MacKinlay
Kantor – “…He ghostwrote Geneeral Curtis LeMay’s memoirs, penning the famous
words ‘We’re going to bomb them back into theStone Age….”
Mission
With Lemay: My Story by Curtis E. Lemay and MacKinlay Kantor is the personal
and outspoken story of a history making General Curtis E. Lemay. His military
contributions were enormous. His firebombing campaign against Janpan between
March 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945 may have killed more than
500,000 Japanese civilians. He said, "if the US lost the war he fully
expected to be tried for war crimes". After the war, he unintentionally
iniated the Berlin Airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC)
into an effective instrument of nuclear war.
[LeMay
spoke at Ohio State graduation in 1962. Can anyone get a copy of his speech?]
Review:
LeMay is
the most important figure in 20th Century warfare. He transformed warfare from
a surface conflict between armies and navies slugging it out toe to toe into a
three-dimensional conflict in which air forces of incredible power could appear
anywhere on the face of the earth and determine the fate of nations,
ideologies, and millions of people.
This is a surprisingly well written book, considering it is a military memoir. The brilliant McKinley Kantor was the ghost writer, and you can tell when Kantor takes the typewriter to himself as the story smooths out and becomes hypnotic. But the majority of the work is in LeMay's voice, and it is raw and gripping as you come to terms with firebombing cities and killing millions. At times, the book dries out as LeMay gets into the minutia of building a modern Air Force during the 1950s and early 1960s. But everything in this book builds upon the theme of the work, something that could be call the "LeMay Doctrine" - that when it comes time to fight, hit them with everything you've got and get the damned thing over with. Even the tediousness of Wherry and Capehart Housing Bills in congress suddenly become important to the story, and seem to fit somehow.
This is a memoir, but at the time it was written it proved the saying "history is written by the winners". In just 20 years, LeMay had taken a good air force and made it invincible. Like it or not, in the days before ICBMs, the ability of the USAF to penetrate any defence and nuke any opponent back to the stone age (something LeMay claims he never said) was the only thing that kept America from being attacked. LeMay's book explains the ruthlessness required to make not just that transformation, but instill that willingness to kill millions without remorse. Anyone who is interested in understanding that transformation and mindset must read this book. Likewise, anyone who looks at Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 and wonders "WTF, over?" must read this book - it provides a currently politically unacceptable explanation of why we are failing today.
Of course the book also describes the birth of air power, the trials and tribulations of WWII, and has enough politics to challenge conventional thinking on the Truman and Johnson administrations' decisions leading to the debacles of Korea and Vietnam. Of course, as a memoir, it must be read with skepticism as well. For example, LeMay was USAFE when the Soviets blockaded Berlin, and in the beginning of the Airlift applied procedures suitable for bombing operations, which did not work very well. He was quickly replaced with a transportation expert, and of course glosses over that significant failure of his command.
As I re-read this book almost four decades after I first read it, I found it to be as pertinent today as I found it then. I first read this book in 1970 as an Air Force ROTC cadet, during the Vietnam conflict, and it made a permanent impression on my thinking about what would become my profession. LeMay wrote this book just after he was fired as CSAF, making him the only true hero among Flag Officers in the Vietnam Conflict. He stood up to Lyndon Johnson and told him to apply overwhelming force and end the war, and he would not stop saying it. As a result Johnson fired him in 1964. For the next 8 years, every other Flag Officer remembered the lesson of LeMay's dismissal, saluted smartly, and sent tens of thousands of Americans to die needlessly in that war, along with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Asians.
Personally, I waited four years for Nixon to implement his "secret plan" to end the war, and when it failed to materialize, I decided in 1972 to vote for another bomber pilot, George McGovern, for President. Despite their political differences, LeMay and McGovern thought alike about that war, and undoubtably any war. Either win it as quickly as possible with overwhelming force, or get out of it. I think LeMay would have understood my vote.
Why is that important? Because ever since this book was published in 1964, when LeMay's advice was acted upon, that particular war was ended quickly with the least amount of death. When he was ignored, the war went on and on and on and on, with endless casualty lists.
This book explains in detail what could be called the "LeMay Doctrine". Unlike the "Powell Doctrine", LeMay did not dabble in the political realm until after he retired (after this book was published) and his place on George Wallace's 1968 ticket effectively polluted his legacy. However, if one can read this book without constantly asking "What were you thinking, Curtis?" I think it will reveal some lasting truths about power, organization, and military operations that are as true today as they were in the days of iron men in aluminum airplanes over Hitler's Fortress Europe or Hiroshima.
This is a surprisingly well written book, considering it is a military memoir. The brilliant McKinley Kantor was the ghost writer, and you can tell when Kantor takes the typewriter to himself as the story smooths out and becomes hypnotic. But the majority of the work is in LeMay's voice, and it is raw and gripping as you come to terms with firebombing cities and killing millions. At times, the book dries out as LeMay gets into the minutia of building a modern Air Force during the 1950s and early 1960s. But everything in this book builds upon the theme of the work, something that could be call the "LeMay Doctrine" - that when it comes time to fight, hit them with everything you've got and get the damned thing over with. Even the tediousness of Wherry and Capehart Housing Bills in congress suddenly become important to the story, and seem to fit somehow.
This is a memoir, but at the time it was written it proved the saying "history is written by the winners". In just 20 years, LeMay had taken a good air force and made it invincible. Like it or not, in the days before ICBMs, the ability of the USAF to penetrate any defence and nuke any opponent back to the stone age (something LeMay claims he never said) was the only thing that kept America from being attacked. LeMay's book explains the ruthlessness required to make not just that transformation, but instill that willingness to kill millions without remorse. Anyone who is interested in understanding that transformation and mindset must read this book. Likewise, anyone who looks at Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 and wonders "WTF, over?" must read this book - it provides a currently politically unacceptable explanation of why we are failing today.
