Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, the former Air Force chief of staff who was an anti - communist, a patriot, an architect of strategic air power and insisted that the nation be willing to use nuclear weapons when necessary. The four-star General LeMay, wrote that a solution to the Vietnam War might be to bomb communist North Vietnam ''back into the Stone Age.'' He commanded the Berlin airlift, then for many years was the commander of the Strategic Air Command. He entered politics briefly in 1968 as the running mate of George C. Wallace in the former Alabama Governor's campaign for the Presidency. He was, on the Vietnam War, an outspoken advocate of manned air power based on a willingness to use nuclear weapons. When George C. Wallace introduced him as his running mate in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket, General LeMay called for use of any available means, including nuclear weapons, to end the war. Later, he visited Vietnam on a fact-finding mission and called for renewed bombing of North Vietnam, especially the harbor at Haiphong. In his book ''Mission with LeMay,'' published by Doubleday in 1965, he wrote of the North Vietnamese, ''My solution to the problem would be to tell them frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Ages.'' Known as the ''Iron Eagle,'' General LeMay was a strong anti-Communist and held other strongly conservative views. ''I don't believe there are good Communists and bad Communists,'' the general said. ''I just think they are Communists and they all have the same basic principles involved which I think are basically wrong.'' At one point in his Vice-Presidential campaign, General LeMay acknowledged that he was disturbed by his supporters ''But I am a little more in sympathy with those people,'' he added, ''than I am with people who come in and try to break up thge meeting.'' A tough, outdoors type, General LeMay appeared dominating and was seen as implacably blunt. A stocky man of 5 feet 10 inches who was seen as tough but also fair. ''I want to see all my key staff officers at least once a week,'' he said in his first staff meeting in Germany in 1947 while he was heading the Berlin Airlift. ''Don't bother to knock, just walk in. If I'm busy, I'll tell you to get out. I want men of action in my organization who can make their own decisions.'' Then he added, ''If you make an occasional wrong one, I'll back you up.'' Curtis Emerson LeMay was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 15, 1906, and as a boy built crystal wireless sets. On graduating from high school, he went to Ohio State University and studied civil engineering. He was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and was accepted as a flying cadet. After receiving a commission in 1930 as a pilot and combat observer, he became one of the top navigators. He served in Michigan and Hawaii before being called to the Air Force's general headquarters at Langley Field, Va. There he was assigned as an intelligence officer for the 49th Bombardment Squadron. He was one of the first navigator-pilots of B-17 bombers and took part in goodwill flights in the Flying Fortresses. As an experienced long-range overwater navigator, he was selected to start ferry routes to Africa and England and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1947, he was assigned to Germany, where he directed the Berlin Airlift that thwarted the Soviet attempt to isolate Berlin as the cold war was breaking out. A year later, he was appointed commanding general of the Strategic Air Command and in 1961 was named Air Force Chief of Staff. He is survived by his wife, the former Helen Maitland, whom he married in 1934, and by a daughter, Jane.
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