Anne Armstrong

Katharine "Anne" Legendre Armstrong (b. Dec. 27, 1927) is currently a lobbyist at Baker Botts with a long history of loyality to the Republican party, including as an early finacier of Karl Rove's direct mailing company, Karl Rove & Company in 1981, and tutoring future US Senator, Kay Baily Hutchinson.

Salon magazine wrote of her: "Armstrong is linked to two family fortunes -- those of Armstrong and King -- that include extensive corporate holdings in land, cattle, banking and oil. No one in Texas, except perhaps Baker, but certainly not latecomer George W. Bush, has a longer lineage in its political and economic elite. In 1983, Debrett's Peerage Ltd., publisher of 'Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage,' printed 'Debrett's Texas Peerage,' featuring 'the aristocrats of Texas,' with the King family noted as the 'Royal Family of Ranching.'"

She has also recently acted as a lobbyist for the Parsons Corporation who is the governments second largest recipient of contracts in post-war Iraq

She came under the public spotlight after Vice President Dick Cheney shot 78 year old Harry Whittington in the face on her 50,000 acre ranch while hunting in February of 2006. Armstrong was the person who eventually broke the news to the local paper in Corpus Chisti of the incident. She was quoted as saying, "He got peppered pretty good," when describing Whittington after the hunting accident.

Armstrong was born in New Orleans and graduated from Vassar College.

Positions


 * Vice Chairman, Texas Republican Party: 1966-1968
 * Republican National Committeewoman from Texas: 1968-1973
 * Trustee, Kennedy County (Texas) School Board
 * Republican National Committee: Co-Chair 1971-1973
 * Secretary and keynote speaker, Republican National Convention: 1972
 * member, Murphy Commission: 1973-1975
 * Counsellor to President Nixon: 1973-1974
 * founder, Office for Women's Programs: 1973-1974
 * Chairman, Federal Property Council: 1973-1974
 * Chairman, Domestic Council Committee on Bicentennial and the Federal Agency Bicentennial Task Force: 1973-1974
 * member, Council on Wage and Price Stability: 1973-1974
 * Member, Advisory Council to the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration: 1975-1976
 * member, Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year: 1975-1976
 * US Ambassador ot the United Kingdom: 1976-1977
 * Board member Halliburton: 1977-2000 (hired Cheney)
 * Co-Chairman, Reagan-Bush 1980 Presidential Campaign: 1980
 * Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: 1981-1990


 * source

Memberships


 * former member of the Boards of Directors of American Express Company, Boise Cascade, and Halliburton Company
 * currently serves on the General Motors Corporate Advisory Council, Council on Foreign Relations, at the Center for Strategic and Intrernational Studies, Alfalfa Club, Founding Council of the Oxford Institute for American Studies, Council of American Ambassadors, the American Academy of Diplomacy, as a regent at the Texas A&M University System, American Associates of the Royal Academy of Arts and as a Citizen Regent Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution.

Murphy Commission

Armstrong was a member of the Murphy Commission, a panel authorized in 1972 by Congress to "recommend improvements in the organization and procedures of the government for conducting foreign policy" in regards to effective intelligence management.

The Commission finished three years later in July of 1975. Among their findings was a necessity to form a closer relationship between the White House and the CIA. As well, they suggested that the agency should change its name to the Foreign Intelligence Agency and the DCI would essentially become the DFI.

The Commission recommended the "President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (a revived version of Eisenhower’s PBCFIA) should also gain more  access to the President, a bigger staff, and a  stronger role in evaluating community performance as a whole.

They also suggested covert action should have tighter NSC control and that "Congress should create a select, joint committee on “national  security” to review and coordinate oversight of foreign and national security policies." pdf file page 34

blog creds


 * emptywheel, "What Was Dick Really Hiding", The Next Hurrah, February 19, 2006; Daily Kos, February 20, 2006.


 * Josh Marshall, "Small World", Talking Points Memo, February 13, 2006