• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

McCall s "0 July 1973 4-i C MARTHA MITCHELL: J0 ,, *7..) THE DAY THE LAUGHING STOPPED AT FIRST SHE PROVIDED COMIC RELIEF. THEN SHE WAS LABELED "SICK." NOW, AS WE LEARN THE TRUTH, SHE IS EMERGING AS A KEY FIGURE—AND VICTIM—IN THE MYSTERY OF WATERGATE It seems incredible today that when Martha Mitchell first giving away what we now know to be the Watergate cover- telephoned UPI reporter Helen Thomas, almost exactly up. The first step was to keep her from learning for as a year ago, to say that she was leaving her husband until long as possible that the man in charge of her security, he quit as chairman of the Nixon reelection campaign, James McCord, was one of those caught at the break-in. no one took her seriously. One scans the newspaper It was this that led to her virtual imprisonment for a week clippings in disbelief. The wife of the former Attorney in a California motel. The second step was to establish General says, five days after the Watergate break-in, a new image for Martha that would insure that anything that she has given her husband an ultimatum. Asked she said would be discounted immediately. Martha how she felt about the ransacking and bugging of the Mitchell had to be transformed from an outspokenly Democratic National Headquarters, she replies, "I'm amusing Cabinet wife to a "sick woman" whose out- sick and tired of the whole operation." The New York bursts would not be taken seriously. Times buries this story on the bottom of page 12. After Both of those maneuvers worked extremely well. all, why make too much of anything Martha Mitchell We can now, for the first time, reconstruct the events says? Don't we know her to be official court jester, al- following the arrests at the Watergate that led to Martha ways good for an amusing little story with her late-night Mitchell's insistence on her husband's resignation from telephone calls, always good for a laugh? the campaign committee and to the headlines, MITCHELL The charge in the banner headline of the New York GIVES UP POLITICS FOR LOVE. Daily News, 'I'M A PRISONER OF GOP': MARTHA, that ap- A week before Watergate the Mitchells flew out to peared four days later would have been considered of California for a series of celebrity engagements tied to utmost gravity had it been made, say, by Mrs. Melvin Republican fund raising. Martha was much in demand Laird or Mrs. Spiro Agnew. But the News illustrates the for such occasions. On the weekend that the scandal headline with a half-page picture of Martha, taken three broke, she and her husband, along with First Lady Pat months earlier, her blond head held high, her mouth Nixon, were guests of honor at a lavish, Hollywood-style wide open, the caption reading, " 'Well, Shut My party in Beverly Hills, with Governor and Mrs. Reagan and Mouth....'" It recalls that her "hubby" was then re- such stars as John Wayne. The rest of the weekend was straining her from talking about the ITT affair. Ha-ha. filled with similar political-social-financial festivities. Very funny, that Martha Mitchell. John Mitchell and his close aide, Fred LaRue, heard The New York Times relegates this same story, in of the Watergate incident by phone on Saturday shortly which Martha speaks of the "dirty things that go on," to after it happened. The next day, Mitchell, still in Califor- page 25, and neither the Times nor the Washington Post nia, issued a statement denying any campaign-commit- nor the News has any mention of Watergate in it. tee complicity in or knowledge of the bugging; the state- Actually, the Watergate scandal might have been ex- ment addressed itself particularly to one of those posed much earlier had it not been for two swift and arrested, who had been identified as an employee of the deliberate moves designed to keep Martha Mitchell from President's reelection committee and the / turn to page 14 BY VIVIAN CADDEN 12 MCCALL'S, JULY 1973 continued the morning papers thrown away lest Mitchell and the President, after which Republican National Committee. Martha see them. the word went out that John Mitchell Mitchell referred to McCord vaguely But once they had left, Martha asked was giving up politics for the woman and impersonally as "this man" and Steve King, her security guard, to get he loved. "the person involved" and explained her the newspapers and there she read Eight days later Mitchell, relaxed, that he was "the proprietor of a private what had happened, as well as her hus- moved into the Washington office of security firm, which was employed by band's impersonal description of James his old law firm, which is also Nixon's our committee months ago to assist McCord. Martha apparently blew up. old law firm, and