Martha Mitchell was a political wife and national celebrity.
Background
Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell was born on September 2, 1918, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She was the only child of George Virgil Beall, a cotton broker, and Arie Ferguson, a teacher of elocution. She had a half-brother from her mother's first marriage, which had ended in divorce.
Education
Martha Mitchell attended a private school for six years before transferring to the local public school; a move that was caused by her father's financial losses in the market crash of 1929. After graduating from Pine Bluff High School in 1937, she attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, for one year, the University of Arkansas for a year, and the University of Miami for two-and-a-half years before earning a B. A. in history in 1942. After one unhappy year of teaching in Mobile, Alabama, she returned to Pine Bluff, trained as a certified Red Cross volunteer-aide, and then worked at the local hospital for a year.
Career
In May 1945, Martha Mitchell was employed as a receptionist to the commanding officer at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. When the commander was transferred to Washington, D. C. , in July 1945, she requested reassignment with him. She was employed for the next year at the Office of the Chief Chemical Warfare Service, where she became a research analyst. After the birth of their only son, the Jenningses moved into Manhattan, and around 1954, Martha Jennings went to work for the Plymouth Shops, first as a sales clerk and later as an assistant buyer. In 1968, President Richard M. Nixon appointed John Mitchell, his former law partner and campaign manager, United States attorney general. The Mitchells moved to Washington, D. C. , where Martha Mitchell immediately set her own style as a political wife. She did not observe the traditional reserve and decorum expected of most cabinet spouses, saying she saw no reason why a wife should not speak for herself. Mitchell became most famous for her middle-of-the-night phone calls to the press. One call to the Arkansas Gazette demanded that they "crucify" Senator J. William Fulbright for his opposition to a Nixon Supreme Court nominee. Although her public statements sometimes were politically embarrassing to the administration, during the first Nixon term both the president and John Mitchell seemed tolerant of and even amused by her outspokenness. President Nixon encouraged the "spunky" Martha to "give'em hell, " and John Mitchell called her his "unguided missile" who made him laugh.
In March 1972, John Mitchell resigned as attorney general to head Nixon's reelection campaign. Martha Mitchell, as a prominent speaker, had been a member of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) for over a year. Members of Nixon's staff complained that they found working with Martha Mitchell difficult. One Nixon aide described her as "a southern charmer one moment, and absolutely impossible the next. " As long as she remained ardently pro-Nixon, however, her peccadilloes and difficult behavior were tolerated.
After the Watergate break-in in June 1972, she was suddenly viewed as an embarrassment and a threat. She learned of the break-in while on a trip to California where she was attending Nixon reelection functions. Mitchell later recounted a harrowing story of being forcibly restrained in a California hotel room by a CREEP security agent who pulled her telephone out of the wall after she called a member of the press. She also reported that she had been injected with a sedative against her will. After being detained for several days in California, she flew to Westchester County, New York, where she related her ordeal to a reporter before again being given a security guard. After the California incident was publicized, one segment of the press circulated stories from so-called inside sources that she was mentally ill and an alcoholic. Others, especially women reporters who had gotten to know Martha Mitchell, argued that she was being victimized by Nixon loyalists. Shortly afterward, John Mitchell resigned as Nixon's campaign manager, citing concern for his wife's happiness and welfare. The couple returned to Manhattan. In early 1973, as the Watergate investigation began to implicate her husband, Mitchell publicly accused "Mr. President" of being deeply involved in the Watergate affair. She condemned Nixon for letting her husband and others take the blame and demanded that the president resign, predicting that if he did not, he would be impeached. By this time her nocturnal phone calls, unbridled public comments, and rumored drinking problem had caused many to doubt her seriousness and credibility, and her early warnings implicating Nixon in Watergate were ignored. Mitchell objected publicly when the Senate Watergate Investigation Committee concluded that she did not have enough evidence to testify before them, though later observers would note that many of her "dial-a-headline prophecies had an uncanny way of panning out. " Through the summer and fall of 1973, the strains of public life and Watergate took their toll on the Mitchell marriage. On September 10, 1973, Mitchell awakened to learn that her husband had left her without warning or arrangements for financial support. He never afterward saw or spoke to her. In spite of her estrangement from her husband and their only daughter, who remained with John, Martha Mitchell continued to declare publicly that her husband was a scapegoat for the president. She also said Nixon was responsible for the destruction of her marriage. In July 1974, Mitchell filed for a legal separation and support payments from her husband. Because of John Mitchell's failure to pay temporary support prior to that time, and because of the court's delay in rendering a judgment on her suit until his involvement in the Watergate case had been resolved, she became increasingly indebted. She worked on her autobiography and various magazine articles and made public appearances, but her declining health and periods of depression interfered with her productivity and her ability to earn any significant income. In the fall of 1975, she learned she had multiple myeloma, a rare form of bone cancer. Most of her last few months were spent in hospitals. Shortly before her death in May 1976, the court ordered John Mitchell to pay the outstanding support that had been granted months earlier in their separation agreement. Martha Mitchell, still the legal wife of John Mitchell, died in debt in New York City. She was buried in Bellwood Cemetery in her hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Achievements
Politics
In her early days in Washington, Mitchell's outspoken criticisms were directed at antiwar protestors, whom she described as "liberal Communists", and "liberal academics, " whom she blamed for "all the troubles in this country. " She also was critical of labor and civil rights officials as well as the Supreme Court and fashion designers.
Views
Quotations:
"As I recall, there was this one: I love it's gentle warble, I love it's gentle flow; I love to wind my tongue up; And I love to let it go. "
"Nixon bleeds people. He draws every drop of blood and then drops them from a cliff. He'll blame any person he can put his foot on. "
Personality
Mitchell's publicity for her opinions obscured recognition of her public service. While in Washington she assisted the Salvation Army, worked on anti-drug, antipornography, and antipollution campaigns, and organized information seminars for the new cabinets houses. According to the Washington Star, she never ignored a charity appeal and would willingly "pose, sip tea, taste preview menus, dance, speak Swahili, or simply make an appearance" if asked. Mitchell's distinctive and flamboyant physical appearance added to her notoriety. She had bleached blonde hair that was teased, sleekly coiffed, and sprayed.
Quotes from others about the person
As one biographer has noted, "Mitchell was an outspoken, willful Southern conservative. She had strong, often vituperative opinions about many of the politically charged issues of the day, and she was not afraid to express them publicly. "
As one source described her: "Martha was cute, a feisty little thing in stiletto heels and frowsy dresses and a Southern drawl with matching dimples. "
Connections
While at Chemical Warfare, Martha met an army captain from Virginia, Clyde W. Jennings, Jr. , and they were married on October 5, 1946. The couple moved to Forest Hills in Queens, New York, where Jennings was a partner in a handbag manufacturing firm. After eleven years of marriage, the Jenningses were divorced on August 1, 1957. On December 30, 1957, Martha married John Newton Mitchell of New York, an attorney whom she had met through friends several years earlier. The Mitchells had one daughter. For eleven years the couple lived in New York City and the suburban communities of Greenwich and West Norwalk, Connecticut, and Rye, New York.