Anna Chennault

Anna Chennault
Native name 陳香梅
Born Chan Sheng Mai[1]
1923 but reported as (1925-06-23)June 23, 1925[1]
Peking, China
Died March 30, 2018(2018-03-30) (aged 92)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Other names Anna Chan Chennault
Anna Chen Chennault
Occupation Journalist
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Claire Lee Chennault (married 1947–1958, his death)
Children Claire Anna and Cynthia Louise
Relatives Liao Zhongkai (great–uncle)

Anna Chennault, born Chan Sheng Mai[1] later spelt Chen Xiangmei (陳香梅, actual birth year 1923[1] but reported as June 23, 1925 – March 30, 2018), also known as Anna Chan Chennault or Anna Chen Chennault, was a war correspondent and prominent Republican member of the US China Lobby.[2] She was married to U.S. WWII aviator Claire Chennault.

Early life

Anna Chennault and husband

On June 23, 1925, Chen was born in Beijing, China. In 1935, her father, a diplomat, was sent to be the Chinese consul in Mexicali, Mexico and he could not afford to take his large family to Mexico on his salary.[3] Fearing war between Japan and China was brewing, he sent his wife and children to the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to live with his mother.[3] In 1938, Chen's mother died, and as an older sister Chen became a surrogate mother to her younger sisters.[4] As a girl, Chen was told by two of her teachers that her birthday falling on "fifth day of the fifth moon" on the Chinese calendar meant she was destined to be a writer.[5] On the morning of 8 December 1941, Chen was attending class at St. Paul's high school when she was forced to take cover when the Japanese bombed the school.[6] Chen witnessed first-hand the battle of Hong Kong as the invading Japanese fought British, Indian and Canadian troops, ending with the surrender of Hong Kong on Christmas Day; in the interim, Chen spent much time hiding to avoid the bombs and shells as Hong Kong went up in flames.[7]

After taking Hong Kong, the Japanese declared all Chinese women to be prostitutes who were to have sex for free for the next three days with their fellow Asians, the Japanese soldiers to thank them for "liberating" them from the rule of the British "white devils", which was merely an excuse for the Japanese to rape all Chinese women.[8] Chen together with her five sisters fled Hong Kong to Guilin in "free China" to escape the Japanese.[9] Chen attended Lingnan University, which was normally based in Hong Kong, but which had relocated to "free China".[9] As refugees, Chen and her sisters lived in poverty during the war years, often having to eat weevil-ridden rice to survive.[9] In China, women have traditionally had a low status, and Chen remembered that her burning desire to be successful as a writer was to escape both her status as a Chinese woman and the poverty of war-time China.

Chen Xiangmei received a bachelor's degree in Chinese from Lingnan University 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 US Army nurse in the Flying Tiger group under General Claire Chennault in Kunming. While visiting Cynthia Chan in Kunming, she met Chennault.[10][11] While working as a journalist in 1944, the 19-year-old Chen interviewed General Chennault, the dynamic and charismatic leader of the Flying Tigers, a man widely viewed in China as a war hero; his pilots had protected the Chinese people from the Japanese who bombed everything in China without mercy from 1937 on, killing hundreds of thousands.[12] After the interview, Chen had tea with Chennault, whose gentlemanly behavior and Southern charm left her feeling "awed" as she later remembered.[12]

Marriage

Chen Xiangmei and Chennault, who was 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.[13] Anna Chennault had 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. The Chennaults divided their time between Taipei and Monroe, Louisiana, where Anna Chennault became the first non-white person to settle into a previously all-white neighborhood; General Chennault's status as a war hero silenced objections to his Chinese wife.[14] At the time, there was a law forbidding non-whites to settle in the particular Monroe neighborhood that General Chennault had bought his house, but no one was willing to prosecute him for bringing Anna with him into the neighborhood.[14]

