young coevals may not recognize her name , but in the early seventies , Martha Mitchell was one of the most pop — and polarizing build — in American politics . Martha was the married woman of John Mitchell , President Richard Nixon’sattorney general . But unlike other political wives who faded quietly into the background , Martha craved the spotlight andlovedto talk .
If there was a Republican fundraiser in 1970 , Martha Mitchell was usually the top - bill speaker . And if a newspaper reporter wanted a colourful quotation mark about Nixon ’s Vietnam policy or his latestSupreme Court candidate , they have it off who to call . In an age when politico were more restrained in their public remarks , Martha had no filter .
Who Was Martha Mitchell?
" She was this outspoken , flashy , ' sassing of the South ' from Pine Bluff , Arkansas , who would go out there and say all of the thing that Nixon wanted to say but could n’t because he was president , " says Garrett Graff , author of " Watergate : A New History . "
In many ways , Martha Mitchell was the first conservative political pundit in America , a forerunner of Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin , say Graff . And President Nixon was one of her biggest sports fan . " Right on , Martha ! Give ‘em hell , " Nixon used to say when Martha tore into the Democrats .
But that all changed June 17 , 1972 , when police apprehend five hands who had broken into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate building in Washington , D.C. As Nixon and his inner circle noisily denied any connection to the Watergate burglary , they expose that Martha held a key piece of music of info that could tie Nixon ’s reelection campaign to the crime .
Suddenly , the brash and outspoken Martha that Nixon jazz was a liability . In a eccentric series of events that Martha later on described as something out of " a James Bond novel , " she washeld against her willin a hotel and sedated with ataractic drug by an FBI agent . Then , when she hear to narrate the imperativeness what had happened to her , Martha became the target of a smear run to discredit her as a mentally fluid " crazy womanhood " and an alky .
Her wild and at last tragic life chronicle is the discipline of a Modern Starz series call " Gaslit " asterisk Julia Roberts as Martha with Sean Penn playing her disloyal husband , John , the first and only U.S. attorney general to be sent to prison .
What Martha Knew
Martha and John Mitchell were in California hang Republican fundraisers with Gov. Ronald Reagan and John Wayne when the newsworthiness broke of the Watergate burglary . John Mitchell had recently step down as attorney general to run Nixon ’s 1972 reelection crusade , make out asCommittee for the Re - election of the President(CRP or " CREEP " to Nixon ’s critics ) .
One of the five manpower arrested in the Watergate burglary was a guy namedJames McCord , who happened to be the security director for CRP . That take out immediate misgiving from the press , but John Mitchell was quick to brush aside the connexion , saying that McCord had lots of other clients .
But McCord ’s name would have meant much more to Martha . When her husband stepped down as lawyer full general , she mislay herSecret Service protection , so John employ McCord as Martha ’s personal escort . If she regard McCord ’s name connect with the Watergate burglary , she would have known that her husband and CRP were involved in the good luck - in .
So John Mitchell did n’t let that happen . He take to keep the tidings of the Watergate rupture - in from his wife as long as potential , and above all , she could n’t be allowed to babble out to the imperativeness .
Graff says that Martha was somewhat notorious for bid up paper newsperson deep at night , often after a few drinks , and offering up red-hot bit of inside - the - ringway gossip .
" She would sit at home in the eventide , drinking and eavesdropping on her husband ’s phone calls , " Graff say . " When he went off to bed , she got lone and would call up reporter and dish to them about Nixon and Nixon ’s enemies . She was so well - sourced that she was usually right-hand about things . "
John worried that if Martha saw McCord ’s name in the paper , she would n’t be able to check herself , and anything she said to the press could entail the campaign , Mitchell and potentially Nixon himself in the Watergate affair .
John jetted off to Washington forget behind nonindulgent education that Martha should be isolated in her hotel room and not be allowed to make any phone calls to the pressure .
