The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate

by James Rosen

  12. TPOP, 203n (off the hook); CBS Evening News, August 31, 1973. A former member of the Seattle underground argued Mitchell triumphed over the antiwar left only inadvertently, by conferring “martyrdom” on the notoriously ineffective Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin: “Mitchell ultimately achieved his goal in a backwards way: He destroyed the New Left by handing the keys to the asylum over to its worst lunatics.” See Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (University of Washington Press, 1995), p. 135.

  13. Ayers interview; CBS Morning News, November 6, 1973 (kung fu); “The Rise and Fall of Mr. Law and Order,” Newsweek, April 30, 1973.

  14. FBI memo from Mr. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, March 26, 1969, Subject: Protection of the Attorney General (white girls); FBI memo from Mr. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, April 2, 1969, Subject: Protection of Attorney General (racial demonstrations); FBI memo from Mr. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, April 3, 1969, Subject: Protection of Attorney General; FBI memo from Mr. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, April 4, 1969, Subject: Protection of Attorney General (delayed), all in FBIM; Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (Random House, 1970), pp. 428–29.

  15. Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam (University of California Press, 1994), pp. 304–35, 627n66 (face up, bring the war home, attack the beast, off the pig); Rudd interview; Susan Stern, With the Weathermen: The Journey of a Revolutionary Woman (Doubleday, 1975), pp. 234 (idiot), 255 (capitalists), 351 (shut up).

  16. Wells, The War Within, p. 338.

  17. “Look at It: America 1969,” New Left Notes, August 1969, reprinted in Harold Jacobs, ed., Weatherman (Ramparts Press, 1970), p. 174 (tens); William Ayers, Fugitive Days: A Memoir (Beacon Press, 2001), pp. 166–69 (couple hundred, sank, running, turning back); Wells, The War Within, p. 367 (Dellinger); Sale, SDS, pp. 603–9 (kill or be killed, mangled, October 8 statistics); Jeremy Varon, Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (University of California Press, 2004), p. 82 (cumulative statistics).

  18. Wells, The War Within, p. 462 (psychopaths); Joseph Volz, “FBI Break-ins Bring Mitchell Back to Court,” New York Daily News, October 29, 1980 (testimony); Lapham, “The Attorney General Has Heard It All Before” (Leninists, run the show, stuck, second-act, penalties). Mitchell’s testimony came at the trial of W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, two former FBI officials convicted of having ordered five illegal break-ins, in 1972 and 1973, at the New York and New Jersey homes of Weather Underground sympathizers. In April 1981, President Reagan granted both men “full and unconditional” pardons. In May 2005, Felt was identified as “Deep Throat,” the Watergate-era source for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward; see Woodward, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Even after the identification of Felt, important questions about Woodward’s Watergate-era reporting, and its many references to Deep Throat, remained; see James Rosen, “The FBI Informant,” Weekly Standard, August 29, 2005. Mitchell’s appearance in the Felt case, in which ex-President Nixon also testified, marked the former attorney general’s first return to the federal courthouse where he had been convicted and sentenced in the Watergate cover-up trial.

  19. Thomas F. Parker, ed., Violence in the U.S., Volume 2: 1968–71 (Facts on File, 1974), p. 190. Asked about the “dog” threat in 2004, Ayers dismissed it as “macho rhetoric”: “Harming Mitchell or [bombing] the Watergate complex…never occurred to us, I don’t think.”

  20. Robert Walters, “U.S. Expected March Violence,” Washington Evening Star, November 18, 1969.

  21. WH intelligence memo no. 2 from TCH [Thomas C. Huston] to John Ehrlichman, October 30, 1969; WHSF—SMOF, JDE Subject file, Intelligence—Memoranda—Huston, NARA.

  22. “Mitchell Asserts Militants Lead Coming Protest,” New York Times, November 3, 1969 (destroy); Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Liberals Capitulate to Extremists, Reds Dominate ‘Peace’ Movement,” Washington Post, November 12, 1969 (dominated); Kleindienst, Justice, p. 73 (fall offensive).

  23. Richard Harwood and Warren Unna, “Hill Doves to Join Mobilization Rally,” Washington Post, November 11, 1969 (McGovern); Clayton Fritchey, “Nixon Men Conjure Faceless Enemy,” Washington Evening Star, November 14, 1969.

