Apr 24, 2022 · The beating heart of Starz’s new Watergate drama, Gaslit, is its depiction of the volatile marriage between President Nixon’s Attorney General …
May 02, 2022 · Martha Mitchell was an American socialite and the wife of President Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, who also happened to be one of Nixon's closest friends. A former teacher and...
Apr 21, 2022 · Martha was the wife of John Mitchell, President Richard Nixon's attorney general. But unlike other political wives who faded quietly into the background, Martha craved the spotlight and loved to talk. If there was a Republican fundraiser in 1970, Martha Mitchell was usually the top-billed speaker.
Sep 17, 2018 · John Mitchell was a trusted member of President Richard Nixon’s inner circle and in 1972 resigned as attorney general to become director of the Committee to Reelect the President. Officially abbreviated CRP, the committee later gained the dubious nickname “CREEP” as the Watergate scandal was heating up.
The Watergate Scandal. John Mitchell was a trusted member of President Richard Nixon’s inner circle and in 1972 resigned as attorney general to become director of the Committee to Reelect the President.
Throughout that time, Nixon and his aides accused Martha Mitchell of being an alcoholic, liar, and unscrupulous attention-seeker. Publicly shamed, recently divorced from her husband due to the scandal, and estranged from her children, Mitchell lived out of the public eye for two years after Nixon left office.
When the attorney general received a call informing him of the arrest of the burglars, he feared how his histrionic wife might react to the news, given that one of the men arrested, James McCord, had once served as her bodyguard.
Of course, no one had ever been able to keep Martha Mitchell quiet, and Steve King would be no exception. Soon after the break-in, Mitchell got hold of a newspaper and learned of McCord’s arrest, as well as the fact that her husband had lied publicly about whether McCord worked for CRP.
Soon after the break-in, Mitchell got hold of a newspaper and learned of McCord’s arrest, as well as the fact that her husband had lied publicly about whether McCord worked for CRP. She tried to call her husband and demand an explanation but was rebuffed by a Nixon aide.
The story of the scandal began in June 1972, when five men were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. We now know that these men were on the presidential payroll and that this event was actually their second time unlawfully entering the DNC office.
He tasked former FBI-agent-turned-CRP-consultant Steve King with keeping his loose-lipped wife away from newspapers and phones.
John Mitchell tendered his resignation to Nixon, writing, “I have found that I can no longer [carry out the job] and still meet the one obligation which must come first: the happiness and welfare of my wife and daughter.”. Story continues below advertisement.
In the spring of 1972, John Mitchell resigned as attorney general to become Nixon’s campaign manager for his reelection. And in June, Martha joined her husband in California for several campaign events. It was there, on the night of June 17, that John Mitchell got a call about some arrests made at the Watergate Hotel.
According to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Mitchell realized that if his wife found out that she knew one of the men arrested, James McCord, she might become upset and tell reporters about it, thus tipping them off to the connection between the burglars and the president.
So as he headed back to Washington, he instructed security guards working for the campaign to keep his wife in the dark in California — and to stop her from calling members of the media.
Martha Mitchell later said one of the guards discovered her and ripped the phone from the wall. She was kept in the hotel room for days, she said, where the guard held her down as a doctor injected her with sedatives, her young daughter watching the whole time. “I’m black and blue,” she told Thomas days later.
Story continues below advertisement. Martha Mitchell’ s celebration — “I’m going to have a ball in New York!” she told the New York Times — didn’t last. The next year, as her husband remained loyal to Nixon in his Senate testimony, “he walked out and left me with $945,” she told The Washington Post.
Story continues below advertisement. In 1977, Nixon threw Martha under the bus one last time, telling journalist David Frostthat Martha’s alleged mental-health troubles in the spring of 1972 distracted John from “minding that store,” thus allowing the Watergate crisis to happen.
But along the way, Nixon had promised his wife, Pat, that he would name a woman to the high court. The first lady had lobbied him, privately and in public remarks. And so, when she heard Nixon name two men, she was furious.
There appears no evidence, in the newly released segments of the tapes, that Nixon had deceived Pat, or—as some historians and commentators have argued, and other tapes indicate—that he never really wanted a woman on the court.
But along the way, Nixon had promised his wife , Pat, that he would name a woman to the high court. The first lady had lobbied him, privately and in public remarks. And so, when she heard Nixon name two men, she was furious. Richard Nixon holds his left hand on two family bibles and raises his right as he takes the oath as 37th President ...
Below were six rumored potential candidates that could have filled the open seats, including three women, but Nixon instead nominated two other men: William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell. | AP Photo. But Nixon was not the most intimate of fellows. He had a difficult time expressing feelings.
Rehnquist and Powell would help steer the Supreme Court to the right , contributing to landmark decisions that changed the course ...
The president knew he had done bad. He didn’t call his wife to check on her reaction —he used a go-between, his longtime secretary Rose Mary Woods. “Just to tell you what you’re in for,” Woods reported back. “This is personal for her … she’s really, really teed off.”.
Nixon coaxed Julie to tell her mother she should be blaming the ABA, not him. “The main thing is not blame me! ” Nixon told his elder daughter, Tricia, in a separate but similar conversation that evening. “We are preparing a woman for the next spot,” he promised.
Hersh did not report the story. Years later, he received criticism for this choice. We speak with Sy Hersh in New York City. He says of his decision not to report on Nixon beating his wife, “I was obtuse to the notion that it was a crime. …. I didn’t get it.”.
This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today. Soon after President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, Seymour Hersh got a call from a source at a California hospital. He learned that Nixon had beaten his wife so severely in 1974 that she sought treatment at an emergency room.
His duty on the week of the break-in was to protect—and keep a close eye on—Martha Mitchell, the talkative wife of Nixon's campaign director, former Attorney General John Mitchell, while the Mitchells were on a campaign swing in California. Martha Mitchell, an outspoken Arkansan dubbed "the Mouth of the South" in press reports, ...
In June 1972, King was an ex–FBI agent working as a security aide for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CREEP, Nixon's campaign arm. His duty on the week of the break-in was to protect—and keep a close eye on—Martha Mitchell, the talkative wife of Nixon's campaign director, former Attorney General John Mitchell, ...
Trump Ambassador Beat and 'Kidnapped' Woman in Watergate Cover-Up: Reports. Martha Mitchell with her husband, former Attorney General John Mitchell, one of Richard Nixon's top aides, when he was being sworn in at the Senate on May 11, 1973. Keystone/Getty Images.
Martha Mitchell with her husband, former Attorney General John Mitchell, one of Richard Nixon's top aides, when he was being sworn in at the Senate on May 11, 1973. Keystone/Getty Images
Enter King, who "rushed into her bedroom, threw her back across the bed, and ripped the telephone out of the wall," wrote veteran Washington reporter Winzola McLendon in her 1979 biography of Martha Mitchell, to whom she was close. "The conversation ended abruptly when it appeared someone took away the phone from her hand," Thomas reported. "She was heard to say, 'You just get away.'"
After King ripped the phone from her hand, she related, she ran to another room to make a call. "Again...she was thrown aside while the phone was disconnected," McLendon wrote.
During his August 1 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, King was not asked about his alleged role in roughing up Mitchell to keep her from exposing McCord's connection to CREEP.