party for another term as your president. johnson s speech shocked the world. the president would not run for re-election, and here was his offer to finally end the war. for presidential candidate richard nixon, lbj s peace proposal was a political nightmare. nixon needed the democratic party to own the horror show of the vietnam war, not to solve it. and the steel butterfly, anna chennault, she saw lbj s proposed bombing halt as a military blunder. every time we stop the bombing, only give the othside opportunity to rebuild their military installation. the sooner we win this war, the better off we will be. richard nixon and anna chennault. their views were closely aligned. there s definitely no crime in that. but what if they went beyond words to deeds? what if they were to join hands
the number one flying tiger and his chinese bride, darryl claire s the general made second world war history and legend as commander of sky battles in china. anna chennault has an american story that is truly, epically, even sin matically unique. she s a refugee from the communist takeover of the china. what she did with that influence is a question of deadly seriousness because with anna chennault and richard nixon, we got america s first time of a candidate colluding with a foreign power to try to win a u.s. presidential election. and in this case, it would also change the course of a war. the chennault affair shows us this wealthy and connected
vietnam. johnson had escalated the war, but now with the death toll soaring, with protests and riots tearing the nation apart, president johnson had staked his legacy on getting america out of vietnam. i told all of you the other day johnson is talking to nixon, basically saying, i know that you re interfering with my diplomacy, and i think it s about as low as you can get. and nixon lies and denies that he s doing it. you just see that your people don t tell the south jet streamese vietnamese are going to get any better deal. your people. that s how he puts it to nixon. your people are messing things up. in other calls, johnson didn t hesitate to give nixon s people a name. mrs. chennault. mrs. chennault, anna, a woman known to power brokers across asia and in washington, d.c. as the steel butterfly.
august 1968. anna chennault touches down in saigon, south vietnam s wartime capital. mrs. chennault feared that south vietnam would be the next domino to fall to the communists unless america held the line against communist north vietnam. n n now anna had come to join the struggle as richard nixon s secret agent. i went with her on one of her trips to saigon. we stayed at the hotel caravel downtown where most of the reporters were staying. it s a weird atmosphere from the hotel restaurant on top. you could see flares on the edge of the city, bright lights in the night sky, bombs and so on. the war was a part of everybody s life. chennault arrived in saigon with an ironclad alibi, her work
chennault could establish a relationship between him and the south vietnamese and that just in case it became public, nixon could pretend that she was not his real envoy. after just ten years in washington, d.c., anna had fast-tracked her way to wealth and influence and a penthouse on top of the brand-new watergate complex, which she made into her private clubhouse for the global elite. she loved to do parties. she s notoriously known as the republican social host es of ese nixon era. i just remember when she would walk into a room, she owned the room. she had a lot of sexual power. i m not saying that she had sexual relationships with people, but i just think that she exuded an aura of sexuality