Notes and Sources for The Silencing of Martha Mitchell
Sources are listed at the end of the citations.
Mitchell “this country is going so far to the right”: “John N. Mitchell Dies at 75; Major Figure in Watergate,” Special to the New York Times, Nov. 10, 1988, Section A, Page 1 (hereafter cited as “Mitchell obituary, NY Times”)
NOTES TO WIFE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Mitchell and Nixon’s history together: Mitchell obituary, NY Times, 11/10/88; Winzola McLendon, Martha, the Life of Martha Mitchell (hereafter “McLendon”), 58-59; Garment, In Search of Deep Throat, 27-29. Garment was a partner at the firm (Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander, which added the name “Nixon” in 1963, added “Mitchell” in 1967, and removed both names in January 1969) and described it as a white-shoe firm. Garment says that Nixon essentially staged his comeback into politics from his association with the law firm, creating the “new Nixon” far from California, where he was scorned. Mudge Rose traced its roots to 1869 but imploded in 1995, partly due to its reliance on municipal bonds.
Mitchell marriage: McLendon, Martha, p. 50-59.
Sanitarium: In 1977 Nixon told David Frost that “John [Mitchell] had to send Martha away for about five or six weeks. I didn’t know it at the time. She was an emotionally disturbed person.”
Mitchell’s biographer James Rosen also says that John Mitchell “arranged for Martha to be institutionalized.” (Rosen, The Strong Man, 58)
McLendon characterized it differently. She writes that the pressures of campaign weighed on Martha, and “a friend talked her into entering Craig House, a psychiatric hospital in Beacon, New York…where some of its wealthy patients came to ‘dry out.’” (McLendon, 63). Martha left the hospital soon after the November election.
Craig House was a private psychiatric hospital (the first in the country) for the rich and famous. Other patients have included Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, and Jackie Gleason, “who used it as a place to relax, recharge, and dry out.” (www.scenesfromthetrail.com) The average length of stay was seven to twelve days, but some people stayed much longer, including Rosemary Kennedy, who was sent to the elite institution after another hospital administered a lobotomy that left her infantile, Frances Ford Fonda (wife of Henry and mother of Jane and Peter), and Zelda Fitzgerald, who was there until F. Scott could no longer afford the high fees. The Craig House closed in 1999.
Nixon appointed Mitchell Attorney General: Nixon’s new cabinet was announced on December 11, 1968. (Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon presents new cabinet, pledges to seek peace and unity; emphasis on city problems seen,” NY Times, December 12, 1968, p.1; at page 36, short biographies of the new cabinet members.)
John Mitchell called for fascist measures: Mitchell obituary, NY Times, 11/10/88. Mitchell also called for a slowdown of school desegregation, which could possibly be considered overkill in a country where school desegregation had been ordered by the Supreme Court to proceed with “all deliberate speed” − in 1954. (Brown v Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, May 17, 1954)
John Mitchell –El Paso Gas: El Paso Natural Gas, which paid “more than $700,000 in legal fees to Mudge, Rose, won a favorable antitrust decision from the Justice Department shortly after Mr. Mitchell took office.” Mitchell said the decision had been made before that. Michael C. Jensen, “Mitchell and His Law Firm,” NY Times, May 7, 1972, Section F Page 1.
Coincidentally, two attorneys for Northern Natural Gas Company, the oil company suing El Paso Natural Gas, were on United Flight 553 which crashed in Chicago on December 8, 1972. They were among the 45 killed, as was Dorothy Hunt, wife of E. Howard Hunt.
Incredibly, the day after the crash, Nixon appointed Egil Krogh (the White House head of the Plumbers Unit, responsible for “dirty tricks”) as Undersecretary of Transportation. This meant he would supervise both the NTSB and the FAA, the two agencies responsible for investigating the crash. Eleven days after the crash, Nixon’s deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield was appointed head of the FAA. Less than two months after the crash, Dwight Chapin, Nixon’s appointments secretary, took a job as an executive at United Airlines in Chicago.
The investigation into the crash found no sabotage or foul play, and blamed the crash on pilot error.
Krogh and Chapin were later convicted of Watergate related crimes. Butterfield was the person who revealed Nixon’s taping system to the world.
1969 Moratorium as “Russian revolution”: McLendon, 93; and Nan Robertson in NY Times, “Martha Mitchell: Capital’s Most Talked-About Talkative Woman,” May 1, 1970, p.50. Martha told CBS Morning News that her husband had said some people thought American liberals were worse than Russian communists.
The Nov. 15, 1969 demonstration that the Mitchells watched out the window was the second Moratorium. Over half a million people attended to protest the Vietnam War − 100,000 more than had gone to Woodstock. Demonstrations were held that same day in San Francisco, Boston and London. Nixon famously remarked that he expected such activity but that “under no circumstances will I be affected whatever by it.”
Holy hell: McLendon, 94.
Haynsworth nomination fight: Quotes from MM and Nixon letter: McLendon, 95-97. Among other repercussions, the NY Times reported that “Mrs. Mitchell’s free-wheeling comments about such public affairs as the peace movement and the rejection of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. for the Supreme Court” were what “really persuaded” the Justice Department to “drop the idea” of providing an office to Martha Mitchell and Mrs. Kleindienst, whose husband was the deputy AG. (Robert H. Phelps, “Comments Cost Mrs. Mitchell Her Office,” NY Times, Dec. 19, 1969, p.41)
Clement Haynsworth, a South Carolinan aristocrat, had been a federal judge since 1957. He’d affirmed local officials’ decision to close schools to avoid segregating them; upheld the constitutionality of voucher programs to fund segregated private schools; and overturned the NLRB ruling that the closing of a factory to avoid unionization constituted unfair labor practice. His nomination to the USSC was defeated on November 21, 1969 by a vote of 45 to 55. The No votes included 17 Republicans.
MM as “secret weapon” and “unguided missile”: Helen Thomas, Front Row at the White House, 205-206 (hereafter “Thomas”)
Mollenhoff: McLendon, 100
NY Times article calls her ‘Martha’: Nan Robertson, NY Times, May 1, 1970
Martha’s national celebrity: Nixon, Memoirs, 647; and McLendon, 108 (76% recognition rating). Nan Robertson, New York Times, May 1, 1970. James Rosen writes that “To be an American in the year 1970 was to find the image − and sound − of Martha Mitchell virtually inescapable” and reports that in one month in 1970, Martha was referred to in over 5,000 newspaper items. (Rosen, The Strong Man, 398-9)
Martha refuses to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth: McLendon, 134.
MM known for phoning reporters: John T. McQuiston, “Martha Mitchell, 57, dies of bone-marrow cancer,” NY Times, June 1, 1976, pg 1
Princess phones: Thomas, 203
John created certain public impression of Martha: McLendon, 100-101
Martha’s disillusionment with Nixon Administration: McLendon, 160-165 including quotes and her insight into Nixon’s male chauvinism.
Although Martha Mitchell and Pat Nixon apparently despised each other, they shared views about a woman being nominated to the Supreme Court. Pat lobbied Nixon both in public and in private to nominate a woman. White House tapes released in January 2020 reveal Nixon dealing with Pat’s fury when he nominated two men. She was also angry that he hadn’t told her himself after she’d gone out on a limb about the issue. Initially Nixon was afraid to speak with Pat and had Rose Mary Woods do so. Woods reported that Pat was “….really, really teed off.” Nixon eventually told Pat that a woman would not receive the American Bar Association endorsement and would, therefore, be rejected by the Senate, which would hurt the cause of women. Pat didn’t buy it. She insisted he should have chosen a woman regardless of the ABA’s stance.
