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John N. Mitchell
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Mitchell, John Newton, 1913-88, U.S. Attorney General (1969-72), b. Detroit. A law partner of Richard M. Nixon, he managed Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign and was made (1969) Attorney General. In Mar., 1972, he became head of the Nixon reelection committee, but he resigned in June, following the break-in at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee by employees of the reelection committee. Subsequent investigations of the Watergate affair led to Mitchell's indictment, trial, and conviction (Jan. 1, 1975) on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. He was also tried, but acquitted (Apr., 1974), on charges related to the secret contributions to Nixon's campaign funds made by financier Robert Vesco.
| Legal Encyclopedia: Mitchell, John Newton |
John Newton Mitchell served as U.S. attorney general from 1969 to 1972. A key political adviser to President Richard M.Nixon, Mitchell was later convicted of crimes associated with the Watergate scandal, becoming the first attorney general to serve time in a federal prison.
Mitchell was born September 5, 1913, in Detroit. He worked his way through Fordham University and Fordham Law School playing semiprofessional hockey. After graduating from law school in 1938, he was admitted to the New York bar and began work in a New York City law firm. He was made a partner in 1942. During World War II, he served as a torpedo boat commander in the U.S. Navy.
Mitchell became rich and prominent as a municipal bond lawyer, devising new ways for states and municipalities to finance construction projects. He met Richard M. Nixon in 1962, when Nixon joined a prominent New York law firm. At that time Nixon appeared to have no political future; he had lost the 1960 presidential election and the 1962 California gubernatorial election. In 1967 Mitchell's firm merged with Nixon's and the pair became confidants.
Mitchell served as Nixon's campaign manager for the presidency in 1968. He forged a conservative coalition of southern and western states that helped carry Nixon to victory over Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. During the campaign Mitchell claimed he would never accept a cabinet position if Nixon was elected. Despite these statements Mitchell accepted the post of attorney general in 1969.
As attorney general, Mitchell led the Justice Department in a sweeping law-and-order drive that many critics believed went too far. He increased the number of telephone wiretaps on private citizens and generally clamped down on political dissenters, especially those who opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A number of these Justice Department initiatives were later ruled illegal by the courts. For example, in Ellsberg v. Mitchell, 353 F. Supp. 515 (D.D.C. 1973), the department sought to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for leaking secret documents to the press regarding military involvement in Vietnam. The release of the Pentagon Papers infuriated the Nixon White House. The case was dismissed after Ellsberg's attorneys informed the court that a secret White House security group (the "plumbers") had illegally broken into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in search of damaging evidence. The dismissal was also based on the Justice Department's refusal to produce wiretap records pertaining to Ellsberg.
Mitchell resigned as attorney general in February 1972 to head President Nixon's reelection committee. On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested after breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building complex in Washington, D.C. They and two other men associated with the White House and the reelection committee were charged with burglary and wiretapping. Mitchell denied playing any part in the Watergate incident but resigned from the reelection committee post in July.
In May 1973 he was indicted in New York City for perjury and obstruction of justice in an alleged scheme to secretly contribute cash to the Nixon reelection campaign. He was acquitted of the charge in 1974. In that same year, however, he was indicted for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, giving false testimony to a grand jury, and perjury, for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. He was convicted of these charges in 1975 and sentenced to two-and-a-half to eight years in prison. After exhausting his criminal appeals, he entered federal prison in June 1977. His sentence was later reduced to one to four years after he made a statement of contrition. He was paroled in January 1978.
His criminal convictions led to his disbarment in 1975. Following his release he served as an international business consultant. He died on November 9, 1988, in Washington, D.C.
| Wikipedia: John N. Mitchell |
For other persons named John Mitchell, see John Mitchell.
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John N. Mitchell
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| In office 1969 – 1972 |
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| Preceded by | Ramsey Clark |
| Succeeded by | Richard Kleindienst |
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| Born | September 15, 1913 Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Died | November 9, 1988 (aged 75) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Martha Beall Mitchell |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Rank | Lieutenant Junior Grade |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | Purple Heart (2) Silver Star |
John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913–November 9, 1988) was the first United States Attorney General ever to be convicted of illegal activities and was imprisoned. He also served as campaign director for the Committee to Re-elect the President, which engineered the Watergate first break-in and employed Watergate burglar James W. McCord, Jr. in a "security" capacity.