Of course the book also describes the birth of air power, the trials and tribulations of WWII, and has enough politics to challenge conventional thinking on the Truman and Johnson administrations' decisions leading to the debacles of Korea and Vietnam. Of course, as a memoir, it must be read with skepticism as well. For example, LeMay was USAFE when the Soviets blockaded Berlin, and in the beginning of the Airlift applied procedures suitable for bombing operations, which did not work very well. He was quickly replaced with a transportation expert, and of course glosses over that significant failure of his command.
As I re-read this book almost four decades after I first read it, I found it to be as pertinent today as I found it then. I first read this book in 1970 as an Air Force ROTC cadet, during the Vietnam conflict, and it made a permanent impression on my thinking about what would become my profession. LeMay wrote this book just after he was fired as CSAF, making him the only true hero among Flag Officers in the Vietnam Conflict. He stood up to Lyndon Johnson and told him to apply overwhelming force and end the war, and he would not stop saying it. As a result Johnson fired him in 1964. For the next 8 years, every other Flag Officer remembered the lesson of LeMay's dismissal, saluted smartly, and sent tens of thousands of Americans to die needlessly in that war, along with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Asians.
Personally, I waited four years for Nixon to implement his "secret plan" to end the war, and when it failed to materialize, I decided in 1972 to vote for another bomber pilot, George McGovern, for President. Despite their political differences, LeMay and McGovern thought alike about that war, and undoubtably any war. Either win it as quickly as possible with overwhelming force, or get out of it. I think LeMay would have understood my vote.
Why is that important? Because ever since this book was published in 1964, when LeMay's advice was acted upon, that particular war was ended quickly with the least amount of death. When he was ignored, the war went on and on and on and on, with endless casualty lists.
This book explains in detail what could be called the "LeMay Doctrine". Unlike the "Powell Doctrine", LeMay did not dabble in the political realm until after he retired (after this book was published) and his place on George Wallace's 1968 ticket effectively polluted his legacy. However, if one can read this book without constantly asking "What were you thinking, Curtis?" I think it will reveal some lasting truths about power, organization, and military operations that are as true today as they were in the days of iron men in aluminum airplanes over Hitler's Fortress Europe or Hiroshima.
The Most Famous Writer Who Ever
Lived: A True Story of My Family
(Hardcover)
By Tom
Shroder
“A
grandson of writer MacKinlay Kantor unravels the tangles of his grandfather's
life and finds many of those same threads (the good, the bad, the ugly) in his
own…A compelling account, suffused with both sympathy and sharpness, of a
writer who's mostly forgotten and of a grandson who's grateful.”—Kirkus Reviews
An award-winning veteran of The Washington Post and The Miami Herald, Tom Shroder has made a career of investigative journalism and human-interest stories, from those of children who claim to have memories of past lives, in his book Old Souls, to that of a former Marine suffering from debilitating PTSD and his doctor pioneering a successful psychedelic drug treatment in Acid Test. Shroder’s most fascinating subject, however, comes from within his own family: his grandfather MacKinlay Kantor was the world-famous author of Andersonville, the seminal novel about the Civil War. As a child, Shroder was in awe of his grandfather’s larger-than-life character. Kantor’s friends included Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg, Gregory Peck, and James Cagney. He was an early mentor to the novelist John D. MacDonald and is credited with discovering the singer Burl Ives. Kantor wrote the novel Glory for Me, which became the multi-Oscar-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives. He ghostwrote General Curtis LeMay’s memoirs, penning the infamous words “We’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age,” referring to North Vietnam. Kantor also suffered from alcoholism, an outsize ego, and an abusive and publicly embarrassing personality where his family was concerned; he blew through several small fortunes in his lifetime, and died nearly destitute. In The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived, Shroder revisits the past—Kantor’s upbringing, his early life, his career trajectory— and writes not just the life story of one man but a meditation on fame, family secrets and legacies, and what is remembered after we are gone.
An award-winning veteran of The Washington Post and The Miami Herald, Tom Shroder has made a career of investigative journalism and human-interest stories, from those of children who claim to have memories of past lives, in his book Old Souls, to that of a former Marine suffering from debilitating PTSD and his doctor pioneering a successful psychedelic drug treatment in Acid Test. Shroder’s most fascinating subject, however, comes from within his own family: his grandfather MacKinlay Kantor was the world-famous author of Andersonville, the seminal novel about the Civil War. As a child, Shroder was in awe of his grandfather’s larger-than-life character. Kantor’s friends included Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg, Gregory Peck, and James Cagney. He was an early mentor to the novelist John D. MacDonald and is credited with discovering the singer Burl Ives. Kantor wrote the novel Glory for Me, which became the multi-Oscar-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives. He ghostwrote General Curtis LeMay’s memoirs, penning the infamous words “We’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age,” referring to North Vietnam. Kantor also suffered from alcoholism, an outsize ego, and an abusive and publicly embarrassing personality where his family was concerned; he blew through several small fortunes in his lifetime, and died nearly destitute. In The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived, Shroder revisits the past—Kantor’s upbringing, his early life, his career trajectory— and writes not just the life story of one man but a meditation on fame, family secrets and legacies, and what is remembered after we are gone.
About
the Author
Tom
Shroder is an award-winning journalist, editor, and author of Old
Souls and Acid Test, a transformative look at the therapeutic powers
of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of PTSD. As editor of The Washington
Post Magazine, he conceived and edited two Pulitzer Prize–winning feature
stories. His most recent editing project, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and
Play When No One
Has the Time, by Brigid Schulte, was a New York
Times best seller.
Has the Time, by Brigid Schulte, was a New York
Times best seller.
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