Chen Xiangmei
Encyclopedia
Anna Chennault, is the widow of World War II
aviation hero Lieutenant General
Claire Lee Chennault
.
, China
on June 23, 1925, Chen Xiangmei "received a B.A. degree in Chinese from Lingnan University
in Hong Kong
in 1944, and an honorary
Doctor of Literature degree from Chungang in Seoul
, Korea
in 1967". She "began her career as a journalist
, serving as a war correspondent
for the Central News Agency from 1944 to 1948. She was a feature writer for the Hsin Ming Daily News in Shanghai
, China from 1944 to 1949."
Chen Xiangmei was married in 1947 to Claire Lee Chennault
, who was more than 32 years her senior and died in 1958. She has two children, Claire Anna (born in 1949) and Cynthia Louise (born in 1950).
Her husband's death has not seemed to have slowed her career: "She served as a special correspondent for the Central News Agency from 1965 to the present [1999] and as a U.S. correspondent for the Hsin Shen Daily News from 1958 to the present [1999]. In addition, she was a broadcaster for the Voice of America
from 1963 to 1966." In addition, Chen Xiangmei served as an editor and public relations officer for the Civil Air Transport
in Taipei
, Taiwan
, from 1946 until 1957. After her husband's death, Chennault was vice-president of international affairs for the Flying Tiger Line
. "She has served as president of TAC International from 1976 to the present [1999]."
"Chennault has been a member of the President's Advisory Committee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
since 1970...served as a member of the United States
National Committee for UNESCO
from 1970 to the present [1999]...as president of Chinese Refugee Relief from 1962 to 1970 and has served as president of the General Claire Chennault Foundation from 1960 to the present [1999]."
Chennault "has served as a committeewoman of the Washington, D.C.
Republican Party
since 1960...was the founder and chairperson of the National Republican Asian Assembly" and has advocated greater participation in political affairs by Chinese- and other Asian-Americans, and also has discussed relations between the U.S. and China.
She has also promoted her husband's legacy. In 1976, she came to Baton Rouge
, Louisiana
, for a ceremony honoring Chennault hosted by the city Mayor
-President W.W. Dumas and then Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Chennault grew up near Waterproof
and Ferriday
, Louisiana.
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 which attempted to sabotage of the 1968 Paris peace talks
which could have ended the Vietnam War
. She arranged the contact with South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem
whom Richard Nixon
met in secret in July 1968 in New York. It was through Chennault's intercession that the Nixon campaign advised Saigon to refuse participation in the talks, promising a better deal once elected. Records of FBI wiretaps show that Chennault phoned Bui Diem on November 2 with the message "hold on, we are gonna win." "The tactic ‘worked’, in that the South Vietnamese junta withdrew from the talks on the eve of the election, thereby destroying the peace initiative on which the Democrats had based their campaign. " Before the elections President Johnson
“suspected (…) Richard Nixon, of political sabotage that he called treason
”. In part because Nixon won the presidency, no one was ever prosecuted for this alleged crime
.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
aviation hero Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....
Claire Lee Chennault
Claire Lee Chennault
Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault , was an American military aviator. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fight-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment...
.
History
Born in BeijingBeijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
on June 23, 1925, Chen Xiangmei "received a B.A. degree in Chinese from Lingnan University
Lingnan University (Hong Kong)
The Lingnan University is a public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. It was granted full university status on 30 July 1999.The Lingnan University administration believes that it provides students with a quality education distinguished by the best liberal arts tradition from both East and West...
in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
in 1944, and an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
Doctor of Literature degree from Chungang in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
in 1967". She "began her career as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, serving as a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for the Central News Agency from 1944 to 1948. She was a feature writer for the Hsin Ming Daily News in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China from 1944 to 1949."
Chen Xiangmei was married in 1947 to Claire Lee Chennault
Claire Lee Chennault
Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault , was an American military aviator. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fight-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment...
, who was more than 32 years her senior and died in 1958. She has two children, Claire Anna (born in 1949) and Cynthia Louise (born in 1950).
Her husband's death has not seemed to have slowed her career: "She served as a special correspondent for the Central News Agency from 1965 to the present [1999] and as a U.S. correspondent for the Hsin Shen Daily News from 1958 to the present [1999]. In addition, she was a broadcaster for the Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
from 1963 to 1966." In addition, Chen Xiangmei served as an editor and public relations officer for the Civil Air Transport
Civil Air Transport
Civil Air Transport was a Chinese airline, later owned by the CIA, that supported United States covert operations throughout East and Southeast Asia...
in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, from 1946 until 1957. After her husband's death, Chennault was vice-president of international affairs for the Flying Tiger Line
Flying Tiger Line
Flying Tiger Line, also known as Flying Tigers, was the first scheduled cargo airline in the United States and a major military charter operator during the Cold War era for both cargo and personnel .- History :...
