John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913 – November 9, 1988) was the 67th Attorney General of the United States under President Richard Nixon and chairman of Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns. Prior to that, he had been a municipal bond lawyer and one of Nixon's closest personal friends.
Republican PartyJohn N. Mitchell / PartyThe Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of chattel slavery into the western territories. Wikipedia
Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell (September 2, 1918 – May 31, 1976) was the wife of John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. Her public comments and interviews during the Watergate scandal were frank and revealing.
Felt said, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." After the Vanity Fair story broke, Benjamin C. Bradlee on June 1, 2005, the editor of the Washington Post during Watergate, confirmed that Felt was Deep Throat.
April 27, 1994Richard Nixon / Date of burial
The Martha Mitchell effect refers to the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health clinician, or other medical professional labels a patient's accurate perception of real events as delusional, resulting in misdiagnosis.
Howard Simons was the managing editor of the Post during Watergate. He dubbed the secret informant "Deep Throat", alluding to both the deep background status of his information and the widely publicized 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat.
The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building.
Dean was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover-up in press interviews. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's.
The Committee for the Re-election of the President (also known as the Committee to Re-elect the President), abbreviated CRP, but often mocked by the acronym CREEP, was, officially, a fundraising organization of United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign during the Watergate scandal.
Martha Elizabeth MitchellJohn N. Mitchell / Children
Sean PennSeries creator Robbie Pickering dives deep on the pivotal first scene between the Oscar winners, playing Nixon attorney general John Mitchell and his outspoken wife, Martha.
John Mitchell, in full John Newton Mitchell, (born Sept. 15, 1913, Detroit, Mich., U.S.—died Nov. 9, 1988, Washington, D.C.), U.S. attorney general during the Nixon administration who served 19 months in prison (1977–79) for his participation in the Watergate Scandal.
Appointed attorney general, Mitchell took office in January 1969 and remained there until March 1972, when he resigned to head Nixon’s reelection committee.
It was for his expertise in state and municipal bonds that Mitchell achieved fame while an attorney with a prominent New York law firm. He became acquainted with Richard M. Nixon early in 1967, when their respective law firms merged.
Mitchell began his career at Caldwell & Raymond, which specialized in municipal and state bond financing. As the United States joined the Second World War, he joined the US Navy, serving for three years as Lieutenant, Junior Grade, eventually commanding squadrons of torpedo boats. After the Second World War, he returned ...
In December 1971, he appointed G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, as White House undercover operative. Shortly, as Nixon’s popularity began to wane, he began to take a series of fateful measures, such as approving a budget of $50,000 for Liddy to take measures against prominent Democrats.
and G. Harrold Carswell, two of President Nixon’s nominees, to the Supreme Court even though they were declared unqualified by the Senate. He was also censured for prosecuting the antiwar protesters and for trying to block the publication of ‘Pentagon Papers’.
On December 19, 1957, he married Martha Beall Jennings, with whom he had two children, Martha Elizabeth Mitchell and John Mitchell Jr. They divorced on May 31, 1976. The last years of his life were spent in the company of his longtime partner, Mary Gore Dean.
As Nixon was reelected in January 1973, it was agreed that it was best to let Mitchell take the full blame. Although he was not very willing, there was little he could do. His wife began ringing up various journalists to save him, putting the blame on Nixon; but was branded unstable.
John N. Mitchell became Nixon’s campaign manager when Nixon stood for the presidential election in the 1969. After Nixon became President, he rewarded Mitchell with the post of US Attorney General. Three years later, Mitchell gave it up to head Nixon’s re-election committee and it was in this capacity that he sanctioned Watergate Complex break-in, ...
John Newton Mitchell was the 67th Attorney General of the United States. He worked under President Richard Nixon. He became infamous for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal and is the only United States Attorney General to have served a prison sentence. Beginning his career in law at the age of 25, he eventually became a successful municipal ...
The cover up was done to protect President Nixon’s involvement.
A total of 69 government officials were charged for their participation in the Watergate scandal. As for his part, John Mitchell knew about the wire taps and other activities; he was there from the start and later he and John Dean helped Nixon mastermind the plan to break into the DNC headquarters. The overarching interest in the Democratic Headquarters was not to steal money, but to spy on opponents. Dean, Mitchell, and others were after information. They agreed to the bugging of offices, photographing of documents.
When chastised for placing the "expediency" of Nixon's election above his own responsibility to inform the president about what was happening, Mitchell responded, "In my mind, the reelection of Richard Nixon, compared to what was on the other side, was so important that I put it in exactly that context."
In those days, Mitchell had a fearsome reputation as a gruff, tough, no-nonsense law enforcement man with a direct line to the Oval Office. He appeared unflappable and did not raise his voice in public, but his stern manner spoke of self-assured authority. A Washington Post profile of Mitchell in 1970 by Don Oberdorfer said, "People have noticed that when Richard M. Nixon utters a declarative sentence, he often turns toward John N. Mitchell as if searching for approval or reassurance. He is without question the most powerful man in the Cabinet."
The insider speculation in Washington was that Mitchell had quit because he was somehow linked to the Watergate break-in, which threatened throughout the fall of 1972 to mushroom into a full-fledged scandal despite the Nixon administration's effort to pass it off as a "third-rate burglary attempt."
Hundley said last night that Mitchell had been "a very easy client. I don't think he had any illusions about what was going to happen to him." When Mitchell's life collapsed, Hundley said, "He took it like a man . . . . He would have been a great guy to sail down the river with."
Although Mitchell, according to testimony, turned down that proposal, he eventually approved giving Liddy and his coconspirators $250,000 for another project: the break-in and bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Office Building in Washington.
John N. Mitchell, the only United States attorney general to serve a prison sentence, died here yesterday after suffering a heart attack. He was 75.
In early 1972 Mitchell resigned as attorney general to become director of the Committee to Re-elect the President. It was the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign that led to Mitchell's disgrace, and the ultimate toppling, in August 1974, of the Nixon administration.
Mitchell's famous watchword to reporters in the early days of Nixon's first term was, 'Watch what we do, not what we say.'.
The indictment charged that they had conspired to obstruct justice in an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the mutual funds dealings of fugitive financier Robert Vesco in return for a secret $200,000 donation to Nixon's re-election campaign fund. The grand jury acquitted the two of all charges a year later.
In 1973, he and former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
A Washington television station reported Wednesday night that a breakdown in radio communications prevented the medics treating Mitchell from letting the hospital know they were on the way.
During the next two years, the scandal exploded with repeated revelations from congressional and legal investigations. In the end, 25 people including Mitchell were jailed for Watergate crimes; Nixon resigned in disgrace Aug. 9, 1974, and was pardoned a month later by President Gerald Ford. Mitchell spent the years after his release ...
WASHINGTON -- Former Attorney General John Mitchell, jailed for his role in President Nixon's Watergate scandal, died late Wednesday of a heart attack. He was 75.
Nixon administration officials tried to discredit her comments by saying she was drunk. At first her statements seemed to amuse her husband and Nixon, but she later publicly accused her husband of covering up illegalites for the president. She demanded he leave politics and 'all those dirty things that go on.'.