Nixon called his good friend John Mitchell for support. “My wife is really put out. She’s so goddamned mad.” Mitchell responded: “You think your wife is mad! My wife won’t even talk to me!” Mitchell had also used the ABA argument: “That’s what I’m trying to tell Martha for the last 20 minutes and I’m not getting across!”
“Tell Martha to calm down,” Nixon advised.
Nixon privately discussed MM: Haldeman, Diaries, p.167 (entry of May 16, 1970, and in his entry of April 13, 1970, Haldeman writes “Some concern about Mitchell, and especially what can be done about Martha.”). See also Rosen, The Strong Man, 124-5.
Dinner by Mrs. Chennault…MM wishes Nixon never elected: McLendon, 160-61
Air Force One incident: Thomas, 206-8. Regarding her banishment from Air Force One, Martha heard that the order had come from Haldeman, but she was never officially informed she was banned.
Jay (son) in Vietnam: Martha’s concern and inability to get information, Thomas, 208-9; Martha believed Jay had been sent to Vietnam because he was her son, McLendon, 174.
NOTES TO CREEP
Martha worked at CRP: McLendon, 168-70; as to fan mail she received when John was Attorney General, see McLendon, 150.
Residents of Watergate complex: “Nixon made it famous, but here’s what it’s like living at Watergate,” Washington Post, October 27, 2015; and Drew Lindsay, “The Watergate: The Building That Changed Washington,” Washingtonian.com, October 1, 2005.
Regarding the Media, PA break-in of an FBI field office: Anyone interested in this event and its aftermath is directed to Betty Medsger’s The Burglary: the Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014). Another account was written by Curt Gentry in J. Edgar Hoover - The Man and the Secrets (Plume 1992). See also W. Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside (GP Putnam’s Sons, 1979), chapter 8.
Interestingly, the New York Times published one set of stolen documents — the Pentagon Papers (which covered US policy and actions in Vietnam all occurring before Nixon’s presidency) — but refused to publish documents stolen from the FBI that revealed ongoing policy and actions against activists inside the US.
The group responsible for the Media break-in called themselves Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. Decades afterward, several life-long activists affiliated with the so-called Catholic Left came forward and announced their participation: William Davidon, Keith Forsyth, John Raines, Bonnie Raines, Bob Williamson, and Judi Feingold. Two other participants have chosen not to be named.
In 1971 the FBI had 59 major offices and 536 subsidiary officers called Resident Agencies, of which Media was one. The 475 Resident Agencies without 24 hour security had safes in which to store sensitive documents. But the two agents in Media locked their guns in the safe and kept the files in an unlocked cabinet. When they arrived at the office on March 9 and realized what had happened, one agent made two phone calls: the first to his wife to tell her to start packing, and the second to FBI headquarters in Washington. Sure enough, he was soon transferred.
Anna Chennault (originally Chan Sheng Mai) was born to a wealthy family in Peking (Beijing) and was reputedly a close friend of Chiang Kai-shek. During WWII, as a reporter in China, she met the U.S. major general who led the Flying Tigers, Claire Lee Chennault. They fell in love, married, and moved to Washington DC. Mr. Chennault died in 1958. The glamorous Mrs. Chennault, a renowned hostess, befriended Richard Nixon, who called her “Dragon Lady.” She was for a time the chairwoman of Republican Women for Nixon. In 1968 the FBI recorded her telling the South Vietnamese government to boycott the Paris peace talks. It is alleged that she sabotaged the talks in order to prevent peace accords from being signed during LBJ’s presidency, thus improving Nixon’s chances in the 1968 election. The LBJ Library has many documents available on line pertaining to “the Chennault Affair.”
In her memoir Mrs. Chennault wrote that her communications with the South Vietnamese in Paris were made on behalf of John Mitchell.
In the 1970s and 1980s she lobbied against U.S. recognition of the Peking government until sent on a mission there by President Reagan, who wished to enlist China as both trade partner and diplomatic ally against the Soviet Union.
(Robert D. McFadden, “Anna Chennault, Behind-the-Scenes Force in Washington, Dies at 94,” NY Times, April 3, 2018)
Martha saw Muskie file and campaign strategy book: McLendon, 10 and 170. Herbert “Bart” Porter was the scheduling director for CRP: The Watergate Hearings, ed. NY Times, p.814. JM tried to show her the campaign strategy book: McLendon, 10. In 1973 Martha told Helen Thomas she had seen the campaign strategy book written by Nixon and Haldeman for 1972 that included plans for “Watergate-style operations.” (Thomas, 216) Martha urged John not to take the job and even enlisted the help of others: McLendon 165-66.
Martha urged JM not to run CRP: McLendon, 165
Mitchell resigns as AG to head CRP: McLendon, 168; Thomas, 209
ITT case: In 1969 ITT acquired several large corporations and was sued under the Clayton Act for anti-trust violations. ITT’s position was that the acquisitions were of companies in different fields. According to Fortune magazine ITT had climbed from 52nd largest US company to 9th by 1969. At the time the suit was brought, ITT had 331 subsidiary corporations, which had their own subsidiaries numbering 708. The largest were Hartford Insurance and Avis.
Nixon administration officials secretly held meetings with ITT in 1969 and 1970. During the course of the lawsuit, John Mitchell and Charles Colson (Nixon’s special counsel) committed perjury, and the White House obstructed justice by preventing SEC staffers from obtaining documents.
ITT pledged a half million dollars to the 1972 Republican Convention. A memo written by ITT lobbyist Dita Beard stated that the money ITT put up for the Republican Convention had “gone a long way” to making sure the mergers went the way ITT wanted them to go. Columnist Jack Anderson somehow obtained a copy of the memo and published it on Feb. 29, 1972, which ratcheted up the trouble the Nixon administration was already in. Among other damning evidence, Charles Colson had warned in writing that some documents being sought by the SEC proved that John Mitchell had committed perjury.
E. W. Kenworthy, “The Extraordinary I.T.T. Affair,” NY Times, December 16, 1973, p. 233.
Florida vacation: McLendon, 166-67
She listened via intercom: McLendon, 167, including quote.
Operation Gemstone: Liddy wrote that he presented his Gemstone plan in writing at a meeting at Mitchell’s office on January 27, 1972 with a budget of $1,000,000. The plan included kidnapping radicals and taking them to Mexico, use of prostitutes to spy on and discredit Democrats, wiretaps, “black bag” jobs, and more. Another meeting was held on February 4 at which the budget was now proposed at half a million dollars. The meeting adjourned without Mitchell’s specific approval. The next meeting was the March 30th one. This time, Liddy wasn’t present. The budget was now $250,000.
Most Watergate writers say Gemstone was approved at this meeting, but some refute that. The meeting participants do not agree, either. Mitchell and LaRue never admitted to the Gemstone aspect of the March 30 meeting. Magruder (in a 2003 television interview) said Nixon and Haldeman phoned in to the meeting and Nixon gave his approval. Mitchell and Nixon were both deceased by then; LaRue denied the phone call.
Martha Mitchell said the March 30 meeting concerned the budget of Gemstone, but that the operation itself was already approved (McLendon, 167). Garment notes that “dirty tricks operations [had] begun well before Liddy joined CRP,” consisting mostly spying on Democratic campaigns but also harassment of the Muskie campaign and disruptions ranging from trivial to “highly malicious and patently illegal.” The operations were overseen by Haldeman aides Magruder, Chapin, Strachan and Porter. Garment writes that they had been paid out of money left from the 1968 and 1970 campaigns controlled by Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon’s personal attorney. “The scaled-down Gemstone, approved in late March or early April of 1972, became part of this array.” (Garment, 72-73)
McCord as CRP Directory of Security: McCord says he joined CRP as Security Director in September 1971. (Biographical information on the back cover of his book, A Piece of Tape.) Other sources say that he was hired by Jack Caulfield for security work in September and became head of CRP security on January 1, 1972. (Lukas, Nightmare; Kennedys and King website)
McCord as Mitchell family bodyguard: Cadden, McCalls, page 14; Lukas, Nightmare, 192-3; Haldeman, 502; “McCord declares that Mrs. Mitchell was forcibly held,” NY Times, Feb. 19, 1975.
