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John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913–November 9, 1988) was the first United States Attorney General ever to be convicted of illegal activities and 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.
hell was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up on Long Island in New York.
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It's good to be back in Alabama.
Said on arriving in Alabama to begin serving a sentence in the federal prison for obstruction of justice.
The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up every bird watcher in the country.
Encyclopedia
John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913–November 9, 1988) was the first United States Attorney General ever to be convicted of illegal activities and 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.
Later life
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.
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. . Mitchell’s intent was to create a “form of political elitism that bypasses the voter’s right to a referendum or an initiative.”
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 soundly 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 Mitchell who played a central role in the Nixon campaign's covert attempt to sabotage the 1968 Paris Peace Accords which could have ended the Vietnam War. 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. Mitchell remained in office from 1969 until he resigned in 1972 to manage President Nixon's successful reelection campaign.
In the fall of 1968, 68 percent of black children in the South were attending all-black schools. By 1974, that number had fallen to 8 percent. This extraordinary accomplishment was achieved through the shrewd political skills and raw courage of President Nixon, Secretary of Labor George Schultz, and Attorney General John Mitchell.
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. 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. In April 1974 both men were acquitted in a New York federal district court.
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 about a forthcoming Watergate-related article: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published."
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 winner, 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.
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