High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Curtis Emerson LeMay (15 November 1906 1 October 1990) was a General in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against industrial cities in Japan. After the war, he headed the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective means of conducting nuclear war.