Anna Chennault

Anna Chennault
Native name 陳香梅
Born Chen Xiangmei
(1925-06-23) June 23, 1925
Peking, China
Other names Anna Chan Chenault
Anna Chen Chenault
Occupation Journalism
Political party Republican
Religion Roman Catholicism
Spouse(s) Claire Lee Chennault (married 1947-1958, his death)
Children Claire Anna and Cynthia Louise
Relatives Liao Zhongkai (great uncle)

Anna Chennault, born Chen Xiangmei (Chinese: 陳香梅; born June 23, 1925), also known as Anna Chan Chennault or Anna Chen Chennault, is the widow of World War II leader Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault, commander of American air operations in China and leader of the "Flying Tigers". She was a prominent Asian-American politician of the Republican Party.

Early life

Anna Chennault and husband

On June 23, 1925, Chen was born in Beijing, China.

Chen Xiangmei received a bachelor's degree in Chinese from Lingnan University in Hong Kong in 1944. She was a war correspondent for the Central News Agency from 1944 to 1948 and wrote for the Hsin Ming Daily News in Shanghai, from 1944 to 1949.

She is the younger sister of Cynthia Chan, who was a U.S. Army nurse in the group under Claire Chennault in Kunming. While visiting Cynthia Chan in Kunming, she met Claire Chennault.[1][2]

Marriage

Chen Xiangmei and Chennault, who was more than 30 years her senior, married in 1947. In 1946, Chennault had divorced his first wife, the former Nell Thompson, whom he had wed in 1911 in Winnsboro, Louisiana, and the mother of his eight children, the youngest of whom, Rosemary Chennault Simrall, died in August 2013.[3]

Anna Chennault has two children, Claire Anna (born in 1949) and Cynthia Louise (born in 1950). After the war her husband was somewhat of a celebrity. A heavy smoker, he died in 1958 of lung cancer.

Life as a widow

After her husband's death, Anna Chennault worked as a publicist for the Civil Air Transport in Taipei, Taiwan (1946 to 1957) and was vice-president of international affairs for the Flying Tiger Line that he founded, and was president of TAC International (from 1976). She was an occasional correspondent for the Central News Agency (from 1965) and the U.S. correspondent for the Hsin Shen Daily News (from 1958). She was a broadcaster for the Voice of America from 1963 to 1966.

In the U.S. she received presidential appointments from U.S. President Richard Nixon to the President's Advisory Committee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the U.S. National Committee for UNESCO (from 1970). She was president of Chinese Refugee Relief from 1962 to 1970 and has served as president of the General Claire Chennault Foundation after 1960.[4]

Chennault served as a national committeewoman for the District of Columbia of the Republican Party (since 1960) and led the National Republican Asian Assembly. She has assisted many Chinese Americans to become active in politics and in 1973 helped found the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA).[5]

Paris Peace Accords

Recorded in Nixon, A Life, by Jonathan Aitken, notes of Patrick Hillings, the former congressman accompanying the candidate's 1967 trip to Taipei, Nixon interjected just after an unexpected encounter with Mrs. Chennault, "Get her away from me, Hillings; she's a chatterbox."

Yet according to records of President Lyndon B. Johnson's secret monitoring of South Vietnamese officials and his political foes, Anna Chennault played a crucial role on behalf of the Nixon campaign[6][7] which sought to block a peace treaty in what one long-term Washington insider called "activities ... beyond the bounds of justifiable political combat.[8] She arranged the contact with South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem whom Richard Nixon met in secret in July 1968 in New York.[9] It was through Chennault's intercession[10][11] that Republicans advised Saigon to refuse participation in the talks, promising a better deal once elected.[12][13][14] Records of FBI wiretaps show that Chennault phoned Bui Diem on November 2 with the message "hold on, we are gonna win."[15][16] Before the elections President Johnson “suspected (…) Richard Nixon, of political sabotage[17] that he called treason”.[18]

In part because Nixon won the presidency, no one was ever prosecuted for this violation of the Logan Act.[19][20][21] Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, then FBI Deputy Director, mentioned in his book Hoover's FBI that his agency was only able to connect a single November 2, 1968 phone call from the then Vice President candidate Spiro Agnew to Anna Chennault, unrecorded details of which Johnson believed were subsequently transmitted to Nixon.

