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Filler Episode - Martha Mitchell
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We tried to record a new episode and failed spectacularly, so until conditions allow for a proper recording, here's a short episode that will become more relevant once the next full episode comes out. It's a look at the life of Martha Mitchell and the Effect that bears her name. Martha Mitchell was the wife of Nixon's Attorney General, who tried to blow the whistle on Watergate. An outspoken woman standing up to the most powerful men in the world, in the early 1970s? Surely that will turn out well for all involved.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:07
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Edison and Ian Denteth.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy in Auckland, New Zealand. I am Josh Addison and it's another solo episode for me. We've had some had some troubles recording an episode this week.
Martha Mitchell Effect Introduction
00:00:39
Speaker
There have been ah building works going on, and I don't know what exactly, in M's apartment in Guangzhou, which have made it too noisy to record an episode. and um And then M's gone and caught themselves a head cold. So what I'm going to do is record a little short filler episode now, but one that will be relevant to the episode we intend to record once we're able to. We're going to be looking at um a paper, another another academic paper by one of M's contemporaries. And in this paper, that makes mention of the Martha Mitchell effect. And when I saw that, I thought act that that would actually make a good topic for an episode, wouldn't it? we could We could talk about Martha Mitchell a little bit. And so since I now need to put together a short episode to to tide you over until we can record them properly, this one can be a little bit of a little bit of preparation.
00:01:32
Speaker
A little bit of advanced reading so that you know what we're talking about when we get to this paper um as soon as we're able to record it. So that's what this is going to be. just a short little episode talking about Martha Mitchell and the effect that is named after her.
00:01:51
Speaker
So the
Understanding the Martha Mitchell Effect
00:01:52
Speaker
Martha Mitchell effect is the name that's been given to the situation when someone's claims, someone's true claims about the world are written off as being delusional um in one way or another, um and then therefore symptomatic or evidence of some sort of mental illness. So basically a person a person says something, everyone says, oh, that's just crazy, though that person's crazy, and when in fact they were right all along.
00:02:18
Speaker
It is, of course, named after Martha Mitchell, who was the wife of John Mitchell, who was Richard Nixon's attorney general. And you can possibly see where this is going.
00:02:29
Speaker
But a bit of background first. Martha Mitchell, born in 1918 in Arkansas. um She moved to Washington, D.C. after World War Two. She was the the secretary to a brigadier general he was transferred and and she came along with him.
00:02:43
Speaker
ah She was married to an army officer in 1946, but they separated in 56 and divorced in 1957. And then in December of 1957, she married Manhattan-based lawyer John Mitchell.
00:02:56
Speaker
Now,
Martha Mitchell's Life and Marriages
00:02:57
Speaker
in 1966, Mitchell's law office merged with another law office to become Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Mitchell. So that's, yes, that Nixon.
00:03:07
Speaker
So the two of them were were were colleagues. I don't know how... ah The stuff I read said it wasn't clear whether or not they were actually good buddies, but they, they at the very least, knew and worked with each other.
00:03:18
Speaker
And that meant that when Nixon became president, he appointed John Mitchell as his attorney general. So that's where he is at this the point where Watergate occurs.
00:03:28
Speaker
Back to Martha. So once she was married to a high-priced lawyer living in Manhattan now, she became something of a something of a society lady, um a bit of a bit of a public figure. And she was known for being particularly outspoken in her opinions. um she She was conservative. She supported Richard Nixon and and was was quite happy for the fact that her husband was working for him.
00:03:49
Speaker
And she was known to ring up reporters of an evening and and have have a bit of a gossip really from the sounds of it. She would hear stuff, hear conversations her husband had been having and she'd sort of ring up and um and and let these reporters sort of could give them some inside insights for a bit of fun.
00:04:07
Speaker
and and and And besides that, just when she was out in public, she was known for being being quite forthright with her opinions, which earned her the nicknames marcia sorry Martha the Mouth or the Mouth of the South. We're referring to her Arkansas origins.
00:04:23
Speaker
So this this, of course, yeah because she was she was doing yeah telling reporters this, it would end up in the press. So
Watergate and John Mitchell
00:04:28
Speaker
her husband knew that, therefore, she she had the potential to be a bit of a security risk.