Martha was probably unaware of the fact that at the same time he was acting as her bodyguard, James McCord was closing down a bank account he’d opened in late February on behalf of CRP in the name of “Dedicated Friends of a Better America” through which $90,000 had passed. McCord close the account on April 17. (Hearings Before the Committee of Foreign Relations on the nomination of Louis Patrick Gray III, February 28, 1973; Report of the FBI of July 21, 1972, submitted to the Committee by Mr. Gray)
McCord bio: McCord has a mysterious background that includes stints with both the FBI (Oct. 1948 – Feb. 1951) and the CIA (1951-1970). At the CIA he directed the Fair Play for Cuba committee, of which Lee Harvey Oswald was a member, and (according to the NY Times) was involved in the Bay of Pigs. He was later placed in charge of physical security for the CIA’s Langley headquarters and was praised by CIA director Allen Dulles as the best man they had, for which reason his bumbling at the Watergate has raised suspicions that he made sure the “burglars” were caught. He was arrested and charged along with four other Watergate burglars. At arraignment, he told the judge he used to work for the CIA; Bob Woodward was present, and that started him on his quest to dig into the so-called burglary.
In early December 1972 Dorothy Hunt (wife of Howard Hunt and herself a former CIA employee) told McCord she was tired of her role in pressuring CRP for money for the burglars. At around the same time, Judge Sirica told both sides in the criminal case that the jury would want to know who funded the Watergate operation. On Dec. 8, Mrs. Hunt was on United Airlines Flight 553, which crashed in Chicago. She was killed.
Among other suspicious circumstances, her purse was found intact. It contained $10,000.
The four Cubans and E. Howard Hunt pled guilty to charges related to the Watergate break-in, while McCord and G. Gordon Liddy went to trial in January 1973 on charges of burglary, wiretapping, and conspiracy. Both were convicted on January 30 after the jury deliberated ninety minutes. McCord, then age 48, was convicted on eight counts. He faced 45 years in prison. Liddy was convicted on all 6 counts.
McCord had written a letter to Caulfield on December 21, 1972, warning that should CIA director Helms be fired, and should blame for Watergate be “wrongly” put on the CIA, “every tree in the forest will fall. It will be a scorched desert.” Nixon fired Helms on Feb. 2, 1973. On March 19, before his sentencing hearing, McCord wrote to Judge Sirica that the defendants who’d pled guilty had been pressured to do so by John Mitchell, and that perjury had been committed at the trial. “The trickle of information he provided soon became a flood no plumber could stop,” wrote Sirica in the NY Times in 1979.
McCord’s sentence was one to five years, later cut to under four months due to his becoming an informant. He began testifying to the Watergate committee, behind closed doors, on March 28, 1973.
In 1974 he published his Watergate memoir, A Piece of Tape, which includes transcripts of many documents, but lacks an index. I found it difficult to read let alone to decipher.
He died at his home in Pennsylvania in June 2017, but his death wasn’t noticed by or reported in the media until 2019, when the website Kennedys and King learned of it.
Haldeman: Baldwin was hired to “handle” Martha: The Haldeman Diaries, 502
Baldwin’s crudeness and reassignment: Hougan, Secret Agent, 135-6; Lukas, 193. Martha has been quoted in Lukas and other sources as saying that Baldwin was “the most gauche character I’ve ever met.” On May 2, 1972, the first day for Baldwin as MM’s bodyguard, they took an AmTrak train to Detroit. En route the train hit and killed a man; Baldwin went to view the accident and then described the body in gruesome detail to Martha. In Detroit he led her into the middle of a demonstration. Back in New York at the Waldorf Astoria, Baldwin removed his shoes and socks and walk around the public areas barefoot. (Lukas, 193; see also McLendon, 197.)
Baldwin is most known for being the man listening to the Watergate bugs from a hotel room across the street.
Watergate burglar Bernard Barker wrote in Harper’s in October 1974 that he and the others believed Baldwin “was the first informer” and, since Baldwin was very friendly with McCord, they didn’t entirely trust McCord. “Baldwin represented the very lowest form of a human being.” (Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War, 274-5)
James Rosen, Mitchell’s biographer, writes extensively (pp 285-87) and sympathetically of the “hapless” and “affable” Baldwin, who told Rosen his job as Martha’s bodyguard was “brief and unpleasant” because of Martha’s “highly flammable personality.” Baldwin said he had an “additional assignment as procurer” of alcohol for Martha and “confessed” to bringing her Scotch at 10:30 or 11:00AM. After the road trip, he “helped unload Mrs. Mitchell’s luggage, then politely excused himself.” Quite a different picture from that painted by everyone else who’s written about this episode.
Rosen does not question the implausible story that Baldwin was unknown to McCord yet was hired sight unseen by phone for a difficult job to begin the next morning, then entrusted a few weeks later with the extremely sensitive task of listening to an illegal wiretap.
Martha went through several security men: McLendon, 197
Steve King: Thomas, 209; King interview with FBI 5/1/73, pg. 1
During King’s brief career with the FBI (1967-70) he “investigated civil rights violations in Jackson, Mississippi.” (Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, August 1, 2017, opening statement of Hon. Ron Johnson, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.)
Among the travesties in 1967 and 1968 in Mississippi, several civil rights activists were murdered; a synagogue was bombed twice and the rabbi’s house firebombed; and sixteen black men were kidnapped and beaten, three of them killed. The FBI caught none of the perpetrators.
The FBI did manage to prevent the bombing of Jewish businesses after two Jewish congregations raised money to pay informants.
In the case of the February 27, 1967 murder of NAACP Treasurer Wharlest Jackson by a car bomb, the FBI assigned 18 agents to assist Roy K. Moore, the SAC. They interviewed over 250 witnesses, but neglected to interview several critical witnesses who had died by the time the case was re-investigated in 2007. The case file was over 600 pages long. The murderers were never found, and the FBI closed the file in 2017.
For his work in Mississippi, Stephen B. King received three special commendations from J. Edgar Hoover. (BucherBlog, July 12, 2005)
Curiously, the Senator’s summary of King’s career omits his employment by CRP, while the 1973 FBI summary of King’s career omits his employment with the FBI.
Mitchells vacationed at Bebe Rebozo’s…LaRue insisted: Thomas, 209
NOTES TO FRED LaRUE
Biographical information on LaRue comes from his obituary in the NY Times (Douglas Martin, “Fred LaRue, Watergate Figure, Dies at 75,” July 29, 2004); Jaworski, The Right and the Power; Mankiewicz, US v Richard Nixon; and White House transcripts. For his WH title, salary and quotes, see Rosen, The Strong Man, p.271. For CRP employment, The Watergate Hearings, as edited by NY Times, Testimony of Frederick C. LaRue, July 18, 1973 (p.470)
William Sullivan, who’d headed the Intelligence unit at the FBI for ten years and retired when he wasn’t appointed Director after J. Edgar Hoover died in May 1972, was shot and killed five years later by a fellow hunter who mistook him for a deer. No word on whether Fred LaRue mistook his father for a duck.
Martha didn’t trust LaRue…‘that jerk gave him a gun”: McLendon, 166-67.