In her book The Education of Anna, General Chennault told her, "We pilots have to do the most lunatic daring things but you take the cake." She states that later liaisons with Nixon staff were by telephone to then aide John N. Mitchell, via direct personal numbers that changed every several days, as was his custom. A week after the election and Nixon's fence mending with Johnson in a joint statement announcing Vietnam policy, Mitchell asked Chennault to intercede again, this time to get Saigon to join the talks. She refused. According to her account, Nixon personally thanked her in 1969, she complained, and he replied, "Yes, I appreciate that. I know you are a good soldier."[22]

Chennault's interaction with the Paris Peace Accords on behalf of Nixon is sometimes called the Chennault Affair.[23][24]

Later life

She was awarded the Freedom Award of the Order of Lafayette in 1966.

Books

Bibliography

Anna Chennault has written several books:

Memberships

References

  1. ↑ Rebecca Chan Chung, Deborah Chung and Cecilia Ng Wong, "Piloted to Serve", 2012
  2. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/PilotedToServe
  3. ↑ "Rosemary Chennault Simrall". Monroe News-Star. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  4. ↑ Franklin Ng, "Anna Chen Chennault," Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary, Hyung-chan Kim, ed., Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 1999, p.55
  5. ↑ "Chinese-Americans Told to Be More Political".
  6. ↑ Robert “KC” Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee—our California friend [Richard Nixon] —has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends, both—our allies and the others. He’s been doing it through rather subterranean sources here.“
  7. ↑ Jules Witcover. The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat (October 4, 2005 ed.). The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 131. ISBN 0-8018-8247-8. “I tracked down Anna Chennault (…) she insisted she had acted under instructions from the Nixon campaign in contacting the Saigon regime. ‘The only people who knew about the whole operation,’ she told me, ‘were Nixon, John Mitchell [Nixon’s campaign manager] and John Tower (senator from Texas and Nixon campaign figure), and they're all dead. But they knew what I was doing. Anyone who knows about these thing knows I was getting orders to do these thing. I couldn’t do anything without instructions.’”
  8. ↑ Clark M. Clifford. Counsel to the President: A Memoir (May 21, 1991 ed.). Random House. p. 582. ISBN 0-394-56995-4. ”The activities of the Nixon team went far beyond the bounds of justifiable political combat. It constituted direct interference in the activities of the executive branch and the responsibilities of the Chief Executive, the only people with authority to negotiate on behalf of the nation. The activities of the Nixon campaign constituted a gross, even potentially illegal, interference in the security affairs of the nation by private individuals.”
  9. ↑ Diem Bui with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History (April 1, 1999 ed.). Indiana University Press. p. 237. ISBN 0-253-21301-0. Waiting for me in the lobby was Anna Chennault. A few minutes later I was being introduced to Nixon and john Mitchell, his law partner and adviser. (…) Nixon (…) added that his staff would be in touch with me through john Mitchell and Anna Chennault.
  10. ↑ Seymour M. Hersh. “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House”. Summit Books, 1983, p. 21. “A few days before the election, she wrote, Mitchell telephoned with an urgent message. ‘Anna,’ (Chennault) she quotes him as saying. ‘I'm speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It's very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you have made that clear to them.’”.
  11. ↑ Robert "KC" Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “Mrs. [Anna] Chennault is contacting their [South Vietnamese] ambassador from time to time—seems to be kind of the go-between”
  12. ↑ Robert “KC” Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “He (Richard Nixon) has been saying to the allies that ‘you’re going to get sold out. Watch Yalta, and Potsdam, and two Berlins, and everything. And they’re [the Johnson administration] going to recognize the NLF. I [Nixon] don’t have to do that. You better not give away your liberty just a few hours before I can preserve it for you.’”
  13. ↑ Robert "KC" Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “The next thing that we got our teeth in was one of his associates—a fellow named [John] Mitchell, who is running his campaign, who’s the real Sherman Adams (Eisenhower’s chief of staff) of the operation, in effect said to a businessman that ‘we’re going to handle this like we handled the Fortas matter, unquote. We’re going to frustrate the President by saying to the South Vietnamese, and the Koreans, and the Thailanders [sic], “Beware of Johnson.”’ ‘At the same time, we’re going to say to Hanoi, “I [Nixon] can make a better deal than he (Johnson) has, because I’m fresh and new, and I don’t have to demand as much as he does in the light of past positions.”’”