00:04:35
Speaker
ah And then Watergate happened. So for a refresher on the dates, the Watergate break-in happened on June the 17th of 1972. And then once the perpetrators were discovered and arrested, one of the people arrested was a man called James McCord.
00:04:51
Speaker
He was a former CIA officer who had been hired by the campaign to re-elect the president, CRP, or you've heard creep, I'm sure, in discussion of of Nixon's campaign in the Watergate Affair.
00:05:03
Speaker
ah So the CRP had had hired him to be their security chief. So obviously this this was known straight away. But initially when Watergate went down, and and recall, we've we've talked about this before, but it it actually took a couple of years um for for the truth to come out and for Nixon to finally resign.
00:05:22
Speaker
um So to begin with, the the CRP wanted to say, oh, yeah okay yes, sure, yes, yes. This guy, in McCord, who got arrested breaking in to to the Democratic Party officers at the Watergate.
00:05:34
Speaker
yeah Yeah, sure, he worked for us, but but he was a private security contractor. He had plenty of other clients, right? So there's no, you know, he got no proof that he was doing it for us. it's just He just happens to have, we are one of the people who he performs security duties for.
00:05:51
Speaker
Now, that was complicated by the fact that James McCord had previously been hired by John Mitchell as a personal security guard. He had been a security guard and a driver for Martha Mitchell and her daughter.
00:06:05
Speaker
So
Martha's Silencing and Kidnapping
00:06:06
Speaker
John Mitchell knew that if Martha found out that this James McCord had been arrested, she would very likely go to the press and say, hang on a second now, they've been telling you that he's got nothing to do with the CRP. Well, he's he you know he's he's worked for my husband for years. though yeah he's He's not just some some guy they picked out of the classifieds or something. He has much closer ties to my husband and therefore the afore the ah CRP than they are claiming.
00:06:32
Speaker
So John Mitchell did not want this to happen. So they were in California at the time that that the Watergate break-in happened. And as soon as John Mitchell was informed about it, he stuck her in a hotel under the eye of a man called Steve King, who was a former FBI agent who who at that time was working security for the Mitchells. And he instructed Mr. King to make sure that Martha, in the first place, didn't didn't hear any news about... as little as little about watergate as possible in particular for not to hear that john mccord had been arrested and in any case didn't want her talking to the press unfortunately mr king was unable to prevent martha from from reading a newspaper and she she did hear the news
00:07:18
Speaker
She did see the name James McCord and recognize it. And so then she tried to get in touch with John, with her husband, presumably to say, what the heck's going on? You've got to stop this. You've got to tell the truth or something. Now, he he wasn't returning. who he he had He had gone off. He had flown off to start trying to to to sort this out, to do damage control.
00:07:39
Speaker
She was trying to get in touch with him and he was refusing. He wasn't taking her calls. um all All of the aides that she spoke with said, oh, no, I can't put you through to him. And so she finally said to one of these aides, look, if I if i can't get in touch with him, my next call is going to be the press.
00:07:56
Speaker
And eventually, on the evening of June the 22nd, so this is this is only five days after the the Watergate break, and still very, very early on in the timeline of Watergate, she called a reporter called Helen Thomas, who was ah one she knew, one she'd talked with in the past.
00:08:13
Speaker
And she started talking about the the dirty politics her husband was involved in, said something about about saying she was going going to leave her husband if he didn't get out of this dirty business or something. But before she could give any details, the call was cut off.
00:08:27
Speaker
Helen Thomas would later say it sounded to her like the phone had been yanked off her, and she thought she heard Martha saying something like, get away, you get get away from me, before the line then suddenly went dead.
00:08:39
Speaker
um So she tried to call back, called the hotel where Martha had been staying, and the hotel staff who took a call just said that Martha was indisposed. um She then called John Mitchell and was able to get in touch with him and said, what what what's going on with your wife? And his response was apparently, that little sweetheart, I love her so much, she gets a little upset about politics, but she loves me and I love her and that's what counts.
00:09:03
Speaker
So just completely wrote off. any sort of concern that she might have displayed. so so So then nobody heard from Martha Mitchell for a few days. Eventually she left California, went back to New York, and people managed to find her and she managed to get in touch with a bunch of reporters.
