Background For War: MAN IN THE FIRST PLANE

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One Hand Tied Behind. Korea wasn't really Curt LeMay's fight and it made him as restless as any main-eventer during the preliminaries. His Sunday punch was tense and ready, but like a fighter with one hand tied behind him, he knew he would probably never be allowed to use it until the enemy struck first.

One thing that most worried LeMay and his command was the possibility that their outfit could be crippled before it ever got orders to strike back. LeMay has a hunch that SAC itself offers a more tempting initial target for an all-out Russian atomic attack on the U.S. than cities like New York and Detroit. That is why he keeps his men on ever-ready alert; why all of them constantly wear sidearms ; why Offutt is fenced in and on the watch for saboteurs and guarded against paratroop surprise; why two men have been trained to spring to LeMay's side in case of trouble. It is why, too—though they know the decisions of state are not theirs to make—that men in SAC often fidget at the notion that they must first be hit before they can hit back. Like most men, they prefer peace and life to war and the possibility of death, but more than most men, they have had to condition themselves to a pessimistic reading of the possibilities of peace.

Guarding themselves and keeping fit is a negative necessity; retaliating against an enemy is SAC's real job. That is why, nearly every night, the big B-36s nose through the long twilight of the 55th parallel, learning more & more about Russia's kind of weather, and how to get through it, in case of war, with their death-spreading weapons.