Short Stuff: The Gaslighting of Martha Mitchell

Martha Mitchell, the wife of Nixon's Attorney General, was well-known to spread a juicy rumor. That's why when Watergate unfolded, she was held captive in a hotel room on her husband's orders and painted as a crazy alcoholic. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 0:39Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just us and that's okay because we're doing short stuff. So let's get started, everybody. Calm down. It's short stuff.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  That's right. We're going to talk about Martha Mitchell, who was the wife of John Mitchell in the 1970s, who was Nixon's Attorney General for a time. And Martha Mitchell was from the South. She was a, some argue that she was one of the first sort of conservative political pundits because she loved to go on TV, not like a lot of politician spouses at the time that kept a lower profile. She loved to be on TV and talk about things and she loved to call into journalists, maybe have a couple of bourbons and call into journalists and give quotes. And you think like, oh, boy, this sounds like trouble. Eventually it could have been, but they loved her.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Nixon loved her because she went out there and said the things that not a lot of people were saying in public at the time that he loved.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw that she was known as the mouth of the South. She was from Arkansas and one of her quotes was, I don't believe in that no comment business. I always have a comment. That was basically her guiding ethos, her ethos, one of the two. And she was huge at the time. Like she wasn't just like a, hey, I really like what you have to say to the papers. Way to go when you rain in sure at lunch. Like in 1970, during the election, if you went to a Republican fundraiser, there was a really good chance that she would be speaking there. Like, like you said, people loved her, including Richard Nixon, who was just a fan essentially.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. In June of 1972, the Watergate building was burgled, as everyone knows. And Nixon and his inner circle were like, we didn't have anything to do with this. I don't know what you guys are talking about. And then one of them said, hold on a minute. There's something that Martha knows about this that could spell trouble for us. And this is that story, because it gets pretty crazy.

• 2:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  So crazy that there was a series in 2022. Was it a series or a show? I think it was a series called Gaslit, starring Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell and a very heavily makeuped and balded and changed Sean Penn as John Mitchell.

• 3:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, although Sean Penn has done so many eight balls, it's possible he just looks like that now.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no, Sean Penn still looks good. This guy. He looked like John Mitchell, which is to say, old and bald and a little tubby.

• 3:19Josh Clark?

  And well, so just as a spoiler, John Mitchell eventually went to prison. He's the first and only US Attorney General to go serve time in federal prison. That's how badly this went for him. But at the time, after the Watergate break-in, when the Nixon campaign, because he stopped being Attorney General for Nixon and became the head of Nixon's reelection campaign, he ran the Committee to Reelect the President, the CRP. Everyone else on the planet called it creep instead. And so he was running that. So at the time, right after the Watergate break-in, when they were still denying, denying, denying,

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  you can't prove anything. And he realized that his wife was, would definitely call the press if she got the chance, he hatched a plan to keep her from doing that. And like you said, it takes a crazy turn. And it's about here where it does, because he and Martha, John and Martha, were at a fundraiser in California at the time with Governor Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. And they were

• 4:29Josh Clark?

  That's when the news of Watergate broke, essentially. So John Mitchell flew back to DC, but he said, Martha, stay here. And then he talked to some other guys and he said, essentially, make sure Martha stays here. Keep her away from the newspaper and do not let her call anybody.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  That's right. And the big, big reason that they were worried about her was not just because she liked to talk to the press, but it was because one of the people caught in the Watergate burglary and arrested was a guy named James McCord. He was a security director for the reelection committee for Nixon and had a very close tie to that family because when her husband quit the attorney general position to become head of that committee for reelection, she lost her Secret Service protection and he got none other than James McCord to be her private, personal bodyguard. So if you can add one and two together, as Martha Mitchell, you would know, if you

• 5:27Speaker 02

  knew James McCord was caught breaking into the Watergate, that it probably had something to do with the Nixon campaign.

• 5:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So I say we take a break and we come back and talk about Martha Mitchell's ordeal.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work or going out or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories. And cut out the middlemen so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com where you can get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home.

• 7:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so you're worried about package theft. Well, the ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new doorbell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  And here's the best thing, there are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there either. You can add to your system as you need to with things like extra cameras or motion sensors.

• 7:44Josh Clark?

  Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown up topics, check out new episodes of Grown Up Stuff on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, so Martha Mitchell is being held in a hotel, in luxury, of course. This isn't, you know, she's not like in some rundown hotel. This is a nice hotel, I'm presuming. I don't know why that matters. It does a little bit, but it's unnecessary to say.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Well, they didn't take her to like an abandoned warehouse and tire to a chair.

• 8:43Josh Clark?

  Great, great. Thank you for saving me. And apparently for a little while, they did. They were able to keep her away from the news. I mean, this is a time when there was no such thing as 24 hour news networks and you had to physically get your hands on a newspaper to read the news a lot of times. But eventually she did get a newspaper and she did read about the Watergate break in and she did read that James McCord, her former bodyguard, was one of the people arrested and she did put two and two together and say, I can't believe this, but my husband and probably Richard Nixon directed the Watergate break in. Who can I call?

