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Short Stuff: The Gaslighting of Martha Mitchell · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and it's just us and that's okay because
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: we're doing short stuff. So let's get started. Everybody, calm down.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: It's short stuff, that's right. We're going to talk about
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Martha Mitchell, who was the wife of John Mitchell in
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, who was Nixon's attorney general for a time.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: And Martha Mitchell was from the South. She was a
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Some argue that she was one of the first sort
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: of conservative political pundits because she loved to go on TV,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: not like a lot of politicians' spouses at the time
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: that kept a lower profile. She loved to be on
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: TV and talk about things, and she loved to call
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  Speaker 2: in to journalists, maybe have a couple of bourbons and
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: callin to journalists and give quotes. And you think, like,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: oh boy, this sounds like trouble. Eventually it could have been.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But they loved her. Nixon loved her because she went
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: out there and said the things but not a lot
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: of people were saying in public at the time that
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: he loved.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that she was known as the mouth
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: of the South. She was from Arkansas, and one of
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: her quotes was, I don't believe in that no comment business.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I always have a comment. That was basically her guiding
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  Speaker 1: ethos her athis one of the two. And she was
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  Speaker 1: huge at the time, Like she wasn't just like a, hey,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I really like what you have to say to the papers,
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  Speaker 1: way to go. When you ran into her at lunch,
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  Speaker 1: like in nineteen seventy during the election, if you went
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to a Republican fundraiser, there was a really good chance
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that she would be speaking there. Like you said, people
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: loved her, and including Richard Nixon, who was just a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: fan essentially.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. In June of nineteen seventy two, the
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Watergate building was burgled, as everyone knows, and Nixon and
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: his inner circle were like, we didn't have anything to
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: do with this. I don't know what you guys are
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: talking about. And then one of them said, hold on
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a minute, there's something that Martha knows about this that
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: could spell trouble for us. And this is that story,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: because it gets pretty crazy, so crazy that there was
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a series in twenty twenty two. Was it a series
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: or show? I think it's a series called gas Lit
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: starring Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell Mitchell and a very
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: heavily makeuped and balded and changed Sean Penn as John Mitchell.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although Sean Penn has done so many eight balls,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: it's possible he just looks like that.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Now. Oh no, Sean Pimsill looks good. This guy he
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: looked like John Mitchell, which is to say, old and
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: bald and little tubby.
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  Speaker 1: And well so, just as a spoiler, John Mitchell eventually
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: went to prison. He's the first and only US Attorney
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: general to go serve time in federal prison. That's how
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: badly this went for him. But at the time after
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the Watergate break in, when the Knicks campaign, because he
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: stopped being Attorney General for Nixon and became the head
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  Speaker 1: of Nixon's re election campaign, he ran the committee to
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  Speaker 1: re elect the president the CRP. Everyone else on the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: planet called it creep instead, and so he was running that.
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  Speaker 1: So at the time, right after the Watergate break in,
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  Speaker 1: when they were still denying, denying, denying, you can't prove anything,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and he realized that his wife would definitely call the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: press if she got the chance. He hatched a plan
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to keep her from doing that and like you said,
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  Speaker 1: it takes a crazy turn, and it's about here where
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it does. Because he and Martha, John and Martha were
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: had a fundraiser in California at the time with Governor
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and John Wayne and.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: They were.
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  Speaker 1: That's when the news of Watergate broke. Essentially, so John
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Mitchell flew back to DC, but he said, Martha stays here,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and then he talked to some other guys and he said, essentially,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: make sure Martha stays here, keep her away from the newspaper,
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  Speaker 1: and do not let her call anybody.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. And the big, big reason that they were
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  Speaker 2: worried about her was not just because she liked to
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: talk to the press, but it was because one of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the people caught in the Watergate burglary and arrested was
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: a guy named James McCord. He was a security director
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: for the reelection committee for Nixon and had a very
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: close tie to that family because when her husband quit
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the Attorney general position to become head of that committee
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  Speaker 2: for reelection, she lost Secret Service protection and he got
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: none other than James McCord to be her private personal bodyguard.
