Martha Mitchell

Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell (September 2, 1918 – May 31, 1976) was an American socialite and 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.

Early life and education

Martha Elizabeth Beall Jennings Mitchell was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on September 2, 1918,

When she graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1937, her yearbook picture carried the quotation, "I love its gentle warble, I love its gentle flow, I love to wind my tongue up, And I love to let it go." She was dyslexic, and struggled to read aloud.

<!-- CONTRADICTS encyclopedia.com :::: with hopes of becoming a pediatrician, but had difficulty (which she blamed on her Southern accent) learning Greek and Latin. After graduation, she was a seventh-grade teacher for a year in Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. Army officer from Lynchburg, Virginia. They married on October 5, 1946, in Pine Bluff and moved to Rye, New York. Soon after they wed, her husband was honorably discharged and became a traveling handbag salesman. Jennings spent a lot of time away from home, which (according to Mitchell) settling in Rye, New York. The position necessitated that the family move to Washington, D.C., and their home in the fashionable Watergate complex was estimated at the time to be worth . The statement increased her notoriety and coverage in the media. During this time, Mitchell's renown as an outspoken socialite grew, and she made regular appearances on television talk shows and variety shows, such as Laugh-In. During the campaign Mitchell had begun to complain to her media contacts that the campaign had engaged in "dirty tricks" to win the election. A week before the June 1972 burglary of the DNC headquarters in the Watergate office building, the Mitchells had traveled to Newport Beach, California, to attend a series of fundraising events. While there, Mitchell's husband received a phone call about the incident and immediately held a press conference denying any CRP involvement. Meanwhile, John Mitchell enlisted their security agent, former FBI agent Steve King, to prevent her from learning about the break-in or contacting reporters. The Mitchells separated in September 1973, with John suddenly moving out of the family home with their daughter. On January 1, 1975, he was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for his involvement in the Watergate break-in; he served 19 months in a federal prison.

Because of her involvement in the scandal, she was discredited and abandoned by most of her family, except for her son, intermittently. In her final days, Mitchell subsisted on donations sent by sympathetic supporters. Her funeral service was held at First Presbyterian Church. An anonymous donor sent a large arrangement of flowers that spelled "Martha was right."

She was buried in the Bellwood Cemetery in Pine Bluff with her mother and grandparents. Her daughter Marty and husband John Mitchell attended the burial, albeit arriving late to the service. It was reported that John Mitchell, because he was still legally her husband, closed the service to the public and only a handful of mourners attended. Despite John Mitchell's actions to keep crowds away, Pine Bluff residents, fans, and the press nonetheless lined the streets and area surrounding the cemetery.

Public image

A November 1970 Gallup poll placed the public's opinion of her at 33% unfavorable to 43% favorable.

Myra MacPherson of The Washington Post wrote that "To many she was a brazen and bombastic woman, to others she was a heroine who attacked a liberal permissiveness they felt had brought chaos to the land."

Legacy

Three years after Mitchell's death, Washington newswoman and Mitchell-collaborator Winzola McLendon released a biography titled Martha: The Life of Martha Mitchell.

Mitchell's birthplace and childhood home were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. A segment of U.S. Route 79 in Pine Bluff is designated the Martha Mitchell Expressway, and a bust of her at the Pine Bluff Civic Center bears a plaque reading "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

In 2022 Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein confirmed that in the spring of 1974 Mitchell had invited them to examine papers left behind by John Mitchell in their New York apartment. She is quoted as having said: "Please nail him. I hope you get the bastard."

Trivia

Lily Tomlin's 1971 comedy album This Is a Recording includes the track "Mrs. Mitchell", in which she imagines her character Ernestine conversing with Martha Mitchell.

A one-woman play about Mitchell, Dirty Tricks by John Jeter, appeared off-Broadway in 2004.

In the 1995 film Nixon directed by Oliver Stone, Madeline Kahn plays Mitchell, who has a small but pivotal role in the Watergate section of the film.

The first episode of the podcast Slow Burn, entitled "Martha", chronicled her role in the Watergate scandal in 2017.

Martha's role in the Watergate scandal was told in the 13th episode of the sixth season of Drunk History by John Early, where she was portrayed by Vanessa Bayer.

Gaslit, a political thriller TV series based on the Slow Burn podcast, aired in 2022, starring Julia Roberts as Martha and Sean Penn as John Mitchell.

The "Martha Mitchell effect", in which a psychiatrist mistakenly or willfully identifies a patient's true but extraordinary claims as delusions, was named after her.

She is briefly mentioned by Richard Nixon as being a nuisance in Fantastic Four #123 published in June 1972.

Captain Sensible's 1982 album Women and Captains First include the song "Martha the Mouth".

Filmography

Panorama (1974) – guest host
The Martha Mitchell Effect (2022) – documentary of archival footage explores Mitchell's story as it pertains to the Watergate Scandal

Notes

References

Works cited