LeMay Credit - NASA

Personal: Male. Born in USA. SSN 278-36-4032

Curtis E. LeMay was a career Air Force officer who entered the Army Air Corps in the 1920s and rose through a series of increasingly responsible Army Air Forces commands in World War II. After the war LeMay built the Strategic Air Command into the premier nuclear deterrent force in the early 1950s. He also served as deputy chief of staff, 1957-1961, and chief of staff, 1961-1965, of the U.S. Air Force. He retired as a four-star general in 1965, and ran for vice president with independent candidate George C. Wallace in 1968.