Rosen inexplicably calls LaRue “the only man besides [Mitchell] who could pacify Martha Mitchell when she was on the warpath.” (Rosen, 303) Rosen lists no citations in support of this preposterous claim.
NOTES TO BURGLARY IN WASHINGTON AND ASSAULT IN NEWPORT BEACH
Mitchell, LaRue learn about break-in: Martha later recalled that either Haldeman or Erlichman (like many of us, she often mixed them up) called John at about 6:30AM Pacific time. He took the call in an adjoining room and Martha went back to sleep. No one else has confirmed this call. In fact, most of the conspirators have given elaborate explanations of not wanting to disturb Mitchell or Magruder until late morning, citing the three-hour time difference.
John Mitchell maintained that he didn’t learn about the break-in until later Saturday morning while he was with Governor Reagan at political meetings. (Testimony of John Mitchell before the Senate Select Committee, July 10, 1973.) Another version has Liddy phoning Magruder, who was having breakfast with his wife, the Mardians, and the Porters. After breakfast Magruder told LaRue, who then borrowed Steve King’s room and told Mitchell. (Emery, Watergate, 142-3). In Steve King’s version, the men all attended the Reagan press conference and when they returned, began using his (King’s) room from approximately 3PM until about 6PM. (FBI Transcript, 5/3/73, p. 2)
Over all the years and the many things written about Watergate, the question of when Mitchell first learned of the break-in and from whom has not been definitively settled.
Mitchell, LaRue, Mardian spend day discussing: McLendon, 5
“Celebrities for Nixon” party: McLendon, 4-6. The Mitchells and Henry Kissinger were listed as honor guests, but when Kissinger bowed out the party was almost cancelled. The host, president of the Music Corporation of America, was appeased when Pat Nixon substituted for Kissinger. When Martha heard that, she refused to go to the party and only conceded when all the CREEP officials put “tremendous pressure” on her. Mitchell agreed that he would get out of politics in November: McLendon, 6-7; Cadden, McCalls, 14.
Mitchell, LaRue return to DC: Monday morning the 19th of June. McLendon, 8-9; Steve King interview with FBI, p.4. King says Mitchell, LaRue and the Mardians left for the Orange County airport at 10:15AM.
MM’s call with Magruder: Lukas, Nightmare, 219. (Unfortunately there is no citation.) On Sunday, Haldeman ordered Magruder back to Washington immediately, and when the Magruders couldn’t get a flight, LaRue told them to charter an executive jet. (Emery, Watergate, p.157)
JM statement about McCord: Newsweek, 12/11/17; Cadden, McCall’s. See also Lukas, 218, which quotes the statement in pertinent part. It remains a mystery why John Mitchell told such a transparent lie.
Although Martha’s initial reaction was to ask why McCord was being thrown to the wolves, she came to see things differently. After McCord’s March 1973 letter to Judge Sirica was published, she “told UPI’s Helen Thomas immediately….‘My first thought was that McCord had been a double agent.’…” and when asked in whose interest, replied that she didn’t know, it was the media’s problem to figure out that $64,000 question. (Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War, p.276-7; he calls Martha “the true sibyl of Watergate.”)
MM read about break-in: McLendon, p.9. Most who have written about this situation have speculated, or stated outright, that John didn’t want Martha to know that McCord had been arrested so he gave orders not to let her see any newspapers. But Steve King got her a copy of the Los Angeles Times on Monday morning at Martha’s request. Martha’s biographer Winzola McLendon believes that Mitchell wanted Martha kept in California not to keep her ignorant of the break-in, but so that he could work on the cover up without interference or objection from her.
Martha being held incommunicado also kept her from telling others what she knew about it in the immediate aftermath.
Martha later said that she thinks she was taken to California in the first place so that she wouldn’t be in Washington DC that weekend. (See the documentary “Martha Mitchell Effect.”)
Thomas’s account of phone call and aftermath: Thomas, 209-211; see also McLendon, pp 7-20; Martha Mitchell interview with David Frost, September 20, 1974; Martha Mitchell’s letter of 9/10/72 to Parade magazine (published October 22, 1972), in which she says she was also kicked; “Martha Mitchell Is Manhandled But Unsilenced,” New York Magazine, June 24, 1974; and Jeff Stein, “Trump Ambassador Beat and ‘Kidnapped’ Woman in Watergate Cover-Up: Reports, Newsweek, 12/11/17.)
Readers born after 1972 may not realize that phone cords in those days were extremely thick, especially in hotels, and were hard-wired into walls. Phones didn’t simply plug into an outlet. And the Bakelite phones themselves were heavy duty.
During the time Martha was trying to reach John in DC, she lit a cigarette and the whole book of matches exploded. Her right hand was severely burned. A doctor came to the hotel, treated her hand, and gave her a prescription for pain pills. When, a few days later, her left hand was cut in the scuffle with King, the same doctor was summoned but he was working at the hospital emergency room and sent another doctor. It was that second doctor who, instead of treating her cut hand, shot her up with sedatives. (McLendon, 10 and 14)
A comment about the Monday June 19 meeting at the Mitchell apartment: Helen Thomas on John Dean and others laughing at her distress call, Thomas, 210-211. McCord says this is the meeting attended by Mitchell, Magruder, Dean and LaRue at which Mitchell said to Magruder that it might be a good idea if he had a fire at his house that night. Magruder took the GEMSTONE file home and burned it. (McCord, p.107; testimony of Magruder, June 14, 1973. At page 254 of The WG Hearings.) LaRue says that Mardian was also present, and that when Magruder asked for advice on dealing with sensitive files, Mitchell suggested having a fire that night. (The WG Hearings, Testimony of LaRue, p.470).
Magruder himself changed his story several times.
Meanwhile, back in Newport Beach: the details of the assault are from the McLennon biography of Martha Mitchell at pages 11-18.
King won’t discuss: Thomas, 211, quoting an article in Capital Times by Rob Zaleski; on December 11, 2017 he told Newsweek he wouldn’t discuss the “old story.” (Jeff Stein, “Trump Ambassador Beat and ‘Kidnapped’ Woman in Watergate Cover-Up: Reports, Newsweek, 12/11/17.)
NOTES TO CAMPAIGN TO DISCREDIT MARTHA MITCHELL
Martha flew to NY: McLendon, 17-18
Conversation with Helen Thomas on 6/25/72: Thomas, 212
N.Y. Daily News: Kramer and McFadden, “Martha Sobs: ‘I’m Prisoner’,” Daily News, June 26, 1972; “totally professional job” quoted in Newsweek, 12/11/17.
Westchester, and JM’s meetings with Nixon: Cadden, McCall’s, p.14
Mitchell’s true reason for resigning from CREEP: Thomas, 212; for excerpts from the tapes of Nixon’s June 30, 1972 conversation with Haldeman and Mitchell, see McLendon, 21-22. McLendon writes that Martha had believed Mitchell had left the reelection campaign because she’d asked him to, until a few years later when she read the June 30 transcript and “cried bitterly….John didn’t resign from the campaign for her ‘happiness and welfare.’ He left to help with the cover-up.” (McLendon, 21-22.)
White House not yet implicated in Watergate: My own memory, which was confirmed accurate in Garment, p.107, and other Watergate books.
Conventions: Maryland vote, McLendon 182; buttons, Thomas, 212; MM kept from Republican convention, McLendon, 182.
Other people receiving one vote for the Democratic VP nomination included Ralph Nader, Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Julian Bond, Benjamin Spock, and Daniel Inouye. Undoubtedly any one of them would have made a better running mate than Thomas Eagleton.