. "She has served as president of TAC International from 1976 to the present [1999]."
"Chennault has been a member of the President's Advisory Committee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
since 1970...served as a member of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
National Committee for UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
from 1970 to the present [1999]...as president of Chinese Refugee Relief from 1962 to 1970 and has served as president of the General Claire Chennault Foundation from 1960 to the present [1999]."
Chennault "has served as a committeewoman of the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
since 1960...was the founder and chairperson of the National Republican Asian Assembly" and has advocated greater participation in political affairs by Chinese- and other Asian-Americans, and also has discussed relations between the U.S. and China.
She has also promoted her husband's legacy. In 1976, she came to Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, for a ceremony honoring Chennault hosted by the city Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
-President W.W. Dumas and then Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Chennault grew up near Waterproof
Waterproof, Louisiana
Waterproof is a town in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, United States with a population of 834 as of 2000 census. Waterproof is approximately seventeen miles north of Ferriday, one of the two principal communities of Concordia Parish...
and Ferriday
Ferriday, Louisiana
Ferriday is a town in Concordia Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States. The population, which is three-fourths African American, was 3,723 at the 2000 census....
, Louisiana.
Role in the Nixon campaign sabotage of 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 PresidentPresident
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
's secret monitoring of South Vietnamese officials and his political foes, Anna Chennault played a crucial role on behalf of the Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
campaign which attempted to sabotage of the 1968 Paris peace talks
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
which could have ended the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. She arranged the contact with South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem
Bui Diem
Bùi Diễm was South Vietnam's ambassador to the United States under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. He played a key role in the last desperate attempt to secure US$700 million in military aid to defend South Vietnam against the North in 1975...
whom Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
met in secret in July 1968 in New York. It was through Chennault's intercession that the Nixon campaign advised Saigon to refuse participation in the talks, promising a better deal once elected. Records of FBI wiretaps show that Chennault phoned Bui Diem on November 2 with the message "hold on, we are gonna win." "The tactic ‘worked’, in that the South Vietnamese junta withdrew from the talks on the eve of the election, thereby destroying the peace initiative on which the Democrats had based their campaign. " Before the elections President Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
“suspected (…) Richard Nixon, of political sabotage that he called treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
”. In part because Nixon won the presidency, no one was ever prosecuted for this alleged crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
.
Awards
- The Freedom Award of the Order of LafayetteOrder of LafayetteThe Order of Lafayette is a patriotic, hereditary, nonpartisan, and fraternal organization established in New York City in 1958 by Colonel Hamilton Fish III , a former Congressman from New York and decorated veteran of the First World War...
(1966) - The Freedom Award from the Free China Association (1966)
- The Award of Honor from the Chinese-American Alliance (1971)
Books
- Catherine Forslund, Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations (2002) ISBN 0-8420-2833-1
- Hyung-chan Kim, chief editor, Distinguished Asian Americans, A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press (1999), pp. 55, 56.
Membership
- National League of America
- PEN Women
- Writer's Association
- Free China Writer's Association
- 14th Air Force Association
- USAF Wives Club
- Flying Tiger Association
- American Newspaper Women's Club of Washington
- Theta Sigma Phi
- National Military Family AssociationNational Military Family AssociationThe National Military Family Association , headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a private non-profit association organized to improve the quality of family life of all military personnel.-History:...
, founder and chairperson - Committee of 100Committee of 100 (United States)The Committee of 100 is a group of prominent Chinese Americans with the mission to "pool their strengths and experience to address important issues concerning the Chinese American community, as well as issues affecting Sino-American relations." It was founded in 1990.The declared key functions of...
External links
- “The Trials of Henry Kissinger” documentary by Eugene JareckiEugene JareckiEugene Jarecki is an author and a dramatic and documentary filmmaker based in New York.His works include Why We Fight, which won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Reagan, Freakonomics , Quest of the Carib Canoe, and Season of the...
(video, 1h19). Interview of Anna Chennault featured in sequence on Nixon campaign sabotage of Paris Peace Accords: start 15min 20sec – end 20min 10sec.