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  Speaker 2: So if you can add one and two together, as
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  Speaker 2: Martha Mitchell. You would know if you knew James McCord
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  Speaker 2: was caught breaking into the Watergate that it probably had
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: something to do with a Nixon campaign.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I say we take a break, come back
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and talk about Martha Mitchell's ordeal.
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  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
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  Speaker 3: That's why.
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  Speaker 2: You should know why.
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  Speaker 1: We should know knows, but.
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  Speaker 3: Talk Josh Clark.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck. So Martha Mitchell is being held in a
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  Speaker 1: hotel in luxury. Of course this isn't you know, She's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: not like in some Rundown hotel. This is a nice hotel.
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  Speaker 1: I'm presuming. I don't know why that matters. It does
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  Speaker 1: a little bit, but it's unnecessary to say.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Well, they didn't take her to like an abandoned warehouse
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  Speaker 2: and retired to a chair.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Great. Great, thank you for saving me. And apparently for
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a little while they were able to keep her away
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: from the news. I mean, this is a time when
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: there was no such thing as twenty four hour news networks,
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  Speaker 1: and you had to physically get your hands on a
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  Speaker 1: newspaper to read the news a lot of times. But
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  Speaker 1: eventually she did get a newspaper, and she did read
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  Speaker 1: about the Watergate break in, and she did read that
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  Speaker 1: James McCord, her former bodyguard, was one of the people arrested,
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  Speaker 1: and she did put two and two together and say,
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  Speaker 1: I can't believe this, but my husband and probably Richard
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Nixon directed the Watergate break in who can I call?
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  Speaker 2: That's right. She was pretty mad about the fact that
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: she was being kept in the dark, obviously very frustrated.
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  Speaker 2: Just watched that trailer at least with Julia Roberts and
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: it got kind of hairy in there. So she starts
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  Speaker 2: fuming a little bit and causing a bit of a commotion.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it happened exactly this way, but
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  Speaker 2: in the TV show, she called from a bathroom phone
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  Speaker 2: like hotels have bathroom phone times right there by the toilet,
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  Speaker 2: and one of these guys, you know, quote unquote safeguarding
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  Speaker 2: her was an ex FBI agent named Steve King, burst
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: into the bathroom, ripped the phone out of the wall.
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  Speaker 2: She was talking to Helen Thomas of UPI, one of
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  Speaker 2: her favorite reporters that she liked to talk to, and
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  Speaker 2: Helen Thomas, here's the line, go dead, tries to get
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  Speaker 2: back in touch and then eventually calls John, the husband
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  Speaker 2: who said that little sweetheart I love her so much.
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  Speaker 2: She gets a little upset about politics, but she loves
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: me and I love her, and that's what counts. When
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: all along what had happened is that Martha was physically
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: tackled and injected with a tranquilizer.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by a doctor, but still she's being held down
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  Speaker 1: and sedated against her will, which is nuts. Again under
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the direction her husband. Yeah, I mean, it's better than
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: some FBI agent doing it, but sure, a.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Little, I guess so.
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  Speaker 1: I do have a huge criticism of this operation, though, Chuck.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I don't condone what they did to her. But if
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: they were going to do it, there was a huge
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  Speaker 1: step that they missed, which is rent a second hotel
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  Speaker 1: room and get rid of all of the phones in
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  Speaker 1: the hotel room that Martha Mitchell's being kept in, and
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  Speaker 1: if John Mitchell wanted to get in touch with her,
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  Speaker 1: he could call the other hotel room and then they
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  Speaker 1: could relay whatever message they needed. That was just bush league,
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  Speaker 1: amateur stuff leaving any phone in there. If one of
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  Speaker 1: the directives was to keep her away from the phone.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And when they checked in, when they said, well
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  Speaker 2: would you like the paper slit under your door every morning, sir,
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  Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Right, that sounds great. Is it free? Because I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to pay for it, but if it's free, definitely,
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  Speaker 1: can we get two?
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  Speaker 2: Oh boy? Yeah, they didn't do it right Martha. And
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  Speaker 2: we should say we're kind of joking here, because Martha
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was not injured or anything like that, but she was
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: held against her will, essentially kidnapped, held against her will,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: and then gaslet like nobody's ever been gas lit before.
