ARMED FORCES: Where’s LeMay?

Issued in regimental lots from the Pentagon last week were reports about impending changes in the top command of the U.S. armed forces. The rumors varied in detail, but nearly all agreed that 1) Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan F. Twining, 59, will become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Admiral Arthur Radford’s term expires in August, and 2), Twining’s replacement will be Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Thomas White, 55, a skilled Pentagon hand since 1948. Missing from all the gossip lists was the name of Strategic Air Commander Curtis LeMay, 50, one of the great military organizers of modern times, who does not wear a West Point ring (Ohio State ’32) and is considered too bullish for the Washington china shop by the Pentagon’s apostles of super-smoothness.