Winning Armageddon: Curtis LeMay and Strategic Air Command, 1948–1957

Trevor Albertson

touko 2019 · Naval Institute Press

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Winning Armageddon provides definition to an all-too-long misunderstood figure of the Cold War, General Curtis E. LeMay, and tells the story of his advocacy for preemptive nuclear strikes while leading the U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command. In telling this story, Trevor Albertson builds for the reader a world that, while not in the distant past, has been forgotten by many; the lessons of that past, however, are as applicable today as they were 65 years ago. This work brings to life the challenges, fears, and responses of a Cold War United States that grappled with a problem that did not have a clear solution: nuclear war. LeMay argued for striking first in a potential nuclear conflict--but only if and when it was clear that the enemy was preparing to launch their own surprise attack. This approach, commonly referred to as preemption, was designed to catch an attacker off-guard and prevent the destruction of one's own nation. LeMay hoped that rather than plunging the world into a fruitless nuclear exchange he could diffuse the conflict at its outset.

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Trevor Albertson is an assistant professor and course director at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Merced. He is a former U.S. Air Force officer, federal congressional staffer, and deputy secretary of an agency of California state government. His research focuses on the political-diplomatic history of the twentieth century United States.