  14. ↑ Diem Bui with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History. Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 244.“I began reviewing the cables I had written to (Nguyen Van) Thieu (…). Among them, I found a cable from October 23 (…) in which I had said, ‘Many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged us to stand firm. They were alarmed by press reports to the effect that you had already softened your position.’ In another cable, from October 27, I wrote, ‘I am regularly in touch with the Nixon entourage,’ by which I meant Anna Chennault, John Mitchell, and Senator Tower.”
  15. ↑ Anthony Summers. Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon”. Viking, 2000, p. 302. “On November 2, the wiretapping of Ambassador Bui Diem's phone finally paid off. (Anna) Chennault, the FBI's Washington field office reported (see p. 303): CONTACTED VIETNAMESE AMBASSADOR BUI DIEM, AND ADVISED HIM THAT SHE HAD RECEIVED A MESSAGE FROM HER BOSS (NOT FURTHER IDENTIFIED), WHICH HER BOSS WANTED HER TO GIVE PERSONALLY TO THE AMBASSADOR. SHE SAID THE MESSAGE WAS THAT THE AMBASSADOR IS TO "HOLD ON, WE ARE GONNA WIN" AND THAT HER BOSS ALSO SAID "HOLD ON, HE UNDERSTANDS ALL OF IT. SHE REPEATED THAT THIS IS THE ONLY MESSAGE "HE SAID PLEASE TELL YOUR BOSS TO HOLD ON." SHE ADVISED THAT HER BOSS HAD JUST CALLED FROM NEW MEXICO.”.
  16. ↑ Robert “KC” Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “They’re going around and implying to some of the embassies that they might get a better deal out of somebody that was not involved in this—the “somebody not involved” is what they refer to as “their boss.”(…) “Their boss” is the code word for Mr. Richard Nixon.”
  17. ↑ Thomas Powers. “The Man who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms & the CIA”. Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, p.198. “during the week which ended Sunday, October 27 [1968], the National Security Agency intercepted a radio message from the South Vietnamese Embassy to Saigon explicitly urging (Nguyen Van) Thieu to stand fast against an agreement until after the election. As soon as Johnson learned of the cable he ordered the FBI to place Madame (Anna) Chennault under surveillance and to install a phone tap on the South Vietnamese Embassy”
  18. ↑ Mark Lisheron. “In tapes, LBJ accuses Nixon of treason”. Austin American-Statesman. December 05, 2008. “Johnson tells Sen. Everett Dirksen, the Republican minority leader, that it will be Nixon's responsibility if the South Vietnamese don't participate in the peace talks. ‘This is treason,’ LBJ says to Dirksen.”
  19. ↑ Robert “KC” Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What the New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording on YouTube of President Johnson: “Now, I can identify ‘em, because I know who’s doing this. I don’t want to identify it. I think it would shock America if a principal candidate was playing with a source like this on a matter this important. (…) I don’t want to do that.”
  20. ↑ Jules Witcover. “The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat”. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, p131. “Johnson had turned over incriminating evidence about (Anna) Chennault’s activities to (Hubert) Humphrey's for use in the final days of the campaign. The idea was that such an act of treason would sink Nixon and elect Humphrey. But Humphrey declined to use it, partly because he felt he could not reveal the sources of the classified material (…) Later, in his memoir, Humphrey recounted a memo of his own at the time: "I wonder if I should have blown the whistle on Anna Chennault and Nixon. I wish [his italics] I could have been sure. Damn Thieu. Dragging his feet this past weekend hurt us. I wonder if that call did it. If Nixon knew.”.
  21. ↑ Mark Lisheron. “In tapes, LBJ accuses Nixon of treason”. Austin American-Statesman. December 05, 2008. “Confronting Nixon by telephone on November 3, Johnson outlines what had been alleged and how important it was to the conduct of the war for Nixon's people not to meddle. ‘My God,’ Nixon says to Johnson, ‘I would never do anything to encourage the South Vietnamese not to come to that conference table.’”
  22. ↑ Catherine Forslund (2002). Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-8420-2833-2.
  23. ↑ https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/ch5
  24. ↑ David Greenberg (31 July 2014). "Book Review: 'Chasing Shadows' and 'The Nixon Tapes'". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 July 2016.

External links

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