The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (94 page)

BLEED FOR ME

1.
CBS Morning News
, April 5, 1974.

2. Russell Long, interview with author, May 10, 1996.

3. Harry Schlegel, “Martha: Let Mayor Switch,”
Daily News
, March 8, 1971 (defender); “Washington’s Own Martha,”
Newsweek
, November 30, 1970 (liberated); Myra MacPherson, “Nixon Tells Martha to Keep Punching,”
Washington Post
, May 27, 1970 (respect); Healy, “Martha Always Says Mouthful” (strawberry); Michaelson, “She’d Love to Go Back” (charm). “I just resent this women’s lib business,” Martha reaffirmed; see
CBS Evening News
, March 1, 1973.

4. Thomas O’Toole, “Martha and the Moon Rocks,”
Washington Post
, February 13, 1971; Shelton, “Martha Mitchell Plays Role” (river); “Mrs. Mitchell Assails Court’s ‘Nine Old Men,’”
New York Times
, April 22, 1971; “An Early Morning Interview with Martha Mitchell,”
Washington Post
, February 20, 1971 (Barbara Walters); Schlegel, “Martha: Let Mayor Switch.”

5. Michaelson, “She’d Love to Go Back” (ten to twenty, slaves); “The Southern Belle,”
Washington Post
, May 24, 1970 (colored, Negroes); Kandy Stroud, “Between Bites with Martha,”
Women’s Wear Daily
, January 25, 1971 (Jewish race).

6. Michaelson, “She’d Love to Go Back” (sick); “The Southern Belle,”
Washington Post
(wonderful); “Mrs. Mitchell Said to Have F.B.I. Guard,”
New York Times
, July 14, 1970 (Canada); Associated Press, “Martha: ‘The War Stinks,’”
Washington Post
, September 8, 1970; Thomas,
Dateline
, pp. 231–32.

7. Dorothy McCardle, “Just One of the Boys: Mitchell Party Hears High-Level Humor,”
Washington Post
, March 8, 1971.

8. Jennings interview; WH transcript of Ehrlichman–[Martha] Mitchell conversation, WHSF—SMOF, JDE Subject File, 1971 telephone conversations, Box 28, NARA. Asked why Martha never prevailed on John Mitchell to get her son deployed stateside—a favor well within his power to perform—Jennings explained: “My feeling was that…I wasn’t any better than anyone else. And if this [being sent to Vietnam] happened, it was meant to happen, and I didn’t want anybody interfering with it…. So I remember going to Key Biscayne, and I got John Mitchell alone and I explained to him that I had orders to Vietnam, and that I felt I should go, and that I was concerned that…if my mother found out that I was going, that she’d stop it somehow…. I’d felt at that point that John Mitchell would be an understanding stepfather, given his World War II combat experience…. And he did understand, and he said he respected my decisions and he would make sure that he didn’t tell my mother.”

9. Ehrlichman interview.

10. Harries interview; Chennault,
The Education of Anna
, pp. 173–99; Maxine Cheshire with John Greenya,
Maxine Cheshire, Reporter
(Houghton Mifflin, 1978), pp. 152–58.

11. Confidential sources, author interview (pregnant, women, affair); William F. Buckley Jr., “John Mitchell, R.I.P.,”
National Review
, December 9, 1988; J. Robert Mitchell interview.

12. Action for a Separation, New York State Supreme Court,
Martha Mitchell v. John N. Mitchell
, May 10, 1974 (cruel and inhuman); Affidavit of Stephan H. Peskin, New York State Supreme Court, January 28, 1975 (leadership, Watergate break-in and cover-up); both in WCHC.

13. Answer to Complaint,
Mitchell v. Mitchell
, February 27, 1975, WCHC (disregarded, justify, alcohol, unfit, harassment); letter to Susie Morrison from John Mitchell, [undated; late 1973], provided to the author by Morrison (sick). Martha denied Mitchell’s accusations, arguing she was “in all respects a dutiful wife [who] maintained her home in a loving and devoted manner” see Complaint Action for Separation, Index No. 33052/74, [undated; 1974–1975], WCHC.

14. Mitchell charged his belongings were “thrown into a heap on the floor of the foyer” of the Fifth Avenue apartment. Martha’s lawyer lamely countered that his client had merely “placed in the foyer [Mitchell’s belongings] so they could be picked up” see Affidavit of William C. Herman, August 12, 1975, WCHC.

15. Affidavit of Lloyd George Soll in
Soll, Connelly, and Marshall v. John N. Mitchell
, New York State Supreme Court, Index No. 15550–1974, [filed] January 3, 1976, WCHC; UPI, “Mrs. Mitchell Says Her Husband Left Her on Lawyers’ Advice,”
New York Times
, September 17, 1973. That Mrs. Mitchell had good reason to believe her marriage was soon to dissolve was evident from the
New York Times
headline of August 27, 1973—fifteen days before Mitchell walked out—that read: “A Friend Reports Mrs. Mitchell Plans to Ask Separation.”

