Curtis Emerson LeMay, November 15, 1906 (Columbus, Ohio) – October 1, 1990 (March Air Force Base, Calif.)
VP candidate for American Independent Party (aka Democratic Party aka American Party) (1968)
Running mate with nominee: George C. Wallace (1919-1998)
Popular vote: 1,312,917 (1.80%)
Electoral vote: 21/538 (Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina)
The campaign:
The American Independent Party was created in Bakersfield, Calif. in 1967 as a Presidential vehicle for George Wallace, the former Democratic Governor of Alabama who was a segregationist in the Right-wing populist tradition. As the campaign became national Wallace's plan was to drive the election into the US House where his forces could negotiate with one of the major parties for policy concessions.
The AIP managed to co-opt most of the extremist Right-wing political parties and continue the process started by Barry Goldwater in the previous election of delivering conservative Democratic Party voters of the Southern States into the ranks of the Republican Party-- a process that would be complete by the next election in 1972.
Wallace's campaign managed to place his name on the ballot in all 50 states. The Party was filed under a variety of names but they all traced back to the same organization. In order to qualify for some of the Byzantine requirements frequently encountered by third parties (and designed to discourage them), Wallace had to name a running mate before he was ready. So as a stand-in VP he chose another former Democratic Governor who was a segregationist, S. Marvin Griffin of Georgia.
It had been almost a decade since Griffin had held an elected office, but he had hoped to be on the ticket permanently. The Wallace people felt that Griffin was basically the Georgia version of Wallace and they wanted someone who would broaden the ticket and appeal to more mainstream voters. When Gen. Curtis LeMay was announced as the real-life VP nominee in early Oct. 1968, Griffin was disappointed.
LeMay was reluctant to accept the offer to be the VP nominee for the AIP. He was not a segregationist and in fact supported the integration of the Armed Forces. He was a liberal on the subject of abortion and pro-birth control. But for reasons that reveal how politically naive he was about civilians selecting and perceiving their leaders, the General agreed to join Wallace and has since forever been branded, perhaps unfairly, as a racist.
The one area where Wallace and LeMay really saw eye to eye was their hawkish view of American foreign policy. LeMay was noted for his enthusiasm regarding the use of heavy bombing. He was also not as shy about the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons if the occasion presented itself. History has painted LeMay as one of the military hotheads in the room with JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, in 1945 LeMay personally felt using the atomic bombs was a mistake, preferring conventional bombing.
On October 4, 1968 the Wallace campaign can mark the moment they began to slip in the polls and probably lost a couple states they otherwise would have taken. That was the day Gen. Curtis LeMay and ex-Gov. George Wallace held their first joint press conference. If LeMay had been sent as a plant to screw up Wallace's chances he could not have done a better job. The General volunteered that he felt people had too much of a "phobia" regarding nuclear bombs and supplied the press and both of the major political parties with this gem: "If I have to go to war and get killed in the conflict in Vietnam with a rusty knife, or get killed with a nuclear weapon, if I had the choice, I'd get killed with the nuclear weapon."
At least twice during the press conference Wallace had to step in and "reinterpret" LeMay's words. But the worms were out of the can. The voters began to question Wallace's decision-making abilities, the professional credibility of the AIP, and were frankly frightened of the running mate. Humphrey called the AIP ticket "the Bombsey Twins."
Wallace at this point had probably wished he had stuck with Griffin. LeMay's role in his brief one-month stint as the VP nominee was quite limited but had an impact. I remember all of this quite well and was struck by how even some of the pro-Wallace people around me were making fun of their ticket. They would imitate Wallace and say, "What the General is really trying to say is ..." Gen. LeMay turned out to be one of the biggest drags on any ticket in the history of third party Vice-Presidential candidates.
Because of the lateness in naming LeMay, it was Griffin's name that appeared with Wallace on the ballot in 44 states. Although the Electors were said to be pledged to LeMay, most of the AIP voters selected a ticket that read George Wallace-Marvin Griffin.
LeMay's name appeared only on the ballots in Hawaii, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Utah. In 1968 Arizona did not list running mates, so he was in their equation by default.
The 1968 Alabama ballot was especially confusing. The Presidential candidates were not listed, only the parties and their Electors. Unlike the rest of the country, Wallace was running for President as a regular Democrat in Alabama. Humphrey's people had to cook up their own alternative names for the major party, which they did under two different entities: the Alabama Independent Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Party of Alabama. And just to make it murkier there was also listed the American Independent Party of Alabama which was supposedly pledged to Wallace but not part of the national campaign.
Of the 9,901,118 votes cast for Wallace, 1,312,917 of those were on the ballot where LeMay's name appeared or was considered there by default (Alabama, Arizona). Wallace won 13.53% of the national total, and 1.8% of that was with LeMay. 21 of Wallace's 46 Electoral votes were with LeMay.
One of the Wallace/LeMay Electoral votes came from a Nixon-pledged faithless Elector in North Carolina.
1968 would be the last year to date where a third party would win the popular vote of any state. Ross Perot in 1992 would be the only third party candidate to outpoll Wallace (Perot's 18.91% to Wallace's 13.53%) but the later effort failed to win any states as it did not have the regional concentration of the AIP.
Interestingly, Perot's ticket in 1992 also had a non-politician military figure as a VP nominee, Admiral James Bond Stockdale, who like LeMay was widely viewed as a liability on the ticket.
Election history: none
Other occupations: General in the US Air Force, US Air Force Chief of Staff,
Buried: United States Air Force Academy Cemetery (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Notes:
Promoted the use of judo in US military training.
Sports car racing enthusiast.
I know a fellow who was a solider and once was lined up for inspection by Gen. LeMay. My friend's
dogtag listed his religion as "Deist." LeMay looked at the tag and said, "Deist? Where's your
headquarters." "You're standing on it, Sir!" was the response. LeMay looked puzzled, went to the
next soldier, looked at that dogtag and read out loud while glancing back at my friend, "Catholic.
Now that's one I can understand."
"I think at Wright-Patterson, if you could get into certain places, you'd find out what the Air Force
and the government does know about UFOs. Reportedly, a spaceship landed. It was all hushed up. I
called Curtis LeMay and I said, 'General, I know we have a room at Wright-Patterson where you put
all this secret stuff. Could I go in there?' I’ve never heard General LeMay get mad, but he got
madder than hell at me, cussed me out, and said, 'Don’t ever ask me that question again!'"--Barry
Goldwater 1994