  24. John Dean, “The Other Side of the Demonstrations,” in Lynda Rosen Obst, ed., The Sixties (Rolling Stone Press, 1977), pp. 290–93 (blasé, nuisance, annoyed, backs, stopped); see also Philip Hirschkop, interview with author, May 15, 2004 (“He had his own agenda,” Hirschkop said of Dean, adding, “He didn’t answer to Mitchell, I’ll tell you that”) and “Mayor Helps Break Stalemate on Mass March,” Washington Post, November 12, 1969. Dean later acknowledged he sided with the protesters because “many times, I thought they had a good point” see SSC, IV: 1446.

  25. FBI memo from J. P. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, Subject: Protection of the Attorney General, November 10, 1969; FBI memo from J. P. Mohr to Mr. Tolson, Subject: Protection of the Attorney General, November 12, 1969, both in FBIM; Kleindienst, Justice, p. 69 (Action Plan).

  26. Richard Harwood and Warren Unna, “Hill Doves to Join Mobilization Rally,” Washington Post, November 11, 1969 (28,000, readiness); Carl Bernstein, “9,000 Troops Poised for Antiwar Trouble,” Washington Post, November 13, 1969 (thoroughly); The Fire Next Time [Weatherman newspaper], November 21, 1969, in Jacobs, Weatherman, p. 275 (“pig marshals”).

  27. “Mitchell Decries Johnson ‘Deception,’” New York Times, November 12, 1969; John P. MacKenzie, “Mitchell Lays Distrust in U.S. to LBJ,” Washington Post, November 12, 1969. Discussing Mitchell’s claims about the disingenuousness of the Johnson White House, reporter Paul Niven told the attorney general: “I know many people who were in that administration who agree with you” see “The President’s Men,” PBS program, [aired] December 4, 1969, WHCA, Tape No. 3545, NARA.

  28. Richard Harwood, “War Protest Walk Begins on Quiet Note,” Washington Post, November 14, 1969; Mary McGrory, “If It’s Violent, It’ll Be Just a Mockery,” Washington Evening Star, November 14, 1969 (drums).

  29. Richard Harwood, “Militants Break Peace as War Protest Grows,” Washington Post, November 15, 1969 (Spock); “Huge Throng Masses in Protest,” Washington Evening Star, November 15, 1969 (petitions, insoluble); Paul Hoffman, Moratorium: An American Protest (Tower, 1970), pp. 160–63 (Wizard, smash the state, someone).

  30. Harwood, “Militants Break Pence” (eviction, full-fledged); William Greider, “Rubin: ‘It’s Like Peace Is Respectable,’” Washington Post, November 16, 1969 (rocks); “Gas Routs Night March on Embassy,” Washington Post, November 15, 1969 (restrained); THD, 108 (estimate, photo count); Richard Harwood, “Largest Rally in Washington History Demands Rapid End to Vietnam War,” Washington Post, November 16, 1969 (ignored, white); Robert Walters, “U.S. Probes Protest Violence, Weighs Anti-Riot Prosecution,” Washington Evening Star, November 19, 1969 (breach); Kleindienst, Justice, p. 73.

  31. “Protest Has Many Forms: Slogan, Signs…and a Cross,” Washington Post, November 16, 1969; THD, 107 (strange, unreal); “Police Tear Gas Disperses 6,000 at Justice Dept.,” Washington Evening Star, November 16, 1969 (Seale, Minh); William Chapman, “Thousands at Justice Dept. Gassed in Radicals’ Assault,” Washington Post, November 16, 1969; Caleb S. Rossiter, The Chimes of Freedom Flashing: A Personal History of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement and the 1960s (TCA Press, 1996), p. 197; Hirschkop interview; Jerris Leonard, interview with author, May 23, 2004; Robert Walters, “Officer J.V. Wilson Patrols His Beat,” Washington Evening Star, November 16, 1969; Paul Delaney, “Mitchell’s Wife Says He Likened Protest to ‘Russian Revolution,’” New York Times, November 22, 1969. Rossiter recalled seeing Martha Mitchell on the balcony as well; he is probably mistaken. The Evening Star spotted Mitchell, Kleindienst, and “a handful of aides,” but made no mention of Mrs. Mitchell. Members of the Yippies also claimed to have spotted the attorney general’s wife on this occasion; however th
ey also claimed, falsely, that the mob “broke every window” at the Justice Department. See Beal and Conliff, Blacklisted News, pp. 2, 43. For another eyewitness account of this clash, see Larry Grathwohl and Frank Reagan, Bringing Down America: An FBI Informer with the Weathermen (Arlington House, 1976).

  32. “Police Tear Gas Disperses 6,000 at Justice Dept.,” Washington Evening Star, November 16, 1969 (White House, fumes); “Protest Has Many Forms: Slogan, Signs…and a Cross,” Washington Post, November 16, 1969; THD, 108 (Krogh); Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (Knopf, 1990), p. 79. (Ruckelshaus).

