote:

Did anyone actually investigate LeMay regarding the Assassination of John Kennedy? He was top dog in the autopsy room that night and would not allow certain procedures.

Kathleen, respectfully, what is your basis for asserting that LeMay was even in the autopsy room?

Here is what my quick research found:

In 1992, Dr. Humes recalled the scene: "The President's military aides from the Air Force, Army, and Navy were all present, and they were all in dress uniforms, but they weren't generals and their influence on the autopsy was zero," Humes recalled. "The only high-ranking officer was Admiral Burkley [JFK's personal physician] and he left shortly after the autopsy began to join Jackie and Bobby upstairs."

Time has passed, but I must have read it someplace. This is what I found:

"I remember Curtis LeMay sitting there [in the gallery at the JFK autopsy] with a big cigar in his hand." --Paul O'Connor, laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, quoted by William Law, In the Eye of History

Kathy C

Hi Kathy,

I talked to Paul about that, over a beer at the hotel bar in Dallas and then again on the phone at length.

Paul said he remembers a four star general in the room with a cigar, and one of the doctors telling an aide to have whoever is smoking a cigar removed from the room, but when told who it was negated that order.

Paul was suspicious that it was LeMay but wasn't sure.

Fink also said that it was a military general - as opposed to a navy admiral, who ordered him not to further probe the back wound, but he didn't name names either. All those generals look alike, and smoke cigars.

LeMay's name is not on the FBI (Sibert & Oneil) list of those who were present at the autopsy, although that doesn't mean he wasn't there.

According to the Andrews Air Force base log, LeMay was at an air base in Canada when JFK was killed, and flew back to Andrews, so he was in DC at the time of the autopsy, though no one is on record of having seen him there, other than Paul's sense that it was LeMay's cigar that was smoking up the room.

BK

Jim Fetzer said on the radio that Curtis LeMay was in the autopsy room as it was being performed on the President. He's down as General Curtis. They hadn't eaten for hours and sent out for hamburgers, which LeMay (maybe chomping on a cigar) and others ate right there as the autopsy was going on.

Kathy C

Edited June 24, 2009 by Kathleen Collins

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Here is a good link on Gen. Curtis LeMay, who was a rabid Kennedy hater. He is an excellent candidate to have been involved in the JFK assassination and certainly the cover up at the autopsy of JFK at Bethesda where he was present.

http://curtis-lemay.tripod.com/index.htm

Noel Twyman in Bloody Treason wrote of General LeMay's sour relationship with President Kennedy:

John Kennedy and his key people were determined to seize control of the military -- a feat no president had accomplished since World War II. The chiefs resented the Kennedys and their whiz kids who had little or no experience in military command; the chiefs were accustomed to presidents who let them do their thing without meddlesome interference from politicians.

Perhaps the two most dangerous of all the generals were Curtis LeMay and his head of the Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power. General LeMay is legendary for his mania to start World War III by goading the Soviet Union with unauthorized reconnaissance flights that penetrated their forbidden boundaries.

LeMay was [an] extremely crude character.... Dino Brugioni in Eyeball to Eyeball wrote of LeMay's excesses:

Meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were alluded to by some as a three-ring circus. General Curtis E. LeMay, Air Force chief of staff, was characterized by one observer as always injecting himself into situations "like a rogue elephant barging out of a forest." There are many stories of LeMay's crudeness in dealing with his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He found the meetings dull, tiring, and unproductive. Petulant and often childish when he didn't get his way, LeMay would light a cigar and blow smoke in the direction of anyone challenging his position. To show utter disgust, he would walk into the private Joint Chiefs of Staff toilet, leave the door open, urinate of break wind loudly, and flush the commode a number of aggravating times. He would then saunter calmly back into the meeting pretending that nothing had happened. When angry with individual staff members, he would resort to sarcasm; if that failed, he would direct his wrath to the entire staff.