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Biography
Early life
Mitchell was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up on Long Island in New York. He earned his law degree from Fordham University School of Law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1938. He served for three years as a naval officer (Lieutenant, Junior Grade) during World War II where he was a PT boat commander; his duties included commanding John F. Kennedy's PT boat unit. He received two Purple Hearts for wounds in combat and the Silver Star.
Except for his period of military service, Mitchell practiced law in New York City from 1938 until 1968 and earned a reputation as a municipal bond lawyer.
New York government
Mitchell came up with the idea for a type of revenue bond called a “moral obligation bond" while serving as bond counsel to New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s. In an effort to get around the voter approval process for increasing state and municipal bond limits, Mitchell attached language to the offerings that indicated the state’s intent to meet bond payments even though it was not obligated to do so.[1]. He didn't deny it when asked in an interview if the intent was to create a “form of political elitism that bypasses the voter’s right to a referendum or an initiative”[2][3].
Political career
Richard Nixon met John Mitchell when Mitchell's municipal bond law firm merged with Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander in 1967. (Vice President Nixon had already lost to Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had been defeated in the 1962 California gubernatorial contest.) The two men became friends, and in 1968, with considerable trepidation, Mitchell agreed to become Nixon's presidential campaign manager.
During his successful 1968 campaign, Nixon turned over the details of the day-to-day operations to the superbly organized[citation needed] Mitchell. He is alleged to have played a central role in the Nixon campaign's claimed covert attempt to sabotage the 1968 Paris Peace Accords which could have ended the Vietnam War.[4][5][6][7][8][9] After he became president in January 1969, Nixon appointed Mitchell attorney general while making an unprecedented direct appeal to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the usual background investigation not be conducted.[10] Mitchell remained in office from 1969 until he resigned in 1972 to manage President Nixon's successful reelection campaign.
Will Wilson, a former conservative Democratic attorney general of Texas who switched to the Republican Party to support Nixon, was named United States Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division. He served from 1969-1971. Wilson wrote the book A Fool For a Client, a study of the fall of President Nixon.[11] Mitchell believed that the government's need for "law and order" justified restrictions on civil liberties. He advocated the use of wiretaps in national security cases without obtaining a court order (United States v. U.S. District Court) and the right of police to employ the preventive detention of criminal suspects. He brought conspiracy charges against critics of the Vietnam War, and demonstrated a reluctance to involve the Justice Department in civil rights issues. "The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency," he told reporters. "It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society."
Mitchell's name was mentioned in a deposition concerning Robert L. Vesco, an international financier who was a fugitive from a federal indictment. Mitchell and Nixon Finance Committee Chairman Maurice H. Stans were indicted in May 1973 on federal charges of obstructing an investigation of Vesco after he made a $200,000 contribution to the Nixon campaign.[12] In April 1974 both men were acquitted in a New York federal district court.[13]
On February 21, 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up, which he dubbed the White House horrors. The sentence was later reduced to one to four years by United States district court Judge John J. Sirica. Mitchell served only 19 months of his sentence, at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, a minimum security prison, before being released on parole for medical reasons. Tape recordings made by President Nixon and the testimony of others involved confirmed that Mitchell had participated in meetings to plan the break-in of the Democratic Party's national headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. In addition, he had met, on at least three occasions, with the president in an effort to cover up White House involvement after the burglars were discovered and arrested. In 1972, he famously uttered an implied threat to reporter Carl Bernstein when asked to comment about a forthcoming article that reported that he controlled a so-called political slush fund used for gathering intelligence on the Democrats. The quote: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published."[14] The words "her tit" were not included in the newspaper article.
Death
Around 5:00 PM on November 9, 1988, he collapsed from a heart attack on the sidewalk in front of 2812 N St., N.W., Georgetown, Washington, D.C.. That evening he died at George Washington University Hospital. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery based both on his World War II Naval service and his former cabinet post of Attorney General.
In a column on Mitchell's death William Safire wrote, "His friend Richard Moore, in a eulogy, noted that near Mitchell's grave in Arlington National Cemetery was the headstone of Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a Medal of Honor recipient, who used to call Mitchell yearly to thank him for saving his life."
Martha Mitchell
Mitchell's second wife, Martha, became a controversial figure in her own right, gaining notoriety for her public pronouncements of her husband's innocence as the Watergate saga developed - even though their marriage had by that time broken down amid claims of her alcoholism and erratic behaviour.
