Martha Mitchell, the Watergate scandel and reporters are linked. Find out how.
Martha Beall Mitchell was born on September 2, 1918, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She lived in a large, Victorian house and was spoiled by her wealthy parents. Outgoing and vivacious from the start, she was a popular girl with many friends. She was well known for her "gift of gab." When she graduated from Pine Bluff High school in 1936, she wrote in her yearbook, next to her picture, "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 attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Like many women during World War II, she went to work, toiling at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, but Martha was an old-fashioned Southern belle who believed that women should work only in times of dire need.
A brief first marriage produced a son, Jay. After divorcing, Martha moved to Washington and met attorney John Mitchell. They married on December 30, 1957, and Martha was surprised when she became pregnant at the age of 42. In 1961, she gave birth to a daughter, Marty.
The Mitchells were a popular Washington couple who were always entertaining or being entertained. Martha was the picture of Southern femininity in ruffled dresses, bows, big hair, and hats. John Mitchell seemed to adore his wife and was amused by her big mouth and love of gossip. When he was chosen by Richard Nixon to run his 1968 presidential campaign, Mitchell warned Nixon that Martha was vociferous and had a tendency to over-dramatize, but Nixon told him not to worry about it. After the election, John Mitchell became Nixon's attorney general, and Martha became a national figure, entertaining the public with her quick wit and flamboyant sense of style.
Things began to fall apart for Martha when the Watergate scandal exploded in October, 1972. The Washington Post reported that her husband, John, had authorized $250,000 to pay for bail and to hush up the Watergate burglars. Martha was apoplectic, believing the White house was using her husband as a scapegoat to protect Richard Nixon. Martha called Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two young reporters at the Post, to make her case that John was nothing but a puppet being manipulated by Nixon. Then she began to call other reporters, sometimes in the middle of the night. John Mitchell knew of his wife's shenanigans, and at first defended her, accusing the press of exploiting a naïve Southern girl. Soon Nixon was on his case, however, and John reportedly went so far as to lock Martha in a closet to keep her from phoning the press.
White House tapes reveal that Nixon, while angry at Martha, didn't feel there was much he could do to control her. The White House did, however, leak information on Martha's alleged drinking problem. A great strain had been put on the Mitchell marriage, and by 1973, John Mitchell had had it with his unstable wife. He walked out of their Washington apartment, refusing to speak to Martha except through his lawyer. The breakup was exceedingly bitter; when Mitchell was sentenced for his Watergate crimes in February 1975, he said, "It could have been worse. They could have sentenced me to spend the rest of my life with Martha Mitchell."
By that time, Martha was suffering from myeloma, a virulent bone marrow cancer with a very low cure rate. John Mitchell knew of his wife's condition, and called her doctors several times, but refused to speak to Martha or visit her. Most heartbreaking of all, Marty, Martha and John's daughter, sided with her father, and never again saw her mother. On May 30, 1976, Martha Mitchell was rushed to a hospital in Washington, where she fell into a coma from which she never regained consciousness. She died nineteen days later, at the age of 57. At the end, only her son Jay and a few friends were with her.