LeMay was in policy conflicts with the Joint Chiefs. He battled with Admiral Arleigh Burke over the control of the nuclear Polaris submarines. LeMay wanted them under his command and actually achieved some control in the Pacific theater. But Burke successfully fought the Air Force every way he knew -- in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Congress, and in the press -- any way to prevent LeMay's power grab.

LeMay apparently had grown immune to the horror of killing. He had directed the gasoline-jelled fire bombing of Japan -- estimated to have killed "more persons in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man." He said of war: "You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting." He once said, "We killed off -- what -- twenty percent of the population of North Korea." More than two million civilians died in LeMay's campaign from napalm bombing and destruction of massive dams to flood waterways.

LeMay was a ringleader in the Joint Chiefs of Staff insofar as urging Kennedy to go to war in the Bay of Pigs and later in the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy wisely resisted the Joint Chiefs' recommendations. LeMay was the foremost proponent of the nuclear first strike, saying that we should give the Russians the "Sunday punch" before they did it to us.

In the 1950's, under Eisenhower, LeMay had the authority to order a nuclear strike without presidential authorization if the president could not be contacted. That option was extended down to General Thomas Power, head of SAC, whom LeMay himself described as "not stable" and a "sadist." LeMay's proposal for a nuclear first strike and massive destruction of the Soviets was thwarted by Eisenhower, whom LeMay came to consider as indecisive. He was even more disgusted with Kennedy, whom LeMay believed to be a coward. LeMay talked openly about a preemptive attack in which one hundred million people would be killed.

If ever there were a mad, rogue general who would lead a coup, it would appear to have been General Curtis LeMay.

After LeMay retired from the Air Force, he teamed with segregationist governor George Wallace in an unsuccessful candidacy for the vice presidency. In the years following LeMay's failed political race, he became somewhat of a recluse, seldom leaving his home. He died in 1990.

"I remember Curtis LeMay sitting there [in the gallery at the JFK autopsy] with a big cigar in his hand." --Paul O'Connor, laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, cited by William Law, In the Eye of History

"Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards! At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" --Thomas Power, commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command from 1957 to 1964, speaking to William Kaufmann of the RAND Corporation in 1960, cited by Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon

"Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get World War III started." --Curtis LeMay, speaking to RB-47 'Stratojet' crew member Hal Austin of the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, cited by Paul Lashmar, Washington Post, "Stranger than 'Strangelove': A General's Forays into the Nuclear Zone," 3 July 1994, C9

"Looking back on that whole Cuban mess, one of the things that appalled me most was the lack of broad judgment by some of the heads of the military services. When you think of the long competitive selection process that they have to weather to end up the number one man of their particular service, it is certainly not unreasonable to expect that they would also be bright, with good broad judgment. For years I've been looking at those rows of ribbons and those four stars, and conceding a certain higher qualification not obtained in civilian life. Well, if ------- and ------- are the best the services can produce, a lot more attention is going to be given their advice in the future before any action is taken as a result of it." --President Kennedy, speaking to Assistant Navy Secretary Paul Fay, The Pleasure of His Company

"At a Georgetown dinner party recently, the wife of a leading senator sat next to Gen. Curtis LeMay, chief of staff of the Air Force. He told her a nuclear war was inevitable. It would begin in December and be all over by the first of the year. In that interval, every major American city -- Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles -- would be reduced to rubble. Similarly, the principal cities of the Soviet Union would be destroyed. The lady, as she tells it, asked if there were any place where she could take her children and grandchildren to safety; the general would, of course, at the first alert be inside the top-secret underground hideout near Washington from which the retaliatory strike would be directed. He told her that certain unpopulated areas in the far west would be safest." --Marquis Childs, nationally syndicated columnist, Washington Post, 19 July 1961

Edited December 6, 2011 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

please delete this double post.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Robert Morrow

[John Dolva]

Very interesting (as usual) Robert.

Is this document 1231 online, awa the label list?

[Robert Howard]

Very interesting (as usual) Robert.

Is this document 1231 online, awa the label list?

Yeah, John, here's the link.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=11626

Robert

[William Kelly]

Very interesting (as usual) Robert.

