The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (84 page)

49. WH memo for John Ehrlichman from H. R. Haldeman, [no subject], January 28, 1971, WHSF—SMOF, H. R. Haldeman, Box 196, NARA.

50. EN, January 28, 1971; see also Rosen, “About Kent State.”

51. Ken Clawson, “No U.S. Action Likely on Kent,”
Washington Post
, March 21, 1971. In December 1973, following the revelations of Watergate and continued public pressure, the Justice Department reversed itself and empaneled a federal grand jury in the case. Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger emphasized that the move reflected no judgment on Mitchell’s conduct. In March 1974, eight Guardsmen were indicted for violating the students’ due process rights; eight months later, all eight were acquitted. Likewise, the jury in a 1975 civil suit filed against the Guardsmen and public officials by the victims’ families found in favor of the defendants. That verdict was later overturned by a higher court, prompting a second civil trial in 1978–79. The case was ultimately settled out of court. The slain students’ parents received $15,000 each and $75,000 for attorneys’ fees; one paralyzed student received $350,000, while eight other wounded students received judgments ranging from $15,000 to $42, 500. As part of the settlement, twenty-eight Guardsmen signed a statement “deeply regretting” the shootings, while still maintaining that “some Guardsmen…may have believed in their own minds that their lives were in danger.” Charges against most of the twenty-five individuals indicted in Ohio for torching the ROTC building and other offenses were quietly dropped.

52. HN, September 9, 1970 (turn off); “Mitchell Assails ‘Stupid’ Students,”
New York Times
, September 19, 1970 (emphasis added); Hunter S. Thompson,
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72
(Warner Books, 1983), p. 467; Milton Viorst,
Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s
(Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 543. A spokesman sought to douse the furor caused by Mitchell’s attack on academia by issuing a weak nondenial (“comments attributed to the attorney general, apparently based on fragmentary and overheard conversations at a social gathering, are distorted and highly inaccurate”), but Mitchell more cannily resorted to humor, telling a university audience: “There are stupid students. I was one when I was in college” see Martin Weil, “Collegians Given Views of Mitchell,”
Washington Post
, September 27, 1970.

53. Author’s transcript of
Issues and Answers,
ABC News program, [aired] August 2, 1970, WHCA, Tape No. 3810, NARA.

54. NARA transcript, NT, Nixon-Colson-Haldeman, Conversation No. 482–27, Oval Office, April 19, 1971, 6:12–6:32 p.m., NARA.

55. Ibid.

56. NARA transcript, NT, Nixon-Haldeman-Kissinger, Conversation No. 484–13, Oval Office, April 20, 1971, 1:13 p.m.–1:24 p.m., NARA (forget the law, secretaries [emphasis added]).

57. Beal and Conliff,
Blacklisted News
, pp. 409–10 (evangelist, closing); David Gelber, “The Weathermen’s Solution Is Part of the Problem,”
The Village Voice
, March 26, 1970, reprinted in Goodman,
The Movement Toward a New America
, pp. 593–94 (banks); FBI memo from M. A. Jones to Mr. Bishop, December 16, 1971, Subject: Attorney General’s Press/ Conference, FBIM. Years later, Davis strongly denied advocating the closing of the Pentagon or the burning of banks; see e-mail to the author from Rennie Davis, July 30, 2004.

58. “Wild in the Streets: After Kent,” in Beal and Conliff,
Blacklisted News
, p. 409 (boldest and costliest); Davis interview; Parker,
Violence in the U.S.
, pp. 211–13 (manual).

59. “Mitchell Expects Violence to Come,”
New York Times
, April 25, 1971.

60. James Reston, “The Leaderless Rabble,”
New York Times
, May 5, 1971 (personally); Wells,
The War Within
, p. 486 (plain); “Youths Mass in Potomac Park,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 1, 1971; Fred Barnes, “10,000 Troops to Be Brought into Area,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 2, 1971. As late as ten days before May Day, authorities were estimating crowds of only 4,000; see Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 75.

61. G. Gordon Liddy,
Will
(St. Martin’s, 1997), p. 144.

62. “Youths Mass in Potomac Park,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 1, 1971 (abridging); Wells,
The War Within
, pp. 499–500 (370). The
Evening Star
reported 339 arrests. Williams eventually came round to Mitchell’s political views, endorsing Ronald Reagan for president in 1980.

63. Linda Wertheimer, ed.,
Listening to America: Twenty-Five Years in the Life of a Nation, as Heard on National Public Radio
(Houghton Mifflin, 1995), pp. 1–3 (scented, 318,000); “City Shutdown Foiled, 6,000 Protesters Held,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 3, 1971 (normal).

64. Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 77.