General Chennault was a Sinophile and a strong admirer of Chiang Kai-shek, and in the 1940s, he joined the China Lobby, an informal and diverse group of journalists, businessmen, politicians, intellectuals, and Protestant churchmen who believed it was in the best interest of the United States to support the Kuomintang regime. Chiang had converted to Methodism to marry his third wife Soong Meiling in 1927, and for much of his life, Chiang was seen by American evangelical Protestant groups as China's great Christian hope, the man who would modernize and westernize China. Anna Chennault ultimately followed her husband into the China Lobby and by 1955 was regularly giving speeches calling for American support to Taiwan and the eventual return of the Kuomintang to the mainland of China.[15] She tirelessly lobbied for American support for Chiang.[16] Fluent in English, a good speaker, and as a Chinese-American woman who presumably was in a position to know what was good for China, Chennault's speeches made her a popular figure for the China Lobby.[15] After she spoke in Dallas in May 1955, the "Dallas News" in an editorial called Chennault someone whose "opinions were worth listening to" and "a personage in her own right, by inheritance and achievement, as well as by marriage." [15]

Life as a widow

In 1894, the State of Louisiana had passed a law forbidding marriage between whites and non-whites, and General Chennault had been advised by his lawyer that his marriage to Anna was "null and void" as far as Louisiana was concerned, and the state would not respect his will leaving his assets to his wife and daughters on the grounds that his marriage was illegal.[17] There was always the possibility that Claire Chennault's first wife and his children by his first marriage might challenge the will in the courts, on the grounds that his second marriage was illegal and his daughters by Anna were thus bastards, and to prevent this, he had his will probated in Washington, D.C. where his second marriage was recognized as legal.[18] In his will, Chennault left more money for his ex-wife and his children by her, but he left all the shares he owned in the Civil Air Transport company and the Flying Tiger Line to his wife and his daughters by her.[19]

After her husband's death, Anna Chennault worked as a publicist for the Civil Air Transport in Taipei, Taiwan (1946–1957) and was vice-president of international affairs for the Flying Tiger Line that was founded by a former Flying Tiger pilot, and was president of TAC International (from 1976). In 1960, Chennault had her first political experience when she campaigned for Richard Nixon, being used as the Republican principal campaigner among Chinese-Americans.[20] She was an occasional correspondent for the Central News Agency (from 1965) and the US correspondent for the Hsin Shen Daily News (from 1958). She was a broadcaster for the Voice of America from 1963 to 1966. Most notably, Chennault began a career as a society hostess in Washington, which her biographer Catherine Forslund wrote had "an edge no men could match" allowing her to create "a powerful base of influence and connections".[21] Chennault herself often noted that her "certain exotic Asian aura" helped to forge connections in the otherwise all-white society scene of Washington.[22] Chennault's belief that the U.S. had abandoned the Kuomintang to defeat in the Chinese civil war colored her perceptions of the Vietnam war, making an ardent hawk who argued that the U.S. had a moral obligation to stand by South Vietnam, and that any effort to withdraw from Vietnam would be equivalent to the "betrayal" of Chiang Kai-shek in the 1940s.[23]

In 1970, she received appointments from now-President Nixon to the President's Advisory Committee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the US National Committee for UNESCO. She was president of Chinese Refugee Relief from 1962 to 1970 and has served as president of the General Claire Chennault Foundation after 1960.[24] 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).[25]

Vietnam and "The Chennault Affair"

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[26][27] which sought to block a peace treaty in what one long-term Washington insider called "activities ... beyond the bounds of justifiable political combat."[28] She arranged the contact with South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem whom Richard Nixon met in secret in July 1968 in New York.[29] It was through Chennault's intercession[30][31] that Republicans advised Saigon to refuse participation in the talks, promising a better deal once elected.[32][33][34] Records of FBI wiretaps show that Chennault phoned Bui Diem on November 2 with the message "hold on, we are gonna win."[35][36] Before the elections President Johnson “suspected (…) Richard Nixon, of political sabotage[37] that he called treason”.[38]