  33. Landau interview, January 12, 1994.

  34. Wells, The War Within, p. 398 (Gallup); Sale, SDS, p. 622 (depression).

  35. Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia, April 30, 1970.

  36. Parker, Violence in the U.S., pp. 161–62; Wells, The War Within, p. 421; Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up, p. 319.

  37. FBI 302 form of interview with [redacted] by SA [redacted], [conducted and filed] May 16, 1970 [I] (hard-core) and FBI 302 report of interview with [redacted] by SA [redacted], [conducted] May 16, 1970, [filed] May 17, 1970 (My God). The most exhaustively researched account of the killings at Kent State is William A. Gordon, The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State (Prometheus Books, 1990); see also James Rosen, “About Kent State: Shades of Watergate?” New York Newsday, May 4, 1995.

  38. Parker, Violence in the U.S., p. 166 (credible, likelihood); “Justice at Kent State?” New York Times, August 18, 1971.

  39. William Lineberry, “Richard Nixon’s Ten Days,” Newsweek, May 18, 1970 (political difficulty); HN, May 3, 1970 (emphasis in original); and Rosen, “About Kent State.”

  40. Charles W. Colson, Born Again (Chosen Books, 1976), p. 37 (grim-faced); Leonard interview, May 23, 2004.

  41. DOJ summary of FBI reports on Kent State [undated, c. June 21, 1970], reprinted in its entirety in I. F. Stone, The Killings at Kent State: How Murder Went Unpunished (New York Review, 1970), pp. 60–104; FBI 302 report of interview with [redacted] by SA [redacted], [conducted] May 15, 1970, [filed] May 18, 1970 (M-1s). In only one case did a Guardsman admit shooting a specific individual: Sergeant Lawrence Shafer told the FBI he shot Joseph Lewis Jr., the victim standing closest to the Guardsmen—sixty feet away—because Lewis made an obscene gesture at him. Yet investigators had only these statements, not firm ballistics evidence, to prove Shafer shot Lewis. Moreover Shafer was the only Guardsman injured seriously enough on May 4 to require medical treatment; see also Gordon, The Fourth of May, pp. 33, 63.

  42. HN, May 4, 1970 (sniper, Rhodes), May 6, 1970 (effective, brainstorm, reconciliation [emphases in original]), May 8, 1970 (conciliatory).

  43. EN, May 21, 1970 (totalitarianism); HN, May 16, 1970 (lines drawn, just as well), May 20, 1970 (anti-student, offensive), June 16, 1970 (teeth, the public).

  44. John P. MacKenzie, “Deaths Sickened, Saddened Mitchell, He Tells Students,” Washington Post, May 10, 1970.

  45. “Mitchell Eyes Prosecution by U.S. in Kent State Case: Apparent Violations of Federal Law,” Akron Beacon Journal, July 29, 1970, cited in Gordon, The Fourth of May, pp. 67, 196n13; FBI memo to W. C. Sullivan from C.D. Brennan, Subject: Unknown Subjects: Fire Bombing of Army ROTC Building…, May 5, 1970 (sabotage); FBI Teletype to SAC, Cleveland from FBI Director, May 5, 1970 (conspiracy); File No. 98–46479. J. Edgar Hoover wondered whether the ROTC fire was the work of “SDS or other militant New Left” groups.

  46. Gordon, The Fourth of May, pp. 65–75 (knock down); HN, October 17, 1970 (emphases in original). It incensed Hoover that the Justice Department did not file federal charges against any KSU students. When an assistant attorney general notified Hoover of this decision, the FBI director scrawled on the memo: “The usual run around by the do nothing Div[ision]” see DOJ memo to Director from J. Walter Yeagley, Subject: [Redacted]; Peter Charles Bleik [sic]; Douglas Charles Cormack; Rick Felber; Thomas Graydon Foglesong; [Redacted]; Jerry Rupe; [Redacted]; Sabotage; Sedition; Civil Rights—Federally Protected Activity; Destruction of Government Property, June 15, 1970.

  47. Unsigned FBI memo for the record, Subject: Memorandum from Will Wilson, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, to Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, [filed] June 19, 1970; Helen Kennedy, “Nixon Wanted City to Suffer for Snub,” New York Daily News, October 18, 1996 (request, assured); see also New York Law Journal, October 18, 1996.