16. Affidavit of Richard Creditor, October 22, 1975, WCHC.

17. Affidavit of John N. Mitchell, August 18, 1975, WCHC.

18. Creditor affidavit (cut back); Affidavit by John N. Mitchell, October 1974, WCHC.

19. Mitchell affidavit, October 1974 (abused, largesse, changed, severe, sustain, expected, phone, dry cleaning, realty); Affidavit of Marvin B. Segal, October 30, 1974 (Amtrak, exorbitant), WCHC.

20. Segal affidavit. The $90,000 Mitchell had spent on lawyers’ fees was, according to Segal, “over and above any legal fees paid” in his behalf by the Nixon campaign committee, which demanded Mitchell be acquitted on all criminal charges before it would cover any of his legal costs. Nor would Mitchell’s lawyers cut him the slack of advancing his fees, claiming they were “prohibited” from doing so.

21. Creditor affidavit; Segal affidavit; Order of Hon. Manuel A. Gomez, Justice, Supreme Court of the State of New York, December 2, 1974, WCHC.

22. Handwritten note [no addressee] from Martha Mitchell, attached to U.S. Individual Income Tax Return[1040] form, 1973, Martha Beall Mitchell; U.S. Individual Income Tax Return [1040] form, 1973, John N. and Martha B. Mitchell; letter to Martha Mitchell from William C. Herman, April 16, 1975; and letter to Marvin B. Segal from William C. Herman, Re:
Mitchell v. Mitchell
, April 28, 1975; all in WCHC.

23. Affidavit of Marvin B. Segal, February 1975, WCHC; Rhoda Amon, “Martha Mitchell: ‘I’m Basically a Housewife,’”
Newsday
, March 9, 1975 (your fault).

24. Complaint Action for Separation, Index No. 33052/74, [undated; February 28, 1975], WCHC; McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 223–

25. McLendon’s claim generated significant press coverage; see, for example, “John Mitchell’s Martha Tells All,”
New York Post
, May 17, 1979. “John Mitchell never pulled any punches,” the tabloid reported, “except, perhaps, for the one he threw at his late wife, Martha, knocking out one of her front teeth.”

25. UPI, “Mrs. Mitchell Says Her Husband Left Her” (never had a fight). On Martha’s altercation with Marty, see “Martha Admits Scuffling with Daughter at School,”
New York Post
, December 12, 1974; and McLendon,
Martha
, p. 386.

26. Ernest Leogrande, “Off the Shelves,”
Daily News
, September 17, 1975.

27. UPI, “Martha Mitchell Has Blood Disease,”
New York Times
, October 6, 1975; Associated Press, “Doctor Reports Martha Mitchell Has a Malignant Bone Disease,”
New York Times
, October 8, 1975; William Hines, “Martha Has Bone Cancer,”
New York Post
, October 8, 1975; Donnie Radcliffe, “Flamboyant Martha Mitchell Dies at 57,”
Washington Post
, June 1, 1976 (ribs, vertebrae).

28. “Aftermath: Martha Mitchell,”
Washington Post
, April 18, 1976 (paying the bills); McClendon,
Martha
, p. 446 (ignore); Hundley interview (barred); Fleming interview.

29. “Aftermath,”
Washington Post
(fractured); “Martha Has an Operation Here; Is OK,”
Daily News
, April 21, 1976 (thin, weak); “Martha Mitchell,”
New York Times
, April 21, 1976 (spirits).

30. Affidavit of Martha Mitchell, May 12, 1976; Affidavit of John N. Mitchell, May 17, 1976; Affidavit of Marvin B. Segal, May 17, 1976 (exacerbate), all in WCHC.

31. Order of Hon. Manuel A. Gomez, Justice, Supreme Court of the State of New York, May 20, 1976; “Notes on People,”
New York Times
, May 21, 1976 ($36,000); letter to Linda Francis from William C. Herman, July 2, 1976; and letter to Catherine Foster from William C. Herman, July 12, 1976.

32. Harry Stathos, “Martha Mitchell, 57, Dies of Cancer,”
Daily News
, June 1, 1976; Radcliffe, “Flamboyant Martha” McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 422–23.

33. McLendon,
Martha
, pp. 427, 443–51; Dorothy McCardle, “Martha’s Party at Blair House,”
Washington Post
, November 20, 1970.

HANDS OF THE GODS

1. Author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Haig, Conversation No. 434-9, EOB Office, May 9, 1973, 6:35 p.m. to 8:26 p.m.