On January 2, 2017, The New York Times reported that historian John A. Farrell, a biographer of Nixon, had found a memo written by H.R. Bob Haldeman that confirmed that Nixon himself had authorized "throwing a monkey wrench" into Johnson's peace negotiations.[2]

In part, because Nixon won the presidency, no one was ever prosecuted for this violation of the Logan Act.[39][40][41] 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 she "had suffered dearly" for her efforts on his behalf, and he replied, "Yes, I appreciate that. I know you are a good soldier."[42] The American historian Catherine Forslund argued that Chennault would have been in a good position to demand that Nixon appoint her ambassador to an important American ally or that she be given some other prestigious job as a reward, but Chennault declined, fearing that she might have to answer difficult questions during the Senate confirmation hearings.[42] When testifying before the Senate, one has to take an oath to tell the truth, and any lie told would leave one to prosecution for perjury.

Chennault's interaction with the Paris Peace Accords on behalf of Nixon is sometimes called the "Chennault Affair."[43][44]

Later life

In October 1971, when the United Nations general assembly voted to expel the Republic of China and to give China's seat to the People's Republic of China, Chennault as one of the leaders of the China Lobby was involved in an unsuccessful effort to stop the expulsion.[45] In a speech at the time, Chennault said "let's hope the United Nations doesn't end up like the League of Nations...Its effectiveness is in grave doubt...Fortunately, the big events cannot be settled in the UN anyway".[45] After President Nixon visited the People's Republic in 1972, there was a real possibility that the United States might finally recognize the People's Republic as the legitimate government of China and in 1974 the US opened an "Information Office" in Beijing that was a de facto embassy. All through the 1970s, Chennault had lobbied against US recognition of the People's Republic and in 1977 she, together with 80 prominent Chinese-Americans, signed a public letter to President Carter drawing attention to the poor human rights record of the People's Republic and asked that the US not establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.[46] Despite the letter, in 1979, Carter recognized the People's Republic. Believing that the U.S. had betrayed South Vietnam by withdrawing in 1973 and allowing North Vietnam to conquer the south in 1975, Chennault set herself up as the "conscience of the U.S in Vietnam" and lobbied Congress to admit Vietnamese refugees fleeing the communist regime.[21]

In January 1981, Chennault visited Beijing to meet the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, ostensibly as a private citizen, but in fact as an unofficial diplomat representing the incoming Republican president Ronald Reagan, who was due to be sworn in as president on 20 January 1981.[47] As a long-time Republican politician Reagan had been strongly critical of the People's Republic, but as president Reagan wanted to focus on the struggle against the Soviet Union, which he had dubbed the "evil empire", and wanted China as a de facto US ally against the Soviet Union, which was the message that Chennault had conveyed to Deng.[48]

As Chennault was a long-time Republican and one of the doyennes of the China Lobby, her meeting with Deng attracted much media attention in the United States.[47] Chennault stated at the time that Deng had complained to her that none of the American "China Hands" were huaren (overseas Chinese), asking "Why do all the so-called China experts have blue eyes and blond hair?"[47] During her visit to the People's Republic, Chennault also met her relative, the Communist politician Liao Chengzhi. Chennault told The Washington Post that she and Liao had "talked about the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four and how they had lost an entire generation. They told of their need for administrators and technicians to run the country and how they are having to reeducate the people in the new technology because when the Russians left China they took everything with them. Now the Chinese realize it was wrong to copy the Russians."[49] After her visit to Beijing, Chennault visited Taipei to meet President Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, to brief him on what she had seen in the People's Republic.[50] Chiang was displeased about the trip as it disbursed the illusion that Reagan might break relations with the People's Republic and once again recognize the Republic of China as the legitimate government of China, but told her he was pleased that it was she who made that trip as he knew she was a friend of the Kuomintang.[50] Very cautiously, Chiang distanced himself from the policies of his father, saying that it was time for new thinking about relations across the Taiwan straits, saying the People's Republic under Deng was moving away from the policies it had pursued under Mao.[50]