Is this document 1231 online, awa the label list?

Yeah, John, here's the link.

http://www.maryferre....do?docId=11626

Robert

That's an interesting assortment of subscribers and their addresses Robert.

John Kennedy of the International Div. of Collins Radio, an editor of DMN, a dentist from Baylor where the White Russians arranged for Marina to have her teeth done, and another Ms. Porter.

And thanks for your info on the meeting that LeMay invited Art Collins to. Can you provide any more background on that?

Thanks,

BK

[John Dolva]

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=11626&relPageId=7

[Guest Robert Morrow]

It should be pointed out that H.L. Hunt and D.H Byrd, who were two of LBJ's inner circle Dallas, TX oil men supporters were both very close to Gen. Curtis LeMay. Air Force Gen. Ed Lansdale was identified at TSBD by two of his peers Col. Fletcher Prouty and Gen. Victor Krulak. JFK researcher John Judge has long pinned the JFK assassination at the feet of Gen. Curtis LeMay.

Curtis LeMay, in his oral history with the LBJ Library, calls the Kennedy people “cockroaches” who were “vindictive,” “ruthless” and with [low] “moral standards.”

Link to LeMay's oral history with LBJ Library: http://web2.millerce...s_1971_0628.pdf

Frantz : As long as they rescue a portion of it well they are . . . . Where were you at

the time of the assassination?

LeMay : I was in Washington at the time--the Chief of Staff of the Air Force .

Frantz : You were at work on that particular day?

LeMay : No, I was off some place, at the actual time of the assassination, I was

called back .

Frantz: Yes, what was the situation that you found when you got back to Washington?

Was there a little bit of tenseness or was it pretty well decided that Lee

Harvey Oswald was just after one man?

LeMay: Well there wasn't much of a flap . Everybody was a little concerned that they

didn't know what made the attack, the assassination, so they wanted

everybody present for duty . That's the reason they were called back.

Frantz: Was there any great difference between working on the Joint Chiefs under

Johnson than it had been with Kennedy or did the fact that you had the same

Secretary of Defense insure the continuity?

LeMay : No, I didn't understand exactly what was going on . For several months

before the President was assassinated they were rumors, and then they

got to be a little more than rumors, Vice President Johnson was going to

be dropped for the coming election . And all the Kennedy team was finally

got to openly to giving to the Vice President to the back of their hands,

and it was rather embarrassing for the country around Washington because

it was so apparent . Then bang, all at once he is President .

Frantz : Yes.

LeMay : And I believe all of this hard feeling grew up around the flight from Fort

Worth back was brought on by these people who had really been vulgar in

my opinion and snubbing the Vice President who expected to be stepped on

like the cockroaches they were, and he didn't do it . As a matter of fact

quite the contrary . From all I got the President was extremely polite to

Mrs . Kennedy and the family and bent over backwards to do everything he

could to soften the blow if that is possible . It isn't, but he certainly

was a Southern gentleman in every respect during this period . And I think

this rather surprised these people because they expected the same kind of

treatment that they had given him and he didn't give it to him . Why, I don't

know : I really don't know because well I can understand in having to face

an election and I can understand him being a smart enough politician to

know if he threw out all of the Kennedy crowd and put his in, this might

split the Democratic party at the time in the next election and so forth .

So I can understand him keeping these people around until the election was

over, but then he won the election--he won it with the greatest majority

that any President has ever had, but he still kept these people around .

The same people that had treated him so miserably during this period just

before President Kennedy's assassination .

Frantz : This is curious .

LeMay : Yes . I could never understand, never could figure it out yet . The only

answer I could come up with is that knowing the vindictiveness of these

people, knowing the moral standards of these people, how ruthless that

they were, they must have had some threat over the President that he

knew that they would carry out .

Frantz: Did you get the feeling that he was satisfied with Secretary McNamara's

performance as Defense Secretary?

LeMay : I don't know that I can answer that question . It would seem that if he

wasn't satisfied, why he would have gotten a new one early in the period .