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  Speaker 2: Because she eventually was set free, she went right to
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  Speaker 2: the press and said, you know, I was detained, I
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  Speaker 2: was forced into sedation. And the New York Times ran
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  Speaker 2: it on page twenty five, and the Nixon administration painted
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  Speaker 2: her as a kind of a crazy lady with a
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  Speaker 2: drinking problem.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean very much so. As a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 1: they their smear campaign was so far reaching that when
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  Speaker 1: John Mitchell resigned from being the head of Nixon's re
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: election committee, he said that he needed to spend or
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to spend more time with his wife and daughter.
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  Speaker 1: The Nixon campaign leaked to the press that the real
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  Speaker 1: reason he left was because Martha had a drinking problem.
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  Speaker 1: It was unstable and needed basically constant attention from her husband, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which just supported the whole idea that she was just
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  Speaker 1: off her rocker talking about being held against her will
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  Speaker 1: and sedated. What is this lady even saying?
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  Speaker 2: And like who would do that? What kind of administration
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  Speaker 2: would do that?
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  Speaker 1: Well, what kind of husband would do that too? You know?
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  Speaker 1: And I saw that the stuff, the articles that they
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: did run were run in the women's pages. I made
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  Speaker 1: scare quotes, but that's what they were at the time,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: like women's interest stuff. And the way that they ran
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  Speaker 1: it was essentially not like can you believe what happened
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  Speaker 1: to this woman? It's hey, get a load of this.
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  Speaker 1: These two are a famous married couple, and there's trouble in.
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  Speaker 2: Paradise, right, like gossip.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So this poor lady got dragged through the mud.
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  Speaker 1: And we know for a fact that this actually happened
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  Speaker 1: because later on James McCord, her former bodyguard who was
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: involved in the Watergate breaking, he confirmed it. He said,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: this absolutely happened to her in nineteen seventy five. He
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: confirmed it. But one of the first things she did
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: was to call on Nixon to resign. She's like, you
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: were involved in Watergate, you need to step down. And
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: all Nixon did was turn the heat up on the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: smear campaign against her.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she seemed like a like a very
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: like she may have been into gossip, but she seemed
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: like a very principled conservative because she, you know, she
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: didn't like this dirty business from Nixon.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: No, that was huge. She was also a very loyal
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: spouse to the end. She refused to believe that her
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: husband had you know, dreamed this up and that he
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: essentially was dragged into it and had been led astray
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: into dirty politics, like you said, so much so that
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: she testified on his behalf at his federal trial. And
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: yet he still was like, thanks a lot, Martha, see you,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I'm walking out on you. And if you weren't like, wow,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: this guy's a real jerk already. He gave a quote
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to the press after he was sentenced to seventeen or
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: eighteen months in prison, and he said, hey, it could
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: have been worse. They could have sentenced me to the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: rest of my life with Martha. Oh god, can you imagine.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And she's this lady's alive to hear this, so hear
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: her husband say this about her after being that loyal
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  Speaker 1: to him, you know, And mistaking who he was for
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: so long.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just go ahead and call him a real scumbag. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: let's I feel good about that. So Martha, like you said,
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  Speaker 2: her husband served nineteen months in prison after walking out
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: on Martha and their daughter in nineteen seventy three, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: later on Martha this gas slighting would actually become a
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: term the Martha Mitchell effect because of what happened to her,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: which is a misinterpretation of a person's justified belief as
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: a delusion. Very sadly, she died of cancer in nineteen
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: seventy six, just a couple of years after Nixon left office,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: And yeah, and Julia Roberts made a TV show about her,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: so at least her her story got out there in
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: a pretty major way, you know.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And a few years after Nixon resigned, he gave
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: an interview and he tried to drag her through the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: mud a little more, but ultimately he showed his hand
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and he kind of paid backhanded tribute to her by saying,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: if it hadn't been for Martha, there never would have
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: been in a watergate, like he never would have been
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: caught because they could have just kept denying, denying, denying.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: If you do that enough, you can get away with anything.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And that was Nixon's plan, and Martha under undermine that
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: big time.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: We couldn't keep her sedated forever.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Wait to go? Man, who can you? Who can't you?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Do? Well? Anybody very good?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: All right? Well check saying that, And I don't know
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: what to say, so short. Stuff's that?
• 13:29
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• 13:32
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