65. Wells,
The War Within
, pp. 500–12 (Halloween, ugly mobs); Beal and Conliff,
Blacklisted News
, pp. 412–13 (war zone, grotesque).

66. HN, May 3, 1971; WI [Ehrlichman], November 20, 1985 (overplay); “City Shutdown Foiled,”
Washington Evening Star
(flowing).

67. Wells,
The War Within
, pp. 506–7 (broken); “2,000 March to Protest at Justice Dept.,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 4, 1971 (power, pigs);
CBS Evening News
, May 4, 1971 (carnival); “The F.B.I. Homes in and Gets Its Man,”
New York Times
, May 5, 1971 and “The FBI Muffles an Echo,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 5, 1971 (Froines).

68. Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 80 (arrest and release figures); “City Shutdown Foiled,”
Washington Evening Star
(young, white); Beal and Conliff,
Blacklisted News
, p. 413 (lost the revolution). May Day cost Washington taxpayers $3.9 million, while a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later resulted in a $12 million judgment; see Wells,
The War Within
, pp. 503–13. Then assistant attorney general William Rehnquist told newsmen “qualified martial law” applied on May Day; see Woody West, “Justice Official Defends Procedure in Arrests,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 6, 1971.

69. Fred P. Graham, “Mitchell Urges All Police Copy Capital’s Tactics,”
New York Times
, May 11, 1971; Wells,
The War Within
, p. 511 (polls); “The Mob and the Law,”
Washington Evening Star
, May 5, 1971 (willfully, effectively).

70. Dana Beal, “I Remember Martha,”
YIPster Times
, June/July 1976 (Free Martha); “How We Got Nixon Before He Got Us” (shatter); and “The Legacy of 1970” (joke), all reprinted in Beal and Conliff,
Blacklisted News
, pp. 43, 343, 445; David Sheff, “Timothy Leary,”
Rolling Stone
, December 10, 1987; Davis interview; Ayers interview; Rudd interview.

THE COMEDOWN

1. FBI memo from J. P. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, December 17, 1969, Subject Protection of the Attorney General; FBIM.

2.
Newsweek
, September 8, 1969.

3. “Senate Bars Haynsworth, 55–45,”
New York Times
, November 22, 1969; “Senate Rejects Carswell by 51–45 Margin,”
New York Times
, April 9, 1970; David Frost,
I Gave Them a Sword: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon-Frost Interviews
(Wm. Morrow, 1978), p. 157.

4. Jude Wanniski, “Disenchantment Over Mitchell Grows in Ranks of Republicans,”
National Observer
, April 20, 1970; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Mitchell Has Not Mastered His Job, Republican Senators Now Believe,”
Washington Post
, April 20, 1970; “Mitchell Should Go,”
Life
, April 17, 1970; Oberdorfer, “Mitchell’s Power” (capital, blood).

5. THD, 109–10; Rehnquist interview; John Ehrlichman, interview with author, March 13, 1992; Kissinger interview; Haldeman interview.

6. HN, December 3, 1969; Oberdorfer, “Mitchell’s Power.”

7. Delaney, “Mitchell’s Wife Says.”

8. Dan Rather and Gary Paul Gates,
The Palace Guard
(Warner Books, 1975), p. 55 (gray-haired); Harriet Van Horne, “Tempering Justice,”
New York Post
, November 24, 1969; “Mitchell Comments on Wife’s Comments,”
New York Times
, November 25, 1969; Associated Press, “Violence Top Peril: Mitchell,”
New York Daily News
, November 24, 1969.

9. Fischer, “Warbler of Watergate” “Eye Too, Eye Too,”
Women’s Wear Daily
, March 20, 1970. Many liberals likened Martha to Marie Antoinette; see Paul Healy, “Martha Always Says Mouthful,”
New York Sunday News
, April 19, 1970.

10. Robertson, “Martha Mitchell” McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 112–13.

11. White House memo from The President to Mr. Haldeman, [no subject], December 1, 1969 [I and II], reprinted in Oudes,
From: The President
, pp. 74–76; McLendon,
Martha
, p. 109 (Dear Martha); Robert H. Phelps, “Comments Cost Mrs. Mitchell Her Office,”
New York Times
, December 19, 1969.

12. UPI, “Mrs. Mitchell Called an Arm Twister,”
Newsday
, December 9, 1969; Isabelle Shelton, “Mrs. Mitchell Tried to Twist Some Arms,”
Long Island Press
, December 15, 1969; McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 112–13; UPI, “Mrs. Mitchell Won’t Toe Designers’ Fashion Line,”
New York Times
, March 22, 1970 (nightgown). McLendon asserted, without substantiation, that Martha made the “arm-twisting” calls at Mitchell’s behest.

