Excerpts from the Press Conference of
 General Curtis LeMay (retired), Vice Presidential Candidate of the American Independent Party, 1968

Note: The following remarks were made by Curtis LeMay on October 3, 1968 at a press conference where George Wallace announced that LeMay had agreed to serve as his vice presidential candidate.

"We seem to have a phobia about nuclear weapons."

"The smart thing to do when you're in a war -- hopefully you prevent it. Stay out of it if you can -- but when you get in it get in it get in with both feet and get it over with as soon as you can. Use the force that's necessary. Maybe use a little more to make sure it's enough to stop the fighting as soon as possible. So this means efficiency in the operation of the military establishment. I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them."

"I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon."

[describing Bikina atoll, the island site of 20 nuclear tests]: "The fish are all back in the lagoons; the coconut trees are growing coconuts; the guava bushes have fruit on them; the birds are back. As a matter of fact, everything is about the same except the land crabs. They get minerals from the soil, I guess, through their shells, and the land crabs were a little bit 'hot' ^* and there's a little question about whether you should eat a land crab or not."

"If I found it necessary, I would use anything we could dream up -- anything that we could dream up -- including nuclear weapons, if it was necessary."

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* 'Hot' in this instance means radioactive.

Source:  Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page, An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (New York: The Viking Press, 1969), pp. 799-800.