explained in a most with the installation of our security sys- It seems that for the next three days she low-key way that "my bride was tired tem." He went on to say, as if the in- gave her secretary, Lee Jablonski, and of traveling, tired of makina speeches, formation had merely drifted down to the security man, Steve King, a hard nervous about flying, and° 1 wasn't him, that McCord had, "as we under- time. around much to help. It was as simple stand it, a number of business clients Surely, had she known about the as that." and interests, and we have no knowl- Watergate arrests when her husband If it was not, in fact, quite as simple edge of those relationships." left for Washington, nothing could have as that, still it must be noted that John What the statement did not say was stopped her from going with him. Once Mitchell never did seek to attribute that among McCord's other duties as in Washington, given Martha's penchant Martha's embarrassing revelations to security chief for the reelection com- for honest talk, she would have raised any sickness or aberration on her part. mittee was the protection of Martha questions about the connection between He has sometimes been accused of Mitchell. Far from being "this man," McCord and the reelection committee showing a tolerance of his wife's antics he was someone whom Martha knew that did not come to light until months that borders on condescension. But, in "very well," as she later testified. Since later. fact, according to Winzola McLendon, Mitchell had stepped down as Attorney But it did not work out that way. In a Washington newswoman who is a General, Martha no longer had FBI the kind of protective custody in which close friend of Martha's and has spent men attending her. McCord was now in she was held in the California motel, a lot of time with her lately, "he thor- charge. He had personally checked on it was not until Thursday afternoon that oughly enjoys her pronouncements. Or Martha's telephones and made sure that Martha managed to call Helen Thomas he did enjoy them—let's put it that way." her apartment was free of any bugging. at UPI to say that she was determined Even when he had to label as "ridicu- He had X-rayed the furniture in it after to get her husband out of politics. The lous" her suggestion—in another of her Martha had reported getting a "death conversation ended "abruptly when it calls to reporter Helen Thomas in May threat" over her unlisted phone. appeared that somebody had taken the —that President Nixon resign, the brunt phone from her hand," Miss Thomas of his anger was directed at Miss AMitchell's reaction upon hearing of wrote. Reached at their Watergate Thomas for releasing the statement —V1 McCord's arrest was to keep the apartment, John Mitchell expressed rather than at his wife for making it. news from his wife as long as possible. "amusement" at his wife's turning to There is good reason to believe that, There is no evidence that at this stage her trademark, the telephone, and as- whatever reservations he may have Martha Mitchell knew anything at all sured the reporter of his intention to about Martha's outspokenness, Mitchell about the Watergate conspiracy. But get out of politics after the election. continues to protect his wife. Even peo- her husband realized that as soon as she At the motel, Steve King, the security ple who have met the former Attorney heard McCord's name her suspicions agent, has indeed wrenched the tele- General only casually report that his would be aroused, a host of questions phone out of Martha's hand, and within references to Martha are always laced triggered, an enormous blow-up set off. the next few days he yanks it out of the with tenderness and affection. One of McCord would bring the sordid busi- wall, destroys it, holds Martha down on her oldest and closest friends, who ness too close to home. a bed while a doctor he has summoned stayed with the Mitchells recently when Accordingly, he simply suggested that gives her a tranquilizing shot and sees the Watergate conspiracy blew wide instead of returning to Washington as to it that no more of her outgoing calls open, says, "The love in that home is just planned, Martha stay on in Califor- will be taken by the motel switchboard. fantastic." nia to get some rest and sunshine. All Martha is a prisoner during that first day Sunday the radio and TV carried week of the Watergate mess, and there oth John and Martha dote on their the news of the Watergate arrests, but is every reason to believe that, as she B daughter, Marty, who is 12, with somehow Mitchell and LaRue managed said later, "they left me there with no an affection that is, according to an old to keep it from Martha.

Load more

  3

Copy Link