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Chinese-born Anna Chennault, 94, was behind-the-scenes political force
Honolulu Star Advertiser ^ | 4/4/18 | NYT

Posted on 04/04/2018 7:36:05 AM PDT by mac_truck

Anna Chennault, for many years one of the most visible private citizens in Washington as a Republican fundraiser, writer and Chinese-born, anti-communist lobbyist who dabbled in foreign intrigue after the death of her husband, the renowned leader of the Flying Tigers in China and Burma in World War II, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 94.

Her death, in her apartment at the Watergate complex, was announced today. The cause was complications of a stroke she suffered in December, her daughter Cynthia Chennault said.

In her memoir photographs, wearing a high-necked white ao dai, Chennault appears with her husband, Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault; with Presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford; with J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI; with Gen. William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and with Nguyen Cao Ky, the South Vietnamese vice president who fled to the United States with the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Except for her husband’s picture, taken a year before he died in 1958, it is a gallery of Chennault’s Washington regalia, assembled over many years as an airline executive, hostess, Republican stalwart, advocate for the Chinese Nationalists and South Vietnam, and staunch opponent of the Communist regime that seized power in China in 1949.

She was also a vice president of the Flying Tiger Line, her husband’s postwar cargo operation; a writer of novels, poetry and nonfiction books; a Voice of America broadcaster; and the center of a social whirl at her Watergate penthouse that drew in Cabinet members, congressmen, diplomats, foreign dignitaries and journalists.

(Excerpt) Read more at staradvertiser.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anticommunist; chennault; cia; flyingtigers; nixon; taiwan; vietnam
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To: mac_truck

Barbara Tuchman’s: Stillwell and the American Experience in China as a kid was first history book that made an impression on me. Chennault and his Chinese wife were featured prominently in it.


21 posted on 04/04/2018 8:38:40 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: wetgundog

My Dad was also CBI. He flew the Hump and helped supply various Chinese units.


22 posted on 04/04/2018 8:46:29 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
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To: oldvirginian
Khẩn cầu xin Chúa cho linh hồn của Anna Chenault.
23 posted on 04/04/2018 8:47:04 AM PDT by ThanhPhero
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To: yarddog

If a Zero got on a P-40’s tail, the Warhawk pilot would simply dive and roll to the right at high speed. The A6M Zero(Allied code name “Zeke”)with its thick, wide wings and barn-door sized ailerons couldn’t turn worth a damn in a high speed dive, especially to the right and couldn’t follow the diving P-40.

Once this was understood by Allied pilots, they simply dove on Japanese formations firing 50 cal armor piercing incendiaries at the highly flammable Japanese aircraft and diving out through the formations avoiding any aerial “dogfighting” with the highly maneuverable Zeros.

This tactic became even easier with the higher service-ceiling, higher-powered late war allied fighters like the Hellcat, P-38, and Corsair.


24 posted on 04/04/2018 8:52:16 AM PDT by TTFlyer
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To: Mears
The Flying Tigers were mercenaries-——and help make the Soong family even richer.

If that's true, they certainly earned their pay.

Incidentally, they didn't call themselves the Flying Tigers. That moniker was coined by Stateside journalists.

25 posted on 04/04/2018 8:54:26 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: oldvirginian; Vigilanteman
And a staunch anti-communist on top of that.

Its hard to believe LBJ tapped her phone and wanted to prosecute this woman.

R.I.P.


26 posted on 04/04/2018 9:01:55 AM PDT by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aidera)
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To: mac_truck

LBJ didn’t care for anti-communists who often called him “soft on communism.”


27 posted on 04/04/2018 9:30:29 AM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: yarddog

The P-40 was heavier and could out dive the zero. It also had armor, self sealing fuel tanks and six 50 caliber machine guns.


28 posted on 04/04/2018 9:58:23 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: wetgundog

The Flying Tigers were a unique group.
I’ve read Boyingtons book and those guys fascinated me.
There was a general they all hated, referred to as “Lard Ass”.
Any idea who that might have been?


29 posted on 04/04/2018 9:59:48 AM PDT by oldvirginian ("The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.” D TRUMP)
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To: ThanhPhero
"Khẩn cầu xin Chúa cho linh hồn của Anna Chenault." Very nice. Yes, I had to look it up.
30 posted on 04/04/2018 10:06:54 AM PDT by oldvirginian ("The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.” D TRUMP)
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To: mac_truck

“Its hard to believe LBJ tapped her phone and wanted to prosecute this woman.”

He was probably intimidated by her.
She sounds like a strong willed woman who didn’t back down.
LBJ was a jackass.


31 posted on 04/04/2018 10:09:13 AM PDT by oldvirginian ("The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.” D TRUMP)
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To: Theodore R.

He married Anna in 1947, when she was a hot 22 year old, and he was 54.


32 posted on 04/04/2018 10:20:42 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: oldvirginian

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwirtOb7kqHaAhWpwlQKHTbuDe0QFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historynet.com%2Fpappy-boyington-interview-with-the-us-world-war-ii-ace.htm&usg=AOvVaw241Jxi7rD3tVcuYri0alY5


33 posted on 04/04/2018 10:29:55 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
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To: Mears

Typical Masshole comment.


34 posted on 04/04/2018 2:48:58 PM PDT by Redleg Duke (The Democrats in California want another civil war over cheap labor!)
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To: Redleg Duke

Huh?

It was meant as a joke.

.


35 posted on 04/04/2018 2:50:48 PM PDT by Mears
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To: mac_truck
The story was that Anna Chennault told South Vietnamese president Thieu that he'd get a better deal with Nixon in the White House, so Thieu rejected the 1968 peace negotiations and the war went on.

I don't know if it's true or if Nixon was involved or if Thieu couldn't have reached that conclusion on his own, but that's what Johnson was peeved about and what Ken Burns was complaining about in his recent Vietnam documentary.

36 posted on 04/04/2018 3:00:21 PM PDT by x
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To: mac_truck

RIP.


37 posted on 04/04/2018 3:20:38 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj ("It's Slappin' Time !")
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To: Mears

Really piss-poor one.

Claire Chennault was one of my boyhood heroes, as was his wife a heroine.

Too many folks today do not know the story of the Flying Tigers and what they accomplished. The airport manager in the town I grew up in was an aircraft mechanic in the Tigers. An American Indian and a great guy!

History is getting revised enough by the left without any humorous help.


38 posted on 04/05/2018 5:06:12 AM PDT by Redleg Duke (The Democrats in California want another civil war over cheap labor!)
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To: Jimmy Valentine

“It also had armor, self sealing fuel tanks and six 50 caliber machine guns.”

The .50 BMG in the air and on the ground went a long way towards winning WWII.


39 posted on 04/05/2018 12:06:40 PM PDT by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest)
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To: PLMerite

It is not called “Mama Deuce” for no good reason.


40 posted on 04/05/2018 1:47:47 PM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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