Over the next few months…sacrifice: McLendon, 178-9
Martha had “nervous breakdown”: Cadden, McCalls, 16; Jack Anderson, see Thomas, 211; Pat Nixon, see Cadden, McCalls, 16
Nixon insisted she attend…ignored Nixon: McLendon, 187-8
Parade, 10/22/72, “Martha Mitchell Complains to Walter Scott.”
Dear Mr. Scott:
After reading today’s “Personality Parade,” I shall come out of my self imposed retirement to set a few facts straight.
Indeed it was a Steve King that not only dealt me the most horrible experience I have ever had − but inflicted bodily harm upon me. Such as, kicking me, throwing me around, keeping me locked up in one room for more than twenty-four hours, sending my hand through a glass window, allowing no one inside the villa except the doctor whom he called − and last but not least − yanked the phone out of my bedroom while [I was] talking with Helen Thomas. He came into my room while the doors were closed and I was undressed.
From then on I saw no one − allowed no food − and literally kept a prisoner.
The doctor and all the rest of them should have been arrested or unless I’m terribly wrong in thinking that people are allowed to treat one thus − for simply a telephone call!
This doctor came in with his needle − and with the help of King threw me on the bed and injected something I turned out to be allergic to. The doctor whom I never had seen in my life spoke not one word nor explained the injection. I should sue them all.
And in case you or anyone else doubt my word − and listen to the lies of the others − I might mention my eleven year old daughter witnessed the whole unbelievable scene.
This is just to set part of the record straight. I refuse to let these lies be told.
Best wishes to you.
Sincerely, Martha Mitchell
The Parade article was the first time King’s name had been publicly mentioned as the man in the “California incident.” McLendon, 185.
“Walter Scott” was the pen name of Lloyd Shearer. He wrote the popular “Personality Parade” in Parade from 1958 to 1991.
“All the President’s Men”: Woodward and Bernstein, All the President’s Men, 92-95 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974). Woodward introduces the section by referring to Martha’s June 1972 phone call to Helen Thomas but makes no attempt to investigate that incident or to delve into Martha’s statement of being a political prisoner and that she was “black and blue.”
JM under increasing pressure…quote about Katharine Graham: McLendon, 189; Washington Post 9/29/72 and Mitchell obituary, NY Times 11/10/1988, both omitting “her tit.” And see Slate Podcast August 7, 2007, “Boob Job – the Nixon gag’s obsession with Katharine Graham’s breasts, continued,” by Jack Shafer, which quotes a memo by Charles Colson of Oct, 2, 1972 to the effect that George McGovern, upon hearing the full comment by Mitchell, responded with a derogatory remark about Mrs. Graham’s figure.
On October 10 the Washington Post reported that Watergate was part of a campaign of spying and sabotage conducted by the White House.
Martha told reporter she may sue CREEP: McLendon, 190
JM’s praise of Steve King: McLendon, 191. In June, when Martha returned to the east coast and she and John Mitchell discussed the future, he had promised that he would fire both King and the secretary, Leah Jablonski. McLendon, 20
Senate investigation: John W. Finney, “Kennedy Orders Bugging Inquiry,” NY Times, October 14, 1972. Kennedy’s Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Practices was deemed too political and the investigation was turned over on February 7, 1973 to the Ervin Committee (Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities), established by a 77-0 vote.
November 1 events and promise: McLendon, 192-3. Martha’s fear of being institutionalized was given even more credence since her husband may have done so previously, in 1968. (Detail is in Notes to Wife of the Attorney General, above.)
Election: Nixon got 60.7% of the popular vote, McGovern 37.5%. The only state that McGovern carried was Massachusetts. The electoral college vote was 520-17. To date that has only been surpassed by the 1984 election, when Reagan had 525 electoral votes, Mondale 13.
MM to Thomas: call police: Thomas, 213
Author J. Anthony Lukas wrote in 1976 in his book Nightmare that “even the police couldn’t see her. Acting FBI Director Patrick L. Gray III testified later that [John] Mitchell refused to let agents interview his wife. ‘Mr. Mitchell said that Mrs. Mitchell’s stories and the things that were in the press were not so, and we were not going to interview Mrs. Mitchell…and that was that.’” (p.220). McLendon disputes the truth of Gray’s testimony. She writes that five days later Gray said he’d been mistaken, and that Mitchell offered to have Martha be interviewed but the FBI decided it wasn’t necessary. (McLendon 202)
Nixon’s 2/22/73 meeting with Baker: Max Holland, “What Adam Schiff Doesn’t Get About Watergate,” Politico.com, Dec. 3, 2019. Leonard Garment also wrote of Nixon deciding on the Blame Martha strategy early in 1973. (Garment, p.89-90.)
MM called for RN to resign May 1973 and John Mitchell’s statement: Thomas, 214
McCall’s, Steps 1 and 2: Cadden, McCall’s, 12
NOTES TO CONVICTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
JM moved out on 9/10/73: Thomas, 217; “…clutches of the king,” Mitchell Obituary, NY Times, 11/10/88)
Nixon’s presidency reached a crisis point in July 1973 when he refused to turn over White House tapes to the special prosecutor. By October he’d decided his best course of action was to simply get rid of the special prosecutor. He ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire him. Richardson refused and resigned. The Deputy Attorney General did the same. Nixon appointed Robert Bork, the Solicitor General, to be Acting AG and Bork did as Nixon requested. These events became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
In 1987 Robert Bork was proposed to the US Supreme Court by President Reagan, but the Senate refused to confirm, partly due to his role in the Saturday Night Massacre.
As a side note that might shed further light on Bork’s integrity, he recounted in his memoir that while in a hotel in New York flipping through channels on the TV, he came across “a voluptuous young woman, naked, her body oiled, writhing on the floor while fondling herself intimately…I watched for some time, riveted by the social significance of it all.” (Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah)
For a different perspective on the roles of Richardson and Bork in the Saturday Night Massacre, see Garment, In Search of Deep Throat, 96.
JM indicted: Anthony Ripley, “Federal Grand Jury Indicts 7 Nixon Aides on Charges of Conspiracy on Watergate; Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell on List,” NY Times, March 2, 1974
On Nixon’s resignation: Two years after the Supreme Court’s 8-0 ruling (Rehnquist abstaining) that the President cannot violate the Fourth Amendment whenever he decides national security is at issue, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 (Rehnquist abstaining) that Nixon had to turn over the tapes; executive privilege exists, but there is no “absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.” Nixon resigned sixteen days later. (The first case: the White Panther wiretap case, U.S. v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972); the second is U.S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974).
MM back after RN resignation: Thomas, 218
Mitchell convicted…quote on sentence: Mitchell obituary, NY Times, 11/10/88
McCord confirmed MM’s story and MM’s response: “McCord Declares That Mrs. Mitchell Was Forcibly Held,” NY Times, 2/19/75
Cancer diagnosis and MM’s suspicions: Thomas, 219.
JM stopped alimony…two days later she was dead: Thomas, 220-221. For a detailed discussion of the alimony issue, see the Notes to Martha Mitchell’s Legacy, below.
Death reported: John T. McQuiston, “Martha Mitchell, 57, dies of bone-marrow cancer,” NY Times, June 1, 1976. According to Helen Thomas, John Mitchell immediately stepped in and took control of her funeral and her apartment and its contents. She also alluded to him looking for papers (Thomas, 223).
Rosen, John Mitchell’s biographer, writes that Mitchell complained of having left documents in the apartment after he moved out, which he was never able to recover. (Rosen, The Strong Man, 409) It doesn’t seem to occur to Rosen that this could be a convenient cover story for the disappearance of documents that Mitchell did not want to ever surface.
Floral arrangement: McLendon, 383-4; Thomas, 203, who says it was sent by “two unidentified men from Pasadena, California.”
