In 1957, Robert Sprague who was director of a top secret panel on nuclear
balance, warned General Curtis
LeMay, who was head of SAC
(the Strategic
Air Command) at the time, that the entire fleet of B52s was vulnerable
to attack. Sprague told me this story. He said that General LeMay was
unfazed. He said, "Why?" And LeMay told him, "If I see that the Russians
are amassing their planes for an attack, I'm gonna knock the shit out
of them before they take off the ground." And Sprague said, "But General
LeMay, that's not national policy." And LeMay said, "I don't care it's
my policy. That's what I'm going to do."
-- interview with Fred
Kaplan, author of
The
Wizards of Armageddon
Studio 360 (March 9, 2006, Show #710)