Strategic Air Warfare; An Interview with General Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton

Washington DC: United States Air Force, Office of Air Force History, 1988. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Good. viii, 146, [2] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Maps (including fold-outs). Bibliography. Index. This is one of the USAF Warrior Studies series. Professor Kohn's focus has been American military history generally, emphasizing national security and military policy, strategy, the American experience with war-making, and the connections between war, the military, and American society. In recent years his concentration has been on current civil-military relations, particularly civilian control of the military. His long-term projects are studies of presidential war leadership in American history and the American experience of war, but he continues to research, consult, lecture, and publish in the area of contemporary civil-military relations, military professionalism, and professional military education. Early in June 1984 some thirty-five of the retired four-star generals of the United States Air Force gathered in Washington, D.C., for the annual Senior Statesmen Conference. Each year since the early 1960s the Air Force has invited its retired four-star generals to Washington. From that group in 1984, the Office of Air Force History invited four general officers -Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton- to participate in a group oral interview on the history of strategic air warfare. They accepted and the four discussed for nearly three hours the development and evolution of strategic air warfare. Because the session ended without time for a discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, the four conferred again, to discuss these and other issues not considered earlier. The Strategic Air Command was but one of many issues discussed.