  48. Thomas R. Hensley, The Kent State Incident: Impact of Judicial Process on Public Attitudes (Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 101. The existence and text of Ehrlichman’s memo were first reported by NBC News in 1978. The earlier memorandum by Nixon, to which Ehrlichman alluded, has not surfaced.

  49. WH memo for John Ehrlichman from H. R. Haldeman, [no subject], January 28, 1971, WHSF—SMOF, H. R. Haldeman, Box 196, NARA.

  50. EN, January 28, 1971; see also Rosen, “About Kent State.”

  51. Ken Clawson, “No U.S. Action Likely on Kent,” Washington Post, March 21, 1971. In December 1973, following the revelations of Watergate and continued public pressure, the Justice Department reversed itself and empaneled a federal grand jury in the case. Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger emphasized that the move reflected no judgment on Mitchell’s conduct. In March 1974, eight Guardsmen were indicted for violating the students’ due process rights; eight months later, all eight were acquitted. Likewise, the jury in a 1975 civil suit filed against the Guardsmen and public officials by the victims’ families found in favor of the defendants. That verdict was later overturned by a higher court, prompting a second civil trial in 1978–79. The case was ultimately settled out of court. The slain students’ parents received $15,000 each and $75,000 for attorneys’ fees; one paralyzed student received $350,000, while eight other wounded students received judgments ranging from $15,000 to $42, 500. As part of the settlement, twenty-eight Guardsmen signed a statement “deeply regretting” the shootings, while still maintaining that “some Guardsmen…may have believed in their own minds that their lives were in danger.” Charges against most of the twenty-five individuals indicted in Ohio for torching the ROTC building and other offenses were quietly dropped.

  52. HN, September 9, 1970 (turn off); “Mitchell Assails ‘Stupid’ Students,” New York Times, September 19, 1970 (emphasis added); Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (Warner Books, 1983), p. 467; Milton Viorst, Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s (Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 543. A spokesman sought to douse the furor caused by Mitchell’s attack on academia by issuing a weak nondenial (“comments attributed to the attorney general, apparently based on fragmentary and overheard conversations at a social gathering, are distorted and highly inaccurate”), but Mitchell more cannily resorted to humor, telling a university audience: “There are stupid students. I was one when I was in college” see Martin Weil, “Collegians Given Views of Mitchell,” Washington Post, September 27, 1970.

  53. Author’s transcript of Issues and Answers, ABC News program, [aired] August 2, 1970, WHCA, Tape No. 3810, NARA.

  54. NARA transcript, NT, Nixon-Colson-Haldeman, Conversation No. 482–27, Oval Office, April 19, 1971, 6:12–6:32 p.m., NARA.

  55. Ibid.

  56. NARA transcript, NT, Nixon-Haldeman-Kissinger, Conversation No. 484–13, Oval Office, April 20, 1971, 1:13 p.m.–1:24 p.m., NARA (forget the law, secretaries [emphasis added]).

  57. Beal and Conliff, Blacklisted News, pp. 409–10 (evangelist, closing); David Gelber, “The Weathermen’s Solution Is Part of the Problem,” The Village Voice, March 26, 1970, reprinted in Goodman, The Movement Toward a New America, pp. 593–94 (banks); FBI memo from M. A. Jones to Mr. Bishop, December 16, 1971, Subject: Attorney General’s Press/ Conference, FBIM. Years later, Davis strongly denied advocating the closing of the Pentagon or the burning of banks; see e-mail to the author from Rennie Davis, July 30, 2004.

  58. “Wild in the Streets: After Ke
nt,” in Beal and Conliff, Blacklisted News, p. 409 (boldest and costliest); Davis interview; Parker, Violence in the U.S., pp. 211–13 (manual).

  59. “Mitchell Expects Violence to Come,” New York Times, April 25, 1971.

  60. James Reston, “The Leaderless Rabble,” New York Times, May 5, 1971 (personally); Wells, The War Within, p. 486 (plain); “Youths Mass in Potomac Park,” Washington Evening Star, May 1, 1971; Fred Barnes, “10,000 Troops to Be Brought into Area,” Washington Evening Star, May 2, 1971. As late as ten days before May Day, authorities were estimating crowds of only 4,000; see Kleindienst, Justice, p. 75.

  61. G. Gordon Liddy, Will (St. Martin’s, 1997), p. 144.

  62. “Youths Mass in Potomac Park,” Washington Evening Star, May 1, 1971 (abridging); Wells, The War Within, pp. 499–500 (370). The Evening Star reported 339 arrests. Williams eventually came round to Mitchell’s political views, endorsing Ronald Reagan for president in 1980.