In 1984, Chennault led the President's Export Council mission to China, which was intended to facilitate US-China trade as Deng's reforms in the 1980s opened up China's economy.[48] As someone closely linked to the Kuomintang, Chennault served not only as a consultant on American-Chinese trade but on trade between Taiwan and China.[48] Despite the long-standing hostility between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, in the 1980s Taiwanese companies began to invest in the mainland, bringing much-needed capital and skills.[48] It was the hope of both Deng and Chennault that economic integration between Taiwan and China might lead to reunification, but political reforms in Taiwan during the 1980s led to that nation evolving into a democracy.[51] Though the majority of the Taiwanese are ethnic Chinese, a sense of Taiwanese nationalism had emerged by the 1980s, and many Taiwanese had no desire to be reunited with China under any conditions, which meant that economic integration did not lead to political integration as hoped.[51] Chennault was attacked in the Taiwanese media in 1989 for her statement that she was in favor of "separating economics from politics", which led the China Times newspaper to condemn her in an editorial for letting "personal financial considerations" influence her political views.[52] After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when the People's Liberation Army shot down protesting university students demanding democracy, the US publicly pulled away from China.[53] At the request of the US government, Chennault passed along a message to Deng saying that Washington still wanted a good relationship with Beijing, the sanctions imposed on China were only to appease American public opinion, and the sanctions would be ended as soon as it was opportune (i.e. once the American people forgot about the Tiananmen Square Massacre).[53] To further press the point, on 30 June 1989, the US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft secretly visited Beijing to tell Deng that "President Bush recognizes the value of the PRC-US relationship to the vital interests of both countries" and that the US viewed the Tiananmen Square massacre as an "internal affair".[54] Despite the controversy, in December 1989 and again in March 1990, Chennault led delegations of Taiwanese businessmen to China to "study the investment climate on the mainland".[55] She acknowledged that people must be "humble enough to learn, courageous enough to change their positions."[56][57]

She died on March 30, 2018 in Washington, District of Columbia at the age of 94. Some news stories gave her age at death as 92, based on June 23, 1925 as her generally reported date of birth,[58] but she was actually[1] born in 1923.[59] She is buried next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.

Bibliography

  • Catherine Forslund. Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations (2002 ed.). New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8420-2833-1.
  • Hyung-chan Kim, chief editor. Distinguished Asian Americans, A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press (1999)
  • Anna Chennault. Chennault and the Flying Tigers: Way of a Fighter (January 1, 1963 ed.). New York, NY Paul S. Eriksson, Inc. B001YUDCZA.
  • Anna Chennault. A Thousand Springs: The Biography of a Marriage (January 1, 1962 ed.). New York, NY Paul S. Eriksson, Inc. B000JD0KCQ.
  • Anna Chennault. The Education of Anna (1980 ed.). Times Books; Second Printing edition. p. 242. ISBN 0-8129-0844-9.
  • Anna Chennault. Song of Yesterday (1961) in Chinese
  • Anna Chennault. M.E.E. (1963) in Chinese
  • Anna Chennault. My Two Worlds (1965) in Chinese
  • Anna Chennault. The Other Half (1966) in Chinese
  • Anna Chennault. Letters from the U.S.A. (1967)
  • Anna Chennault. Journey among Friends and Strangers (1978, Chinese edition)