• 9:21Speaker 02

  That's right. She was pretty mad about the fact that she was being kept in the dark. Obviously very frustrated, just watched that trailer at least with Julia Roberts and it got kind of hairy in there. So she starts fuming a little bit and causing a bit of a commotion. I'm not sure if it happened exactly this way, but in the TV show, she called from a bathroom phone, like hotels have bathroom phones sometimes, right there by the toilet. And one of these guys, you know, quote unquote safeguarding her was an ex FBI agent named Steve King, burst into the bathroom, ripped the phone out of the wall. She was talking to Helen Thomas of UPI, one of

• 10:02Speaker 02

  her favorite reporters that she liked to talk to. And Helen Thomas hears the line go dead, tries to get back in touch and then eventually calls John, the husband, who said, that little sweetheart, I love her so much. She gets a little upset about politics, but she loves me and I love her and that's what counts. When all along, what had happened is that Martha was physically tackled and injected with a tranquilizer.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, by a doctor, but still, she was being held down and sedated against her will, which is nuts. Again, under the direction of her husband.

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, it's better than some FBI agent doing it, but

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  A little.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 10:47Josh Clark?

  I do have a huge criticism of this operation, though, Chuck. Um, I don't condone what they did to her, but if they were going to do it, there was a huge step that they missed, which is rent a second hotel room and get rid of all of the phones in the hotel room that Martha Mitchell's being kept in. And if John Mitchell wanted to get in touch with her, he could call the other hotel room and then they could relay whatever message they needed. That was just bush league amateur stuff, leaving any phone in there. If one of the directives was to keep her away from the phone.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and when they checked in, when they said, well, would you like the paper slid under your door every morning, sir? And they're like, oh yeah, for sure.

• 11:27Josh Clark?

  Right. That sounds great. Is it, is it free? Cause I don't want to pay for it, but if it's free, definitely. Can we get two?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. Yeah, they didn't do it right. Martha, and we should say, we're, we're kind of joking here because Martha was not injured or anything like that, but she was held against her will, essentially kidnapped, held against her will, and then gaslit like nobody's ever been gaslit before. Uh, because she eventually was set free. She went right to the press and said, I, you know, I was detained. I was forced into sedation. And the New York Times ran it on page 25. And the Nixon administration painted her as a, a kind of a crazy lady with a drinking problem.

• 12:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, very much so. As a matter of fact, they, they, their smear campaign was so far reaching that when John Mitchell resigned from being the head of Nixon's reelection committee, he said that he needed to spend or wanted to spend more time with his wife and daughter. The Nixon campaign leaked to the press that the real reason he left was because Martha had a drinking problem that was unstable and needed basically constant attention from her husband.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:41Josh Clark?

  Which just supported the whole idea that she was just off her rocker, talking about being held against her will and sedated. What is this lady even saying?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, like who? Would do that. What kind of administration would do that?

• 12:53Josh Clark?

  What kind of husband would do that too? You know, and I saw that the stuff, the articles that they did run were run in the women's pages. I made scare quotes, but that's what they were at the time, like women's interest stuff. And the way that they ran it was essentially not like, can you believe what happened to this woman? It's, hey, get a load of this. These two are a famous married couple and there's trouble in paradise.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Right. Like gossip.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So this poor lady got dragged through the mud. And we know for a fact that this actually happened because later on, James McCord, her former bodyguard who was involved in the Watergate break in, he confirmed it. He said, this absolutely happened to her. In 1975, he confirmed it. But one of the first things she did was to call on Nixon to resign. She's like, you were involved in Watergate, you need to step down. And all Nixon did was turn the heat up on the smear campaign against her.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, she seems like a, like a very, like she may have been into gossip, but she seemed like a very principled conservative.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Because she, you know, she didn't like this dirty business from Nixon.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  No, that was huge. She was also a very loyal spouse to the end. She refused to believe that her husband had, you know, dreamed this up and that he essentially was dragged into it. And had been led astray into dirty politics, like you said. So much so that she testified on his behalf at his federal trial. And yet he still was like, thanks a lot, Martha. See ya. I'm walking out on you. And if you weren't like, wow, this guy's a real jerk already. He gave a quote to the press after he was sentenced to 17 or 18 months in prison. And he said, hey, it could have been worse. They could have sentenced me to the rest of my life with Martha.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Can you imagine? And she's, this lady's alive for, to hear this, to hear her husband say this about her. After being that loyal to him, you know, and mistaking who he was for so long.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's just go ahead and call him a real scumbag.

• 14:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  I feel good about that. So Martha, like you said, her husband served 19 months in prison after walking out on Martha and their daughter in 1973. And later on, Martha, this gaslighting would actually become a term, the Martha Mitchell effect, because of what happened to her, which is a misinterpretation of a person's justified belief as a delusion. Very sadly, she died of cancer in 1976, just a couple of years after Nixon left office. And yeah, Julia Roberts made a TV show about her. So at least her story got out there in a pretty major way, you know?

• 15:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And a few years after Nixon resigned, he gave an interview and he tried to drag her through the mud a little more, but ultimately, he showed his hand and he kind of paid backhanded tribute to her by saying, if it hadn't been for Martha, there never would have been a Watergate. Like, he never would have been caught. Because he could have just kept denying, denying, denying. If you do that enough, you can get away with anything. And that was Nixon's plan, and Martha undermined that big time.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  We couldn't keep her sedated forever.

• 16:04Josh Clark?

  Way to go, man. Who can you, who can't you do?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Well, anybody very good.

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, Chuck's saying that, and I don't know what to say. So short stuff's that.