00:09:20
Speaker
and gave her account of what had happened to anyone who would listen. So according to her, when she was on the phone to Helen Thomas, it was Mr. Steve King who grabbed the phone off her, and then when she tried grab the phone off her and hung up on her, when she then tried to leave the hotel, she was apparently wrestled to the ground by five men, five five different security agents, according to her,
00:09:45
Speaker
who held her down to prevent her from leaving and eventually a doctor who one of the sources i've read said had been had been sent to there by nixon's personal attorney who who who came and injected her with a tranquilizer to settle her down And she was, from the sounds of things, pretty much under house arrest. I mean, it's been referred to in multiple places as a kidnapping, what they did to her. You sort of think of a kidnapping as as taking someone else, but I guess refusing to let someone leave from a place that isn't there isn't their home.
00:10:18
Speaker
Certainly counts. So, and then a few days later, she was finally allowed to leave. So she told, so I've heard the phrase black and blue used a couple of times. I've heard it referred to the the first reporter who was able to track her down, referred to her as black and blue. I've also referred, seen that she supposedly said to Helen toffett Thomas, she's been left black and blue after her her rough treatment at the hands of these people. and And she said it was very clear that they did not want her to talk.
00:10:48
Speaker
But she did. Now, you'd think this would be front page news. Like the Watergate break, and obviously obviously the whole Watergate conspiracy, like the the truth of everything and how much Nixon and his administration were in on it wasn't known at this point. But it was still it was still news, the fact that that these guys had been caught breaking in in the first place. And you would think... that the wife of the attorney general saying, hey, my husband's men kidnapped and drugged me to stop me from saying what I know about Watergate would be equally big
Dismissal and Vindication
00:11:20
Speaker
news. But but but it wasn't.
00:11:22
Speaker
What reporting there was on the event, it was presented as, is it was like a human interest story. It was presented as just celebrity gossip. Here's what this hear what this this famous lady is saying that was, you know, relegated to the back pages of the newspaper. It wasn't treated as a serious news story at all. at all And part of the reason for that could be that immediately that this went down, the White House started spreading the story that Martha was basically a hysterical alcoholic. I think it was known that she'd, you know, when she'd give, when she'd have these, these late night calls with reporters, it was usually after enjoying a whiskey or two, but they painted her as a person with serious alcohol problems and possible mental illness who had,
00:12:05
Speaker
imagined or in some way hallucinated that she was basically making up. Everything she said about being being kidnapped and drugged and knowing stuff about the Watergate that that that the press wasn't being told was just written off as... as Just her being crazy. So not long after her husband resigned from the CRP, supposedly to spend more time with his family, that old cliche. And in this case, the although it was never said, the insinuation was, yes, he needs to take time off to deal with his wife's alcoholism and mental illness. you know It was all part of painting her as being completely unreliable.
00:12:42
Speaker
And so any time talk of this came up, whether whether she said it or whether someone in Nixon's administration was asked about it, it was like, oh, that's just Martha being Martha. And of course, this is the early 1970s. And that that level of of industrial scale misogyny was was par for the course and worked.
00:13:00
Speaker
So she was she was completely discredited. um She was made to to look a fool. She was presented, yeah as I say, she was a society a society figure, a public figure, a society lady. And now she had been made out to be a substance abuser with a mental illness. Her reputation was ruined. She was abandoned by most of her family. Her husband walked out on her, apparently without warning. He just he just left. in September of 1973, she was kind of left with nothing. Now, by 1975, she had been largely vindicated.
00:13:34
Speaker
she ah I should say, of course, in 1973... She had testified at ah at ah some sort of deposition when the Democratic Party was was um bringing a suit for the whole thing.
00:13:47
Speaker
she had She testified there. She had called on Nixon publicly to resign in 1973, which if if if if that's not when the um the talk about her started, that was certainly when it intensified.
00:13:58
Speaker
But by 1975, on January the first
00:14:03
Speaker
of nineteen seventy five her husband was convicted of perjury obstruction of justice and conspiracy and would go on to serve nineteen months in federal prison but at at that time they were still going through the divorce and there a matter of alimony and so on of being being being a housewife in the nineteen seventies i don't think she had a lot of um no No real income of her own.