Because of her colourful personality and personal history, Martha's protestations that the President and the entire US government were involved in a cover-up were generally considered at the time to be delusional, and medical opinion was satisfied that she was mentally ill. History however has proved that much of what she said was true. Her name has therefore been subsequently given to the phenomenon - now known as the Martha Mitchell effect - which refers to the misdiagnosis of delusions brought about by mental illness.
She died in 1976.
Portrayal on Film and Television
In the 1995 Oscar-nominated film, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Mitchell is played by the actor E.G. Marshall. Martha is played by Madeline Kahn.
Notes
- ^ Joseph Mysak and George Marlin, Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Applications for the Public Sector (Pacific Grove, Cal: Brooks/Cole, 1991)
- ^ Idid.
- ^ “We Only Pay the Bills: The Ongoing Effort to Disfranchise Virginia’s Voters”, William P. Kittredge and David W. Kreutzer, 2001.
- ^ Robert "KC" Johnson. “Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal”. History News Network, January 26, 2009. Transcript from audio recording of President Johnson: “The next thing that we got our teeth in was one of his associates—a fellow named Mitchell, who is running his campaign, who’s the real Sherman Adams (Eisenhower’s chief of staff) of the operation, in effect said to a businessman that ‘we’re going to handle this like we handled the Fortas matter, unquote. We’re going to frustrate the President by saying to the South Vietnamese, and the Koreans, and the Thailanders [sic], “Beware of Johnson.”’ ‘At the same time, we’re going to say to Hanoi, “I [Nixon] can make a better deal than he (Johnson) has, because I’m fresh and new, and I don’t have to demand as much as he does in the light of past positions.”’”
- ^ Seymour M. Hersh. “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House”. Summit Books, 1983, p. 21. “A few days before the election, she wrote, Mitchell telephoned with an urgent message. ‘Anna,’ (Chennault) she quotes him as saying. ‘I'm speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It's very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you have made that clear to them.’”.
- ^ Jules Witcover. “The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat”. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, p131. “I tracked down Anna Chennault (…) she insisted she had acted under instructions from the Nixon campaign in contacting the Saigon regime. ‘The only people who knew about the whole operation,’ she told me, ‘were Nixon, John Mitchell and John Tower [senator from Texas and Nixon campaign figure], and they're all dead. But they knew what I was doing. Anyone who knows about these thing knows I was getting orders to do these thing. I couldn’t do anything without instructions.’”.
- ^ Clark M. Clifford with Richard C. Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. Random House, 1991. p. 582. “It was not difficult for Ambassador Diem to pass information to Anna Chennault, who was in contact with John Mitchell, she said later, ‘at least once a day.’”
- ^ Diem Bui with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History. Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 244.“I began reviewing the cables I had written to (Nguyen Van) Thieu (…). Among them, I found a cable from October 23 (…) in which I had said, ‘Many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged us to stand firm. They were alarmed by press reports to the effect that you had already softened your position.’ In another cable, from October 27, I wrote, ‘I am regularly in touch with the Nixon entourage,’ by which I meant Anna Chennault, John Mitchell, and Senator (John) Tower.”
- ^ Diem Bui with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History. Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 237. “Waiting for me in the lobby was Anna Chennault. A few minutes later I was being introduced to Nixon and john Mitchell, his law partner and adviser. (…) Nixon (…) added that his staff would be in touch with me through john Mitchell and Anna Chennault.”
- ^ Gentry, Curt (1991). J. Edgar Hoover: The Man And The Secrets. New York: W. W. Norton. pp. 616. ISBN 0-393-02404-0.
- ^ Will R. Wilson obituary, Texas State Cemetery: http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=2793
- ^ Bernstein, Carl; Bob Woodward (1974). All The President's Men. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 284n, 335.
- ^ Woodward, Bob; Carl Bernstein (1976). The Final Days. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 138. ISBN 0-671-22298-8.
- ^ Bernstein, Carl; Bob Woodward (1974). All The President's Men. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 105.
References
Rosen, James, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ISBN 0385508646; ISBN 978-0385508643.
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| Preceded by Ramsey Clark |
United States Attorney General 1969–1972 |
Succeeded by Richard G. Kleindienst |
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