Bronze bust; childhood home: “Owner looks to sell historic Martha Mitchell home,” Pine Bluff Commercial, 5/20/17 by Knowles Adkisson
NOTES TO NIXON’S SLANDER CONTINUES
Nixon paid $600,000: Brian Stelter, “David Frost, Interviewer Who Got Nixon to Apologize for Watergate, Dies at 74,” NY Times, Sept. 1, 2013
Nixon quotes: NY Times, Sept. 4, 1977, p.24, transcript of Nixon interview with David Frost. Interviews began March 23, 1977 and were taken three times per week over a four week period, and broadcast over four programs of ninety minutes each.
Leonard Garment has Nixon blaming Watergate on Martha as early as January 1973 (Garment, In Search of Deep Throat, 89-90); website Politico details the plan to blame Martha at Nixon’s meeting with Howard Baker on 2/22/73 (Max Holland, “What Adam Schiff Doesn’t Get About Watergate,” posted 12/3/2019.)
“John’s problem”: Transcript, Richard Nixon interview with David Frost. McLendon shows convincingly that Nixon was lying about spring of 1972. Martha carried the heaviest campaign schedule of anyone at CREEP, right up until June (McLendon, 173).
Nixon’s memoir quotes: Pg. 648 and 649
Outraged that Nixon wrote a memoir for which he received a $2.5 Million advance and which was promoted aggressively by Grosset & Dunlap, two men started a campaign just before the May 15, 1978 release date. Recruiting members of their softball team, they raised money and founded the Committee to Boycott Nixon’s Memoirs. Among the slogans on tee shirts and bumper stickers: “Don’t buy books by crooks,” “The book stops here,” and “Erase the memoirs.” Syndicated columnist Mary McGrory wrote about the group and quoted one of the men: “Four years ago he had the chance to tell the truth for free. Now he’s charging $19.95 a copy to tell us the same old story.” (Craig Fehrman, “All the President’s Memories,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 2010, Sunday Book Review)
NOTES TO RETURN OF A CREEP
King appointed ambassador to Czech Republic: Jeff Stein, “Trump Ambassador Beat and ‘Kidnapped’ Woman in Watergate Cover-up: Reports,” Newsweek, December 11, 2017.
During King’s confirmation hearing: Newsweek, 12/11/17. Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifteenth Congress, on August 1, 2017; hearing to consider nomination of Stephen B. King of Wisconsin to the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic. Chairman, Senator Ron Johnson (R, Wisconsin); and members Cory Gardner (R, Colorado), Christopher Murphy (D, Connecticut), Jeanne Shaheen (D, New Hampshire) and Tim Kaine (D, Virginia).
King had been deeply involved in the Republican Party since the 1970s. He was Chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party from 1985-1988 and the Wisconsin representative on the RNC from 2007 to 2017. He was an original member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Between 1972 and 1976, King was an investigator for the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and then special assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture.
By the time of the FBI interview, King was working as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture. He had been the Mitchells’ bodyguard from May 17, when he was hired by CRP, until July 4. From mid-July until December 1972 he was Director of Security for CRP, replacing McCord.
In 1976 King had a job at his alma mater, Western Illinois University. He later led a buyout of a chemical manufacturing company and in 2007 founded a private investment firm, King Capital LLC.
King’s account of the events of June 1972 are at the end of the Notes.
NOTES TO MARTHA’S LEGACY
Quote from NY Post: Opinion by Jonah Goldberg, “Why They Loved Helen Thomas,” July 24, 2013
NY Times review of “The Unguided Missile”: by Mel Gussow, Feb, 13, 1989
Quotes from Rosen’s The Strong Man: “sick, mean and ignorant,” p. 107; “aging belle [with a] fragile psyche” and “rich eccentric,” p. 66; “long standing problem with alcohol” and “unstable,” p.58; “prone to violent bursts of alcoholism,” p. 107. Air Force One incident, “unaccompanied by her husband or some other sane person,” “sneered,” Rogers “gingerly,” p. 400. Journalists sympathetic to Martha are “opportunistic partisans and dowdy society columnists,” p. 66; McLendon is “Martha’s gossipfrau and ersatz Boswell,” p. 306. November 1972 incident, p. 414.
Rosen left Fox News: Maggie Astor, “2 Journalists, at Fox and Washington Post, Are Accused of Misconduct,” NY Times, January 11, 2018, Section B, page 4.
A comment about The Strong Man: Despite his habit of seeing everything Martha did or said in the worst light while looking at John Mitchell through rose colored glasses, Rosen has sharp insight into some aspects of Watergate. For instance, he posits that John Dean ordered the break-in, pointing out discrepancies in various accounts, analyzing events and arguing his conclusion convincingly (p. 292). He also provides the most plausible explanation I’ve read as to why the participants decided to get hold of AG Kleindienst on the morning of June 17, 1972 (p. 300).
Rosen writes that “for all her lunacy Martha reacted to the news” of the Watergate break-in “with remarkably clear vision”: she wondered if McCord was a double agent, and she worried that John would end up in jail. (p. 304.)
A comment about Rosen’s financial analysis of the Mitchell divorce: Rosen deplores “the lopsided terms of divorce in the 1970s, in which men were invariably held liable for all fees and debts their ex-wives incurred” without mentioning that women earned considerably less than men in the 1970s − 58.8% of what men earned, to be exact − and that many women of the earlier generation spent their careers working in the home. In any event, Rosen lists Martha’s expenditures “in current dollars” and John’s finances only in 1974 dollars. I’ve made the conversions he omitted.
Rosen writes that the $350 a week John offered Martha should have been sufficient, especially given that he paid for her “household costs”; and that Mitchell had considerable expenses. Some of the expenses Rosen lists call for explanations, but Rosen either never looked into them or doesn’t wish to provide the detail. (For instance, insurance premiums of $530 per week, an exorbitant amount in the 1970s.)
To prove Mitchell’s largesse, Rosen points out that Mitchell paid Martha $51,500, or $215,000 in “current dollars,” in their first year of separation, and that Mitchell’s income at Mudge Rose was $5,281 a week, “current dollars” not provided. Using Rosen’s calculator, in “current dollars” Mitchell’s income was over $22,000 a week and over $1.1 million annually.
Mitchell had at least one other source of income, bringing his total weekly income to $5,562. His weekly expenses, as listed, including Marty’s school costs, were $2,690. That left $2,872. After the $350 to Martha, Mitchell had to squeeze by on $2,522 a week.
Rosen is appalled that the divorce court judge ruled that “Mitchell had to pay Martha a whopping $1,000 a week.” Rosen doesn’t add that this was less than one-fifth of Mitchell’s income at the law firm.
For point of reference, the average annual wages in 1974 were $8,031. Median income (which averages the income of all Americans) was $11,100. Minimum wage was $2.00 per hour, so a minimum wage worker taking no time off was paid a total of $4,160 a year. That’s not including taxes. It took John Mitchell a week and a half to net $4,160 after deducting his expenses.
For another point of reference, Frank Willis, the Watergate security guard, was earning $80 a week in June of 1972.
(Rosen, The Strong Man, pp. 409-412)
Rosen also omits the astonishing fact that John Mitchell failed to honor any of the financial arrangements. McLendon goes into great detail about Martha’s economic situation in Chapter 28 of her biography of Martha Mitchell. For instance, Martha returned home after one hospital stay to find that the electricity had been cut off due to non-payment and the phone was about to be disconnected (McLendon, 368). When the surgeon told her she had three months to live, she asked a friend to sell her belongings so that she could “die in comfort.” (p.371) “John Mitchell had ignored the court’s order to pay a thousand dollars a week and was seven months in arrears.” (p. 372) Later Mitchell sent a notice to the agency providing nurses for Martha that he would not pay for them. (p. 375)
Other disparagements of Martha:
−A review of McLendon’s book by Martha Smilgis, July 9, 1979 in People magazine opens “Sick, often drunk…Martha Mitchell,” and goes on to quote John Mitchell’s lawyer, Bill Hundley: “She was a sick woman” and “a good sport with a drinking problem.”