13. Chennault,
The Education of Anna
, pp. 173–99; Isabelle Shelton, “Martha Mitchell Plays Role to the Hilt,”
Long Island Press
, March 29, 1970 (Percy).

14. McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 121–22; Dorothy McCardle, “Women’s Lib for Mrs. Mitchell?”
Washington Post
, April 13, 1970; Healy, “Martha Always Says Mouthful” Robertson, “Martha Mitchell.”

15. HN, April 11, 1970.

16. Myra MacPherson, “Press Aide,”
Washington Post
, April 11, 1970; Healy, “Martha Always Says Mouthful.”

17. McLendon,
Martha
, p. 123; Healy, “Martha Always Says Mouthful.” Isabelle Hall, “Martha’s Mail: 10 to One in Her Favor,”
Washington Post
, April 20, 1970. McCardle, “Women’s Lib” Judith Michaelson, “She’d Love to Go Back to the Kitchen,”
New York Post
, April 25, 1970; Robertson, “Martha Mitchell” Myra MacPherson, “Laughing Along with Martha,”
Washington Post
, May 13, 1970. Ten of eleven letters supported Martha, the
Washington Post
reported. “I should have married someone like you,” wrote a Tampa man. An Oregonian declared: “We need a lady like you for president—someone who will tell it like it is.” But many resented Martha’s outspokenness. “I can now understand why the Attorney General always has such a dour look,” wrote a Minneapolis woman. “He probably has ulcers which you helped give him.” A San Francisco woman clucked at “such a little mind in a big head,” while a Dallas man asked: “Have you ever tried being quiet?”

18. THD, 149; HN, April 13, 1970 (emphasis in original). In annotations he added to his diary in the early 1990s, Haldeman wrote: “Martha’s behavior was…due to both emotional and drinking problems. It was a source of embarrassment to both John and the administration. However, John was always patient with her.”

19. HN, April 15, 1970 (talk to John), May 18, 1970. Haldeman’s corresponding diary entry reads: “[The president] says Mitchell has to go unless he can solve the Martha problem” see THD, 167.

WATCH WHAT WE DO

1. Makay and Brown,
The Rhetorical Dialogue.

2. Mike Wallace and Gary Paul Gates,
Close Encounters
(Morrow, 1984), p. 130; Viorst, “‘The Justice Department’” (colored). Questioned closely about this passage, Wallace recalled: “I was stunned at his candor, not surprised especially to hear him say that…Bought doesn’t necessarily mean money—well it does mean corrupted, but it doesn’t necessarily mean cash; it means
quid pro quo
.” Did Shakespeare really kick Mitchell under the table? “Shakespeare knew the kind of reporter I was, and he wasn’t absolutely certain that I would necessarily abide by the ‘off-the-record’ background lunch protocol that had been set up. I don’t know that he kicked him, but it was more than a nudge.” See Mike Wallace, interview with author, October 26, 1997.

3. Hal Bruno, interview with author, April 13, 2002; confidential source interview with author (kike).

4. Peter Golden,
Quiet Diplomat: Max M. Fisher
(Cornwall, 1992), pp. 205–7; Yitzhak Rabin,
The Rabin Memoirs
(University of California Press, paperback ed., 1996), p. 165 (Rabin also recalled Mitchell saying in November 1972: “If you need a good campaign manager, I’m available!”). Ed Koch, then a Democratic congressman, also recalled that Mitchell, with help from Minority Leader Gerald Ford, “made it possible for
unlimited
numbers of Soviet Jews and non-Jews to enter the United States under refugee status known as ‘parole status.’” “For that alone,” Koch said, “[Mitchell] should receive some mercy, no matter where he has been consigned—purgatory or hell—for his misdeeds” see letter from Ed Koch to the author, March 19, 1993 (emphasis added).

5. Nixon,
RN
, p. 543 (statistics); Harris,
Justice
, pp. 180–81; Viorst, “‘The Justice Department’” (“Fink”).

6. “Fighting Crime in America,”
U.S. News & World Report
.

7. The President’s News Conference of February 6, 1969. Mitchell’s proposal to substitute legal action for funding cutoffs had long been advocated by John Doar, the assistant attorney general for civil rights under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson—and later Mitchell’s cross-examiner at the House impeachment committee during Watergate; see Hugh Davis Graham,
The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy
(Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 320.

8. HN, February 17, 1969 (reign); John Robert Greene,
The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations
(Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 43; Leon E. Panetta and Peter Gall,
Bring Us Together: The Nixon Team and the Civil Rights Retreat
(J. B. Lippincott, 1971), pp. 61–73.