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During Watergate, John Mitchell Left His Wife. She Called Bob Woodward.
WP EXCLUSIVE
During Watergate, John Mitchell Left His Wife. She Called Bob Woodward.
‘Please nail him’: The untold story of how Martha Mitchell took revenge against her husband
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
June 7, 2022 at 8:52 a.m. EDT
Martha and John Mitchell in 1971. (Bettmann Archive)
There was no mistaking the voice on the other end of the phone line. That twangy timbre. Brash and sass. Undiluted Arkansas Delta. ... Bob Woodward had heard this voice before. So when he answered his desk phone in the Washington Post newsroom that Sunday in the spring of 1974 he didn’t have to strain to realize he was talking to Martha Mitchell, the mercurial wife of President Richard Nixon’s former attorney general, the corrupt, pipe-smoking John Mitchell.
Portrayed by Julia Roberts in a Starz miniseries that started airing this spring, Martha Mitchell was something of a star in those days in Washington. She had style. She laughed loudest. She piled that marvelous thick blond hair higher and higher. In an era when the men ran most everything, she said what she wanted — and did what she wanted. She may have been married to one of the most famous men in Washington, but she refused to be defined as a “wife of” someone.
She considered herself to be someone. She was, as the papers sometimes put it, “Washington’s other Martha.” The capital crowd called her “The Mouth of the South.” She was almost impossible to control — though her husband and his thuggish crew tried.
On this particular Sunday, Martha was calling Woodward with an invitation. Her husband, recently indicted for a second time in the cascading Watergate scandal, had left her, moving out of their Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan. Would Woodward and his reporting partner, Carl Bernstein — she always pronounced it, incorrectly, as “bern-STINE” ― like to come up and look through her husband’s home office?
{snip}
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/395RDRj
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Manuel Roig-Franzia is a feature writer in The Washington Post’s Style section, where he profiles national figures in the worlds of politics, the law and the arts. He previously served as bureau chief in Miami for The Post's National staff and in Mexico City for the Post's Foreign staff. He is the author of a biography of Sen. Marco Rubio. Twitter https://twitter.com/RoigFranzia
During Watergate, John Mitchell Left His Wife. She Called Bob Woodward.
‘Please nail him’: The untold story of how Martha Mitchell took revenge against her husband
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
June 7, 2022 at 8:52 a.m. EDT
Martha and John Mitchell in 1971. (Bettmann Archive)
There was no mistaking the voice on the other end of the phone line. That twangy timbre. Brash and sass. Undiluted Arkansas Delta. ... Bob Woodward had heard this voice before. So when he answered his desk phone in the Washington Post newsroom that Sunday in the spring of 1974 he didn’t have to strain to realize he was talking to Martha Mitchell, the mercurial wife of President Richard Nixon’s former attorney general, the corrupt, pipe-smoking John Mitchell.
Portrayed by Julia Roberts in a Starz miniseries that started airing this spring, Martha Mitchell was something of a star in those days in Washington. She had style. She laughed loudest. She piled that marvelous thick blond hair higher and higher. In an era when the men ran most everything, she said what she wanted — and did what she wanted. She may have been married to one of the most famous men in Washington, but she refused to be defined as a “wife of” someone.
She considered herself to be someone. She was, as the papers sometimes put it, “Washington’s other Martha.” The capital crowd called her “The Mouth of the South.” She was almost impossible to control — though her husband and his thuggish crew tried.
On this particular Sunday, Martha was calling Woodward with an invitation. Her husband, recently indicted for a second time in the cascading Watergate scandal, had left her, moving out of their Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan. Would Woodward and his reporting partner, Carl Bernstein — she always pronounced it, incorrectly, as “bern-STINE” ― like to come up and look through her husband’s home office?
{snip}
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/395RDRj
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Manuel Roig-Franzia is a feature writer in The Washington Post’s Style section, where he profiles national figures in the worlds of politics, the law and the arts. He previously served as bureau chief in Miami for The Post's National staff and in Mexico City for the Post's Foreign staff. He is the author of a biography of Sen. Marco Rubio. Twitter https://twitter.com/RoigFranzia
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
There was no such thing as social media back then, but Martha Mitchell's name in any story headline drew a lot of attention. That's why she was featured in so many stories in newspapers, magazines and TV. However the pundits were usually belittling her behind her back, using her name to get people's attention. Martha wasn't given serious consideration most of the time. It was always a hidden smirk, a raised eyebrow, or a muffled guffaw while they were reporting their stories of Martha. No woman has been treated with such little respect in almost 50 years.