Afterwards I think he was actually dismissed finally . Things got so bad

that he had to get rid of him, but he did it in such a way to make it look

like it was a normal progression .

Frantz: Did you ever get any idea where he stood on this manned-bomber vs . missile

controversy?

LeMay: Well I don't know that there was a manned-bomber vs . missile controversy,

one being "either," "or ." We never believed that in the Air Force or any

place else . We thought we needed both . We needed both . As a matter of

fact, I get credit for being the big bomber General . Can't see anything

beyond the blinders . When I was in the research and development business

after the war started all in the big missile programs, the Atlas and the

Navaho and the basic facilities that gave us the missiles, we had to have

them, still like we have to have them and that we need both, we need both .

Frantz: There was it seemed to me at this time an outbreak of increased emphasis on

missiles and loss of flexibility of the manned equipment .

LeMay : It became apparent to me that McNamara's goal was to try to build a strategic

force that was equal to the Russian force . Sort of dragged his feet until

the Russians built up to what we were equal . These men believed that if

we were equal in strength then there wouldn't be any war . Well this is

an indication of how impractical these type of people are . To me this is

the best way of guaranteeing a war because you can only have peace if you

have a mutual respect between people, and if you don't have that and one

is plotting against the other, then eventually when he thinks he can get

away with it, he will come attack you . This has always been true in

history in the past . If they have got something you want and if he thinks

he can get it, he goes and gets it . This is just a human history . Even

if by some miracle you could design these two forces where they would be

equal, will everybody think they are equal? You can't control men's

minds . Then, if by some miracle you can design these tLwo forces, how long

are they going to stay equal? One is an opened society ; the other a closed

society . When is the closed society going to come up with a breakthrough

on some weapon system that will give them a tremendous advantage that you

don't know anything about? You're handicapping the open society by such

an arrangement . So I believe this is what Mr . McNamara was aiming at,

although he would never admit it any place along the line . He wouldn't

admit it now, I am sure, but that was what it was aimed at, and I honestly

believe that he thought about 1000 minuteman missiles would be enough for

this .

Frantz: That's interesting in view of the fact that the big run on the missile

gap was 1960, which may or not have been an actual

Edited January 31, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[David Andrews]

The only answer I could come up with is that...they must have had some threat over the President that he

knew that they would carry out .

Curious interjection into the Johnson story, dropped without elaboration.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

LeMay: "The only answer I could come up with is that...they must have had some threat over the President that he

knew that they would carry out ."

Curious interjection into the Johnson story, dropped without elaboration.

Meditate on it. It is important. Why would LeMay say something like that? LeMay is underscoring the hatred between Lyndon Johnson and those "cockroaches" Kennedys and he can't believe that LBJ is keeping them on. LeMay was very close to H.L. Hunt and D.H. Byrd, 2 key LBJ insiders. They all were very aware of the sub rosa war between the Kennedys and LBJ in the fall of 1963.

My take is LBJ is keeping them (the Kennedy people) on in his Administration because he is trying to wiggle his way out of the JFK assassination which he (and very possibly LeMay) was deeply involved in. LBJ does not want the Kennedy people outside the Administration causing trouble for him. Post assassination, it is a fun game to count the 100 things LBJ does to pacify liberals in the wake of the JFK assassination. Coming out strong for civil rights was a big one; that was done the first week. Keeping all those Kennedy folks - telling them "I need you more than Jack did" was another. Creating a "war on poverty" Dec, 1963, still another. Telling Texas Democrats he would not support a challenge from the conservatives to progressive Sen. Ralph Yarborough yet another LBJ way of pacifying the Left who rightfully suspected his role in the JFK assassination. Add to that all the "suck up" calls to the widow Jackie Kennedy, telling her that he LBJ wants to be the "daddy" to Caroline and John John.

Edited February 1, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[David Andrews]

Or else LeMay is diverting suspicion from himself, and the bulk of culpability to Johnson. It's one of those asides that damns the subject of the story more than an outright accusation.