Description
Signed first edition of Mission With LeMay by Curtis E. LeMay, from the personal library of Cartha DeLoche. Octavo, xiv, 581pp. Blue cloth, title printed on spine. Stated “first edition” on copyright page. In publishers dust jacket, $7.95 retail price on front flap, light wear along top edge, lightly toned spine, small closed tear along top edge, some extraneous pen marks on verso. Signed by Curtis E. LeMay on half title. From the private collection of Cartha DeLoach, with his large bookplate affixed to front endpaper.
Comments: General Curtis LeMay (1906-1990) was a general in the United States Air Force. He is best remembered for the strategic, yet controversial, bombings of mainland Japan. His firebombing of Tokyo was considered crucial to the allied victory in the Pacific Theater, but resulted in a massive loss of civilian life. Later in life, LeMay was asked by Alabama Governor George Wallace to join his presidential ticket in 1968. Cartha DeLoach, known as Deke, was the deputy associate director of the FBI. He was the third most senior official at the FBI, after J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson. Shortly after the assassination of John Kennedy, President Johnson requested that DeLoach be assigned to the White House as an intermediary between himself and Hoover. Mr. DeLoach was considered a member of Johnson’s “inner circle,” with some historians believing that he provided Johnson with critical information on Barry Goldwater and Senator Robert Kennedy. Mr. DeLoach passed away in 2013.
