A touch of old Washington passed away March 30 with the death of 94-year-old Anna Chennault.

A familiar figure in the nation’s capital after she arrived in the late 1950s, the woman who was born Chen Xiangmei, daughter of a Beijing lawyer-diplomat, had barely survived the perils of war-torn China, earned a university degree in Hong Kong, worked as a journalist, and married a swashbuckling American general. In later years, as a young widow, she ran the commercial airline her husband had led and ended her long and storied existence as a Washington lobbyist, hostess, political activist, publicist, broadcaster—and woman of mystery and controversy.