2. Drossman and Knappman,
Watergate
, pp. 80–84. Agnew formally acknowledged taking payments in 1967 “and other years,” but denied they “in any way” influenced his official actions. Elsewhere he protested his innocence; see Aaron Latham, “Spiro Agnew Looks for a Good Time,”
Playboy
, August 1977; and Spiro T Agnew,
Go Quietly…or else
(Wm. Morrow, 1980). In judging Mitchell “guilty” along with Agnew, Cazenovia College professor John Robert Greene cited a previously unpublished tape from April 14, 1973, featuring Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman. On the tape, Haldeman can be heard relaying the vice president’s claim that Joel Kline, a Maryland businessman who pleaded guilty to numerous crimes before cooperating in the Agnew probe, had, at some unspecified time, visited Mitchell’s office carrying “a bag of cash which he turned over to Mitchell and which…was allegedly involved in [Kline] receiving some very good government contracts.” Greene, however, ignored Haldeman’s prefatory remark that Agnew had told this story “to scare us into being worried about his case.” Ehrlichman said only that he had heard the same story from David Shapiro, Charles Colson’s lawyer; Nixon was incredulous: “I can’t believe that John Mitchell would take money in his office.” The truth emerged more than a year later, during a bench conference in
U.S. v. Mitchell
, when Mitchell’s attorney told Judge Sirica: “Mr. Colson made an allegation to Mr. Ehrlichman that somehow Mr. Mitchell was taking kickbacks from a Baltimore contractor. Now when that was going to come out before the Ervin committee, Mr. Colson’s lawyer, Mr. Shapiro, called me up and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you know that information we passed on was entirely wrong’” see UVM, 9804–05. Neither Agnew’s memoir nor the definitive account of his case, by two
Washington Post
reporters, contained any such allegations against Mitchell; see John Robert Greene,
The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations
(Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 166–87; Agnew,
Go Quietly
; and Richard M. Cohen and Jules Witcover,
A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
(Bantam, 1974). Alexander Haig believed Agnew’s downfall was part of a “conspiracy” by the Democrats. “They already were in liaison with the Baltimore investigation,” Haig said. “They saw the prospect of a converging double-impeachment, and the turnover of the government to the Speaker of the House [Carl Albert], a Democrat—and also a drunk.” Haig recalled that when he was named chief of staff, in April 1973, Democratic lawyer Joe Califano warned: “Al, don’t do it.” Asked why, Califano replied: “Don’t you know we have this guy?
We got both of ’em!
” Agnew’s grand jury probe was not yet publicly known; see Haig interview.

3. Levine (decisive); Thompson,
The Nixon Presidency
, p. 144 (ticket); letter to the author from Spiro T. Agnew, March 20, 1993 (business); CI, July 10 and August 13, 1986 (decent). As his troubles grew, Agnew offered an olive branch to the news media, against which he was the first national figure, in November 1969, to raise the cry of liberal bias. “I do not apologize for the content of my early criticism,” he said, “but I freely admit that it could have been stated less abrasively” see
CBS Morning News
, May 3, 1973.

4. Richard Ben-Veniste and George Frampton Jr.,
Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution
(Simon & Schuster, 1977), p. 357; Ostrow, “Mitchell Offered to Take Cover-up Blame” Emery,
Watergate
, pp. 487–92; James Neal, interview with author, May 20, 1992. Daniel Schorr reported that the government offered Mitchell a one-count plea, which he refused, and that he made an unspecified counteroffer, which the prosecutors refused; see
CBS Evening News
, February 27, 1974. John Dean claimed Mitchell was still plea-bargaining after Nixon resigned; see Dean,
Blind Ambition
, p. 363.

5. “The Watergate Indictments,”
CBS Evening News,
[aired] March 1, 1974; Anthony Ripley, “Federal Grand Jury Indicts 7 Nixon Aides on Charges of Conspiracy on Watergate; Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell on List” Bill Kovach, “Ruling by Sirica Imposes Silence on All Concerned” and Linda Charlton, “The Scene in Sirica’s Court: A Historic 13 Minutes,” all in
New York Times
, March 2, 1974; “The Indictments,”
New York Times
, March 3, 1974;
CBS Evening News
, March 9, 1974 (
Sieg Heil!
); Anthony Ripley, “7 Ex-Nixon Aides Plead Not Guilty to Cover-up Plot,”
New York Times
, March 10, 1974; “The Trials of the Grand Jury,”
Time
, March 11, 1974; Emery,
Watergate
, p. 489 (strategy); Leon Jaworski,
The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate
(Reader’s Digest Press, 1976), p. 109; Ben-Veniste and Frampton,
Stonewall
, pp. 249–50; and Seymour M. Hersh, “Nixon’s Last Cover-up: The Tapes He Wants the Archives to Suppress,”
New Yorker
, December 14, 1992, which featured the first publication of Mitchell’s arraignment photos, commonly known as “mug shots.”

6. Letters to Susie Morrison from John Mitchell, [undated; 1973–74], provided to the author by Morrison.