−James Graham, Vessels of Rage, Engines of Power: the Secret History of Alcoholism (Lexington KY 1994: Aculeus Press) cites one Lucy Barry Robe to the effect that Martha Mitchell was an alcoholic, hospitalized for it more than once, and her “drunken ramblings” and “inane comments” were not taken seriously by most journalists because she was “a sick woman.” (p. 69)
−Jonah Goldberg, “The Helen Thomas ‘Scandal’,” The National Review, June 7, 2010, cites Rosen’s biography of John Mitchell to the effect that Martha was “a mentally unstable alcoholic who would call reporters to vent sad, paranoid, fact-free theories and diatribes.”
−Rosen’s bio is heavily relied on in a law review article by George Caplan in “The Making of the Attorney General: John Mitchell and the Crimes of Watergate Reconsidered” (University of the Pacific Scholarly Commons, McGeorge School of Law Faculty Scholarship, 2010). Caplan writes that “[Mitchell] was continuously embarrassed by the unpredictable behavior of his unbalanced, alcoholic wife” (p.332) whose “instability was augmented by her alcoholic binges. Martha drank heavily, passed out frequently, and was prone to physical violence.” (p.333)
—Hunter S. Thompson described Martha Mitchell as a “raving juice head.” (“Fear and Loathing at the Watergate: Mr. Nixon Has Cashed His Check,” in Rolling Stone, Sept. 27, 1973. The reprint of this article in The Great Shark Hunt omits most of the section discussing John Mitchell.)
For sites and blogs supportive of Martha Mitchell, see the list at the end of the Notes.
Psychology…MM Effect: Brendan A. Maher (1988) “Anomalous Experience and Delusional Thinking: The Logic of Explanations”, in Oltmanns and Maher, eds., Delusional Beliefs (New York: Wiley Interscience). See also Wikipedia, the Martha Mitchell Effect, retrieved October 2019, and Andrew M. Colman, Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed).
KING’S ACCOUNT OF NEWPORT BEACH EVENTS
Taken entirely from the FBI Interview of Stephen B. King, transcript dated 5/3/73, interview of 5/1/73 by SA Charles W. Harvey, at Washington DC, File # WFO 139-166. I have not called attention to any of the contradictions and improbabilities in his account, assuming readers will notice them without my help.
Although the transcript of King’s interview is available on line, as far as I can tell no one writing about King has referred to it.
After much fairly extraneous details about travel and hotel arrangements and social events, King describes Martha as concerned upon learning on June 19 (Monday) that McCord was involved in the break-in and wondering whether, when McCord had debugged the Mitchells’ apartment, he might actually have planted bugs. King says that Martha began drinking “straight gin (no ice).” She burned her hand trying to light a cigarette when the entire matchbook ignited and when the doctor attempted to treat it, Mrs. Mitchell was afraid he was “a Democrat whose [sic] going to kill me.” But he treated her and gave her a sedative shot. Two days later (Wednesday) King took her back to the same doctor for further treatment on her hand.
Now that he’s established his calmness, patience, and good intentions, King gets to the events of Thursday, June 22.
Mitchell called and spoke with Martha, and during the call she began screaming, hung up on John, and refused to take his return calls. Fred LaRue called King and instructed that he not allow Martha to call the press and not to let her hurt herself. LaRue told him to rip the phones from the wall if need be. King told LaRue he refused to use physical force on Mrs. Mitchell. LaRue replied “to the effect, ‘Well, stay close to her.’”
Martha locked herself in her bedroom and called Helen Thomas. Upon King’s request, a hotel employee using a duplicate key unlocked the room and King entered, and pulled the telephone cord from the wall. “During this same period, he had occasion to enter Mrs. Mitchell’s bathroom where he observed two flasks of gin.” When Martha went toward a phone in an upstairs room, King pulled that cord from the wall, too. He offered to call John Mitchell for her and “she replied ‘I don’t want to talk to that son of a bitch.’ At this point, Mrs. Mitchell was becoming increasingly violent.” King establishes that by describing Martha going onto the balcony and screaming for help.
He feared she would fall, so ran outside and climbed a lattice to the balcony, and led her back inside. She soon “attempted to forcibly evict him. He managed to keep his foot in the door to keep her from locking the door; however, Mrs. Mitchell threw a large ashtray through the partially opened door” which “caused superficial lacerations to King’s face and hand” and she “began throwing various objects at him, including her wig box…”
The next morning, she was “extremely erratic” and with a large pair of scissors, cut the phone line in his room and then began “throwing everything in sight at King and Miss Jablonsky [the secretary],” and while Jablonsky was on the phone, struck her with a heavy ashtray. King then took Mrs. Mitchell by the arms but she started toward the front door. He told her she couldn’t go outside in her nightgown. She began pounding her fists on the glass panes of the large window and “thrust an arm forward, shattering the glass with her fist and causing severe lacerations on her hand. In retrospect, King believes that this action was deliberate to cause self-injury.” He wrapped her hand and Jablonsky called a doctor. King asked his advice on “how to handle Mrs. Mitchell at which time the doctor stated, ‘I recommend that you call the Orange County Psychiatric Ward.’” The three agreed to sedate Martha, and King and the nurse held her down by the arms and the doctor pulled up her nightgown and gave her 75cc’s of seconal.
King didn’t see that the shot had any effect, but soon Herbert Kalmbach arrived and he did calm her down. That day was the last time King saw Martha Mitchell. Saturday morning he, Jablonsky and Marty Mitchell flew back to DC.
Blogs and sites supportive of Martha Mitchell
(although some do describe her in the unflattering terms propounded by the Nixonians.)