Kidnapped and Tranquilized for Days
Here ’s where Martha ’s story choose a dark good turn . abandon by her husband in the " care " of some inexorable - looking man in suit , including an ex - FBI factor , she still negociate to get her hands on a newspaper publisher . As John feared , Martha watch McCord ’s name and was shocked to see her former escort involved in the Watergate faulting - in .
It ’s unclear whether Martha immediately made the connection between the burglary and Nixon ’s campaign , but she was intelligibly mad that her husband had tried to keep her in the shadow and was frustrated to be holed up in the California hotel . Martha had to tell someone . So she dialed up one of her favorite newsman , Helen Thomas at United Press International ( UPI ) .
According to Thomas , Martha set forth reek about fix her husband out of political sympathies when there was some kind of commotion on the sound when the argumentation suddenly went drained . What in reality happened was that one of Martha ’s handlers , theex - FBI agent Steve King , had burst into the room and ripped Martha ’s telephone line out of the wall .
Then things got much worse . King and other security guards tackle Martha to the undercoat and forcibly injected her with ataractic . She was sedated for Clarence Day as her husband and his brother schemed 2,500 miles ( 4,023 kilometre ) by about how to deal with the unfolding Watergate crisis .
When Thomas could n’t reach Martha , she ring John , who said , " That little dish , I have intercourse her so much . She gets a small upset about politics , but she loves me , and I hump her and that ’s what counts . "
The Gaslighting Begins
When Martha was finally set gratuitous , she fly to New York and render to tell the imperativeness what had happened to her . " I am a captive , " she read , detailing the violation and forced drugging . " I wo n’t stand for this dirty patronage . " But or else of pull in front - page word , papers likeThe New York Times buriedMartha ’s tale on page 25 and made no cite of any connection to Watergate .
Meanwhile , on July 1 , 1972,John Mitchell publically resignedfrom Nixon ’s reelection campaign say that he did it out of " love , " to spend more time with his wife and daughter . People in the Nixon White House actively leaked that the real grounds John quit was because Martha was an alcoholic and mentally mentally ill .
" They used her aver ' instability ' as cover to say that Mitchell was leaving the campaign to take concern of his married woman , " Graff says . And if Martha tried to bring up her kidnapping in California , " they discredit her by state that ' it ’s just Martha being Martha . ' They were successful in indite her off . "
Despite her mistreatment , Martha loyally defended her hubby as the Watergate scandal blossom forth . But that did n’t save their wedding . John walked out on Martha and their girl in 1973 . He would eventually serve19 calendar month in prisonfor confederacy , lying under oath and impedimenta of jurist concern to Watergate .
Martha remain in the public eye , but she was visibly shaken by the ordeal in California and was generally dismissed as a free cannon and " hysterical " woman . When she call on Nixon to renounce in 1973 , the smear safari against her only got bad .
The ‘Martha Mitchell Effect’
Of naturally , Martha was n’t unbalanced at all . It ’s very likely that she bed from the first that her husband and Nixon were behind the Watergate prison-breaking - in . If the world had listened to her when she first told her story about the California snatch , she might have exposed the plot much sooner .
But instead , Martha became a punchline of the Watergate era , cast as a drink - up gossip dog instead of a politicalwhistleblower . Not only was she a victim of gaslighting , she even make her own psychological full term , theMartha Mitchell effect , specify as " a misinterpretation of a person ’s justified belief as a hallucination . "
" A lot of this was the misogyny of the age , " says Graff . " This was an era when women by and large were not considered serious contenders in the public blank space . And that allowed Martha Mitchell to be see more as amusement than as a serious political figure in her own right . "
Sadly , Mitchell died of cancer in 1976 , two eld after Nixon ’s resignation .
In a 1977 consultation , Nixon tried to drag Martha ’s name deeply into the clay , but ended up bear her a compliment . " I ’m convinced if it had n’t been for Martha — and God rest her soul , because she in her heart was a good person,“Nixon said . " She just had a mental and worked up problem that nobody knew about . If it had n’t been for Martha , there ’d have been no Watergate . "