00:14:24
Speaker
So she was still in and not and not in a good way. um Nixon, obviously, she she saw him eventually resign over it. and And while Steve King always denied having done the things to her that she claimed he did, James McCord, the man who she was going to identify eventually, um after he was convicted, he corroborated her story, presumably having heard about it from the people who were there.
00:14:47
Speaker
um and And yes, and and in his words, said she was basically kidnapped. So
Legacy and Vindication
00:14:51
Speaker
she did she did get vindicated, i suppose. Unfortunately, the the really sad thing is it was all kind of a bit too late. um She did live to see her husband jailed and Nixon resigned. But by 1975, she'd fallen ill with multiple myeloma, which apparently is a kind of blood cancer.
00:15:11
Speaker
And this was while she was still in an in an alimony dispute with John. So she had no money to her name. She had no close support. She did have public support in some quarters. There were Martha Mitchell was right, sort of yeah people people protesting and stuff like that. But her family had abandoned her. um And she eventually died in May of 1976.
00:15:31
Speaker
According to one of the one of the articles I read at her funeral, an anonymous donor arranged for a flower arrangement spelling out Martha Mitchell was right. to be displayed outside her funeral.
00:15:43
Speaker
So it was it was really a tragic end, unfortunately. This woman who was right, who was telling the truth, had her name dragged through the mud, had been accused of ah being an alcoholic, had had been labelled as having a mental illness, and had had her reputation completely ruined, to the extent that in the future that that that subsequently they would name a psychological effect after her. So any time now, if you see someone... if you hear of a case where a person who eventually was found out to be telling the truth was at the time doubted and guess i mean gas-lit i think is the word we would use these days completely um that's the marshall martha mitchell effect for you
00:16:26
Speaker
Later on, after her death um in his interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon would say, I'm convinced if it hadn't been for Martha, and God rest her soul, because she in her heart was a good person, she just had a mental and emotional problem that nobody knew about. if it hadn't been for Marsha, there'd have been no Watergate. Which, that last sentence, entirely true, everything that came before it just confirms how much of a dick Richard Nixon was.
00:16:51
Speaker
So that that is the the sad story of Martha Mitchell and the effect that bears her name. So um whenever we do are able to get back together and record a full episode, Em and I will be discussing a paper which makes mention of the Martha Mitchell effect. And now you'll know what we're talking about.
00:17:10
Speaker
So that's the end of this episode, I think. Just a short little one to keep you going. A few
Josh's Projects and YouTube Channel
00:17:15
Speaker
a few little little admin plugs at the end. Em mentioned last time that we do we we now have a YouTube channel set up. we We had YouTube videos a very long time ago, but nobody watched them. But then then it was suggested for for SEO purposes and what have you. it It's good to be for us to be found on YouTube. So we're now doing the absolute bare minimum po possible. to put videos up on YouTube. We're just taking the raw video feed, doing doing a very minor bit of editing and sticking it up there.
00:17:41
Speaker
So we've done one episode. We've only done one episode so far in that format, but Em has gone back and put video versions of a bunch of our older episodes up on the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy YouTube channel. So that's No actual video, just the audio of the podcast with ah a graphic over top. So if you're interested in getting your stuff through YouTube via whatever podcasting apparatus you're currently connected to, you can do that. And I guess the other thing i should do is once again plug my my return to internet webcomicry at the site monkeyfluids.com. If you're as old as me, maybe you remember it. But if you're as old as me, your memory might not be what it used to be. But it's a thing I did from 2006 to 2008. It's now 20 years later. And I thought I'd do it again for a little bit of fun.
00:18:29
Speaker
Once again, monkeyfluids.com. The name should possibly give you some idea what you're in for. So I think that's all. not ah not Not a pleasant tale, but um a good a good bit of background ah for a point that's going to come up when we next record an episode, which hopefully will be soon. But until then, I think all I have left to say is goodbye.
Podcast Credits and Contact Information
00:18:58
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy features Josh Addison and Associate Professor M.R. Extentis. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who was so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
00:19:12
Speaker
You can contact us electronically via podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or join our Patreon and get access to our Discord server. Or don't, I'm not your mum.
00:19:40
Speaker
And remember, bees.