Laura Smith, “This woman was held hostage and drugged because she knew too much about Watergate” https://timeline.com/martha-mitchell-smear-campaign-nixon-watergate-a357a81480be
Elizabeth McCauley, “MM: the woman nobody believed about WG” 9/17/18 https://allthatsinteresting.com/martha-mitchell
Neatorama, “Remember Martha Mitchell?” https://www.neatorama.com/2017/06/05/Remember-Martha-Mitchell/
Salon, “Omarosa and the forgotten Martha Mitchell: Unlikely heroes who brought down a president?” by Heather Digby Parton, https://www.salon.com/2018/08/15/omarosa-and-the-forgotten-martha-mitchell-unlikely-heroes-who-brought-down-a-president/
“George Conway isn’t the first…” Mar 29, 2019, https://www.thelily.com/george-conway-isnt-the-first-outspoken-spouse-of-a-political-figure-meet-martha-mitchell-who-drew-headlines-in-the-nixon-era/
Diane Ladd’s plans for biopic, Entertainment Weekly, https://ew.com/movies/2018/10/25/diane-ladd-martha-mitchell-woman-inside-david-o-russell/
She prevailed, Sharon Oliver, 6/26/17, http://sheprevailed.com/martha-mitchell-watergates-unsung-non-anonymous-source/
Thomas Duran author of “This is Martha Speaking” recalls Martha Mitchell. https://www.pbcommercial.com/article/20120616/NEWS/306169966
SOURCES TO THE SILENCING OF MARTHA MITCHELL
Books:
Emery, Fred, Watergate: the Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon (Touchstone, New York: 1994)
Garment, Leonard, In Search of Deep Throat: the Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time (Basic Books, New York: 2000)
Haldeman, H. R., The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York: 1994)
Hougan, Jim, Secret Agenda – Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA (Random House, New York: 1984)
Hunt, St. John, Dorothy, ‘An Amoral and Dangerous Woman’: The Murder of E. Howard Hunt’s Wife – Watergate’s Darkest Secret (Trine Day LLC, Waterville, OR: 2014)
Liddy, G. Gordon, Will (St. Martin’s Press, New York: 1980)
Lukas, J. Anthony, Nightmare: the Underside of the Nixon Years (Penguin Books, New York: 1988)
McCord, James, A Piece of Tape
McLendon, Winzola, Martha, the Life of Martha Mitchell (Random House, New York, 1979)
Magruder, Jeb Stuart, From Power to Peace, Forward by Senator Mark O. Hatfield (Word Books, Waco, TX: 1978)
Medsger, Betty, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI (Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 2014)
Nelson, Stanley, et al, Devil Walking: Klan Murders Along the Mississippi in the 1960s
The Watergate Hearings – Break-in and Cover-up, Proceedings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, edited by the staff of the New York Times (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., Oct. 1973)
Nixon, Richard M., The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (Grosset & Dunlap, New York: 1978)
Oglesby, Carl, The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate and Beyond (Berkley Publishing Corporation edition, September 1977)
Rosen, James, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (Doubleday, New York: 2008)
Thomas, Helen, Front Row at the White House, My Life and Times (Scribner, New York: 1999)
Woodward, Bob and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s Men (Simon and Schuster, New York: 1974)
Periodicals
(alphabetical by periodical name):
Marcia Kramer and William McFadden, Daily News, “Martha Sobs: ‘I’m Prisoner’,” June 26, 1972
Steve Marble, Los Angeles Times, “The mysterious life of James McCord, Watergate burglar whose death went unnoticed for 2 years,” April 19, 2019
Vivian Cadden, McCalls, “Martha Mitchell: the Day the Laughing Stopped,” July 1973
Miami New Times, Brandon K. Thorp, “Martha Mitchell Calling,” Dec. 13, 2007
New York Post, “Why they loved Helen Thomas,” opinion piece by Jonah Goldberg, July 24, 2013
New York Times (listed in chronological order):
−Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon presents new cabinet, pledges to seek peace and unity; emphasis on city problems seen,” December 12, 1968, p.1
−Robert H. Phelps, “Comments Cost Mrs. Mitchell Her Office,” December 19, 1969, p.41
−Nan Robertson, “Martha Mitchell: Capital’s Most Talked-About Talkative Woman,” Special to the NY Times, May 1, 1970, page 50
−Michael C. Jensen, “This Week in Finance: Mitchell and His Law Firm,” May 7, 1972, Section F, page 1
−“Martha Mitchell Would Like Her Husband to Quit Politics,” June 23, 1972, p.12
−“Mrs. Mitchell Is Said to Plan Separation Because of Politics,” June 26, 1972, p.25
− John W. Finney, “Kennedy Orders Bugging Inquiry,” October 14, 1972.
−Charlotte Curtis, “Martha Mitchell Testifies in Civil Suit,” May 4, 1973, Pg. 1
−E. W. Kenworthy, “The Extraordinary I.T.T. Affair,”December 16, 1973, p. 233
−Anthony Ripley, “Federal Grand Jury Indicts 7 Nixon Aides on Charges of Conspiracy on Watergate; Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell on List,” March 2, 1974
−“McCord Declares That Mrs. Mitchell Was Forcibly Held,” February 19, 1975
−John T. McQuiston, “Martha Mitchell, 57, Dies of Bone-Marrow Cancer,” June 1, 1976, pg. 1
−“Excerpts from Interview With Nixon About Watergate Tapes and Other Issues,” Sept 4, 1977, p. 24
−“John Mitchell Dies at 75; Major Figure in Watergate,” Nov. 10, 1988, pg. 1
−Mel Gussow, “Review/Theater: Martha Mitchell, the Outspoken Watergate Wife,” Feb. 13, 1989, Section C, Pg. 16
−Douglas Martin, “Fred LaRue, Watergate Figure, Dies at 75,” July 29, 2004
−Craig Fehrman, “All the President’s Memories,” Nov. 4, 2010 Sunday Book Review essay
−Brian Stelter, “David Frost, Interviewer Who Got Nixon to Apologize for Watergate, Dies at 74,” NY Times, Sept. 1, 2013
−Robert D. McFadden, “Anna Chennault, Behind-the-Scenes Force in Washington, Dies at 94,” April 3, 2018
−Robert D. McFadden, “James W. McCord Jr., Who Led the Watergate Break-In, Is Dead at 93,” April 18, 2019
Jeff Stein, Newsweek Magazine, “Trump Ambassador Beat and ‘Kidnapped’ Woman in Watergate Cover-Up: Reports,” December 11, 2017
New York Magazine, “Martha Mitchell Is Manhandled But Unsilenced,” June 24, 1974
Parade magazine, “Martha Mitchell Complains to Walter Scott,” October 22, 1972
People magazine, “Owner of Martha Beall Mitchell Museum looks to sell,” May 26, 2017
Pine Bluff Commercial, “Owner looks to sell historic Martha Mitchell home,” Knowles Adkisson, May 20, 2017
University of the Pacific Scholarly Commons, McGeorge School of Law, Gerald Caplan “The Making of the Attorney General: John Mitchell and the Crimes of Watergate Reconsidered,” (2010), legal citation 41 McGeorge L.Rev. 311.
Washington Post, “Nixon made it famous, but here’s what it’s like living at Watergate,” October 27, 2015
Government documents:
Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U. S. Senate, 93rd Congress, First Session, on the nomination of Louis Patrick Gray III to Be Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, February 28, 1973; Report of the FBI of July 21, 1972, submitted by Mr. Gray
FBI, Interview of 5/1/73 of Stephen B. King by SA Charles W. Harvey, Transcript 5/3/73. File # WFO 139-166
Nomination Hearings of the 115th Congress – First Session; Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations U. S. Senate January 3, 2017 to January 3, 2018 (US Government Publishing Office, Washington: 2018) [Stephen B. King nomination is at Nominations, Tuesday Aug. 1, 2017, pp. 517 – 530]
Web Sites:
Bucher Blog (official blog for the Paul Bucher for Wisconsin Attorney General Campaign), “Steve King,” July 12, 2005, https://bucherblog.blogspot.com/search?q=stephen+king
Mary Cronk Farrell, “Martha Mitchell/Christine Blasey Ford – What’s Changed in 50 years?” 10/7/2018, www.marycronkfarrell.net/blog/martha-mitchellchristine-blasey-ford-whats-changed-in-50-years
Kennedys and King, a site devoted to the assassinations and related events, including well-researched articles by respected scholars and writers, and reviews of relevant movies and books. The article consulted for this article was “The Mysterious Life and Death of James W. McCord.” https://kennedysandking.com
Politico, “What Adam Schiff Doesn’t Get About Watergate,” Max Holland, Dec. 3, 2019, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/03/impeachment-history-watergate-adam-schiff-074844
Scenes from the trail.com, post of February 4, 2017, “Abandoned in Beacon,” https://scenesfromthetrail.com/2017/02/04/abandoned-in-beacon/
Drew Lindsay, “The Watergate: The Building That Changed Washington,” Washingtonian.com, October 1, 2005, https://www.washingtonian.com/2005/10/01/the-watergate-the-building-that-changed-washington/
Other:
Slow Burn podcast, Season 1, Episode 1, “Martha,” by Leon Neyfakh, Nov. 30, 2017
“The Martha Mitchell Effect,” a short documentary by Anne Albergue and Debra McClutchy. As of March 2023 it is available on Netflix.
