Martha Mitchell, the wife of Nixon's Attorney General, was well-known to spread a juicy rumor. That's why when Watergate unfolded, she was held captive in a hotel room on her husband's orders and painted as a crazy alcoholic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who was Martha Mitchell and why is she significant?
That's right. We're going to talk about Martha Mitchell, who was the wife of John Mitchell in the 1970s, who was Nixon's attorney general for a time. And Martha Mitchell was from the South. She was a – some argue that she was one of the first sort of conservative – political pundits because she loved to go on TV, not like a lot of politician spouses at the time that kept a lower profile.
She loved to be on TV and talk about things. And she loved to call into journalists, maybe have a couple of bourbons and call into journalists and give quotes. And you think like, oh, boy, this sounds like trouble. Eventually, it could have been. But they loved her.
Nixon loved her because she went out there and said the things that not a lot of people were saying in public at the time that he loved.
Yeah. I saw that she was known as the mouth of the South. She was from Arkansas. And one of her quotes was, I don't believe in that no comment business. I always have a comment. That was basically her guiding ethos, her ethos. One of the two. And she was huge at the time. She wasn't just like, hey, I really like what you have to say to the papers. Way to go when you ran into her at lunch.
In 1970, during the election, if you went to a Republican fundraiser, there was a really good chance that she would be speaking there. Like you said, people loved her, including Richard Nixon, who was just a fan, essentially. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. In June of 1972, the Watergate building was burgled, as everyone knows. And Nixon and his inner circle were like, we didn't have anything to do with this. I don't know what you guys are talking about. And then one of them said, hold on a minute. There is something that Martha knows about this that could spell trouble for us. And this is that story because it gets pretty crazy.
So crazy that there was a series in 2022. Was it a series or a show? I think it was a series called Gaslit starring Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell and a very – Heavily makeuped and balded and changed Sean Penn as John Mitchell.
Yeah, although Sean Penn has done so many eight balls, it's possible he just looks like that now.
No, Sean Penn still looks good, this guy. He looked like John Mitchell, which is to say old and bald and a little tubby.
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Chapter 2: What role did Martha Mitchell play in the Watergate scandal?
So just as a spoiler, John Mitchell eventually went to prison. He's the first and only U.S. Attorney General to go serve time in federal prison. That's how badly this went for him.
But at the time, after the Watergate break-in, when the Nixon campaign, because he stopped being Attorney General for Nixon and became the head of Nixon's re-election campaign, he ran the Committee to Re-elect the President, the CRP, Everyone else on the planet called it creep instead. And so he was running that.
So at the time, right after the Watergate break-in, when they were still denying, denying, denying, you can't prove anything, and he realized that his wife would definitely call the press if she got the chance, he hatched a plan to keep her from doing that. And like you said, it takes a crazy turn.
And it's about here where it does, because he and Martha, John and Martha, were at a fundraiser in California at the time with Governor Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. And they were... That's when the news of Watergate broke, essentially. So John Mitchell flew back to D.C., but he said, Martha, stay here. And then he talked to some other guys and he said, essentially, make sure Martha stays here.
Keep her away from the newspaper and do not let her call anybody.
That's right. And the big, big reason that they were worried about her was. It was not just because she liked to talk to the press, but it was because one of the people caught in the Watergate burglary and arrested was a guy named James McCord. He was a security director for the reelection committee for Nixon and had a very close tie to that family because when her husband –
quit the attorney general position to become head of that committee for reelection. She lost her secret service protection, and he got none other than James McCord to be her private personal bodyguard.
So if you can add one and two together as Martha Mitchell, you would know if you knew James McCord was caught breaking into the Watergate that it probably had something to do with the Nixon campaign.
Yeah, so I say we take a break and we come back and talk about Martha Mitchell's ordeal.
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Chapter 3: How did Nixon's administration handle Martha Mitchell?
Let's do it. S-Y-S-K S-Y-S-K S-Y-S-K S-Y-S-K S-Y-S-K
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Chapter 4: What was the outcome for John Mitchell after Watergate?
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Okay, Chuck, so Martha Mitchell is being held in a hotel in luxury, of course. This isn't, you know, she's not like in some rundown hotel. This is a nice hotel, I'm presuming. I don't know why that matters. It does a little bit, but it's unnecessary to say.
Well, they didn't take her to like an abandoned warehouse and tie her to a chair.
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Chapter 5: What was the impact of Martha Mitchell's actions on her family?
And she did read that James McCord, her former bodyguard, was one of the people arrested. And she did put two and two together. And again, I can't believe this, but my husband and probably Richard Nixon directed the Watergate break-in. Who can I call?
That's right. She was pretty mad about the fact that she was being kept in the dark. Obviously very frustrated. Just watch that clip. trailer, at least, with Julia Roberts. And it got kind of hairy in there. So she starts fuming a little bit and causing a bit of a commotion.
I'm not sure if it happened exactly this way, but in the TV show, she called from a bathroom phone, like hotels have bathroom phones sometimes, and They're by the toilet, and one of these guys, quote-unquote safeguarding her, was an ex-FBI agent named Steve King, burst into the bathroom, ripped the phone out of the wall.
She was talking to Helen Thomas of UPI, one of her favorite reporters that she liked to talk to. And Helen Thomas hears the line go dead, tries to get back in touch, and then eventually calls John, the husband, saying, who said, that little sweetheart, I love her so much. She gets a little upset about politics, but she loves me and I love her, and that's what counts.
Chapter 6: How is Martha Mitchell portrayed in popular culture?
When all along what had happened is that Martha was physically tackled and injected with a tranquilizer.
Yeah, by a doctor, but still. She was being held down and sedated against her will, which is nuts. Again, under the direction of her husband. By a doctor. Yeah. I mean, it's better than some FBI agent doing it, but a little. I guess so. I do have a huge criticism of this operation, though, Chuck.
I don't condone what they did to her, but if they were going to do it, there was a huge step that they missed, which is rent a second hotel room. And get rid of all of the phones in the hotel room that Martha Mitchell's being kept in. And if John Mitchell wanted to get in touch with her, he could call the other hotel room and then they could relay whatever message they needed.
That was just Bush League amateur stuff, leaving any phone in there if one of the directives was to keep her away from the phone.
Yeah. And when they checked in, when they said, well, would you like the paper slid under your door every morning, sir? And they're like, oh, yeah, for sure.
Right. That sounds great. Is it free? Because I don't want to pay for it, but if it's free, definitely. Can we get two?
Oh, boy. Yeah, they didn't do it right. Martha, and we should say we're kind of joking here because Martha was not injured or anything like that. But she was held against her will, essentially kidnapped, held against her will, and then gaslit like nobody's ever been gaslit before because she eventually was set free. She went right to the press and said, you know, I was detained.
I was forced into sedation. And the New York Times ran it on page 25. Mm-hmm. And the Nixon administration painted her as kind of a crazy lady with a drinking problem.
Yeah. I mean, very much so. As a matter of fact, their smear campaign was so far-reaching that when John Mitchell resigned from being the head of Nixon's re-election committee – He said that he needed to spend or wanted to spend more time with his wife and daughter. The Nixon campaign leaked to the press that the real reason he left was because Martha had a drinking problem.
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