Memberships

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/anna-chennault-formidable-washington-hostess-and-secret-emissary-dies-at-94/2018/04/03/45aa3c12-36c4-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html
  2. 1 2 Peter Baker (2017-01-02). "Nixon Tried to Spoil Johnson's Vietnam Peace Talks in '68, Notes Show". The New York Times. p. A11. Retrieved 2017-01-04. Through much of the campaign, the Nixon team maintained a secret channel to the South Vietnamese through Anna Chennault, widow of Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers in China during World War II. Mrs. Chennault had become a prominent Republican fund-raiser and Washington hostess.
  3. 1 2 Forslund, page 8.
  4. ↑ Forslund, page 9.
  5. ↑ Forslund, page 6.
  6. ↑ Forslund, page 10.
  7. ↑ Forslund, pages 10–11.
  8. ↑ Weisbord, Merrily & Mohr, Merilyn SimondsThe Valour and the horror: the untold story of Canadians in the Second World War, Toronto: HarperCollins, 1991 pages 38–39
  9. 1 2 3 Forslund, page 11.
  10. ↑ Rebecca Chan Chung, Deborah Chung and Cecilia Ng Wong, "Piloted to Serve", 2012
  11. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/PilotedToServe
  12. 1 2 Forslund, page 16.
  13. ↑ "Rosemary Chennault Simrall". Monroe News-Star. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  14. 1 2 Forslund, page 34.
  15. 1 2 3 Forslund, page 35.
  16. ↑ Forslund, page 27.
  17. ↑ Forslund, page 40.
  18. ↑ Forslund, pages 40–41.
  19. ↑ Forslund, page 41.
  20. ↑ Forslund, pages 41–42.
  21. 1 2 Forslund, page 98.
  22. ↑ Forslund, page 43.
  23. ↑ Forslund, page 53.
  24. ↑ Hyung-chan Kim, pages 55, 56.
  25. ↑ "Chinese-Americans Told to Be More Political".
  26. ↑ 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.“
  27. ↑ Jules Witcover. The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat (October 4, 2005 ed.). 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 things knows I was getting orders to do these things. I couldn’t do anything without instructions.’”
  28. ↑ 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.”
  29. ↑ 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.
  30. ↑ 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.’”.
  31. ↑ 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”
  32. ↑ 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.’”
  33. ↑ 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.”’”
  34. ↑ 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.”
  35. ↑ 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.”.
  36. ↑ 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.”
  37. ↑ 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”
  38. ↑ Mark Lisheron. “In tapes, LBJ accuses Nixon of treason”. Austin American-Statesman. December 5, 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.”
  39. ↑ 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.”
  40. ↑ Jules Witcover. “The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat”. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, page 131. “Johnson had turned over incriminating evidence about (Anna) Chennault’s activities to (Hubert) Humphrey 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.”.
  41. ↑ 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.’”
  42. 1 2 Forslund, page 85.
  43. ↑ https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/ch5
  44. ↑ David Greenberg (31 July 2014). "Book Review: 'Chasing Shadows' and 'The Nixon Tapes'". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
  45. 1 2 Forslund, page 92.
  46. ↑ Forslund, page 93.
  47. 1 2 3 Radcliffe, Daniel (15 February 1981). "The Transformation of Anna Chenault [sic]". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  48. 1 2 3 4 Forslund, page 136.
  49. ↑ Radcliffe, Daniel (15 February 1981). "The Transformation of Anna Chenault [sic]". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  50. 1 2 3 Forslund, page 135.
  51. 1 2 Forslund, page 138.
  52. ↑ Forslund, page 141.
  53. 1 2 Forslund, page 140.
  54. ↑ Template:Cite web She acknowledged that peole must be "humble enough to learn, courageous enough to chane their positions."
  55. ↑ Forslund, page 142.
  56. ↑ McFadden, Robert D. (2018-04-03). "Anna Chennault, Behind-the-Scenes Force in Washington, Dies at 92". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  57. ↑ http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/people/others/9/2354-1.htm
  58. ↑ Anna Chennault, secret Nixon envoy, Washington figure of ‘glamour and mystery,’ dies at 94
  59. ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/anna-chennault-bridged-east-and-west-but-wasnt-always-appreciated-1523023201
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