A friend has given me his comments on this historic occasion and I am privileged to offer it here. He wrote and directed a play about Martha Mitchell. These are his thoughts.
Nixon, Watergate, Martha Mitchell and Me
By Thomas Doran
Crazy things are going on in Washington, D.C. - worse than ever a lot of us think. But, 40 years ago, on June 17, 1972 - something happened that would ultimately bring down an elected U.S. President. It was not an assassin's bullet, but something perhaps worse, and longer lasting. And swirling in that mix was a local Arkansas woman of some renown. Pine Bluff's very own Martha Mitchell.
On June 17th, 1972, "burglars" broke into the Democratic Party offices at the Watergate Hotel - setting off a series of escalating events that brought down Richard Nixon and sent several politicos to jail.
The burglars were really incompetent agents of the White House and the story is now well known. The political hubris of those in power however was never diminished - and there's more than enough to go around these days. In fact, those events of 40 years ago, while despicable, can almost be viewed as tame compared to the tempests of Washington, D.C. these days. Now, if only we had someone around today with the personal integrity to tell it like it is - someone like Pine Bluff's own Martha Mitchell. Sure, we have 24 hour a day news, and channels purporting to tell us "news" - but it all seems to be political manoeuvrings, posturing, demagoguery, and worse, political views controlled by very few people with personal agendas they want to impose on us all. And those people are the very people who hold the purse strings of our more popular news outlets.
Martha Mitchell didn't have that problem. She may not have been right - she may not have been tactful, considerate, or thoughtful - but one thing she did have was personal integrity. Martha had a individual set of beliefs that she stuck to tenaciously - which in the end, in a day when women were much less powerful politically, or even had a good strong public voice, ultimately doomed her to ridicule and banishment. And perhaps, if she is to be believed - an early death.
We have always put our trust in the system of government that we ourselves created. The one we died creating and upholding. The one we codified - and changed when necessity and the times seemingly changed. We both admire and hate our politics. We want them to do what we want, when we want - often thoughtless of how that might be done. Martha thought otherwise. She thought people should behave for the public good no matter what the consequences - determine their politics by what was right on a level appropriate for everyone. If she were alive today and commenting on what's going on in Congress, would anyone listen? I doubt it.
With so many voices these days and an ever growing multitude of outlets for those voices - well, we can't see the forest for the trees, nor hear a voice in the wilderness crying out. It all becomes an incessant drone of complaint and accusations. And not a shred of humor or fun. Even in the dark days of her life and in the midst of Nixon's dirty tricks against her, Martha still knew how to tell a joke. How to entertain. How to be, simply, a human being.
Martha was born Martha Beall in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on September 2, 1918. She lived in a quite pleasant house at 902 West Fourth Avenue. Her mother taught manners and elocution to local residents and while none of that seemed to rub off on her own daughter, she was nevertheless a lovely and respected woman. And outspoken - even before she got involved in the snake pit of politics.
After college, Martha made her way to Washington, D.C. and soon set that town on fire - and a little later all of America. Martha married the lawyer John Mitchell, whom she adored. And he returned that love. When he became attorney general for Richard Nixon - her star soared. Now she was truly in her element.
Never one to keep her many opinions to herself, she reveled in the spotlight. And what a spotlight it was. A stage that the whole world could see. She was a whirlwind - the "mouth of the south" to be sure. At once ingratiating and grating, Martha became a media darling. She was known all over the country and around the world.
Her house still stands in Pine Bluff, lovingly cared for by successful business man and entrepreneur, Bob Abbott - his company, Abbott Tachograph (Enterprises Inc), is just across the street from Martha's once-upon-a-time home. A local booster, Bob is always looking to promote Pine Bluff's reputation, and in 2002 he thought a play about Martha would be a good thing for the old home town. Through mutual friends we met and I was commissioned to write a play for that outspoken woman.
I asked Bob about his first impressions of Martha. "I believe it was sometime in the late sixties," Bob related to me. "She had made one of her famous phone calls to the local newspaper criticizing Arkansas Senator J William Fulbright and gave him a hard time concerning his views on the Vietnam War. It was very unusual for a national cabinet wife to be doing such a thing. I had also read that she refused to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth while visiting England, Martha explained that she was an American and we don't bow to anyone."
After that I was hooked and set off to do my research. I was quite astonished at what I ultimately found out. I knew who Martha Mitchell was before hand of course - or I should say - I knew the name. Once I really got to finding out about her by spending weeks and months in research in libraries and doing interviews with those who knew her, I got a very definite impression of the woman - of the place and time. And yes, I put in a line about her refusal to curtsy. It got one of the bigger laughs of the play.
I can't pretend however that I found out the truth of her - or even the truth of the times. But I found a woman both elegant and crude - unafraid in the extreme and as a character one could only find in a 19th century novel. They sure don't make them like that anymore. If only, right?
Bob Abbott purchased Martha's house in 1975. As Mr. Abbott told me recently, "The house is located across the street from my business, and over time I watched the old home deteriorate. Kids had broken into the house and began to play there. That alone made me concerned about the safety to the entire neighborhood. Turning the place into a Historical Property was not in the picture at the time. Not until Mrs. Mitchell's death on May 31, 1976, when all the major newspapers and television reporters from around the world were on hand to cover the funeral (Martha is buried in Bellwood Cemetery). They all wanted a photo and to go inside the house. I did not realize the importance of the old place and the part it would play in our history. That is when I decided a Martha Mitchell Home and Museum would be appreciated - and it has been for the last thirty-six years. Thousand have visited Pine Bluff and toured the Martha Mitchell Home."
The play I ultimately wrote, "This is Martha Speaking..." was a huge success, selling out virtually all its shows when it premiered its short run in Pine Bluff in 2004, thrilling audiences. Since those days, others have followed suit with their own plays about Martha - but none bothered to come and play in her home town. How could we have gone anywhere else?
I asked Bob if he ever met that indomitable spirit. "No, not in person." he responded, "Martha was at the house one day after it had been sold and was supervising the moving of some items to New York where she was then living. One of our employees saw her out in the yard and hollered at her and she just waved back and smiled big time. She walked over and sat in a car until the workmen had loaded a piece of furniture on the truck." A close encounter of the Martha kind.
Americans for the most part want to be left alone to do their own thing, whatever it may be - we elect people and then forget them. Until trouble brews and raises its head - and then we pretend outrage. It's hard to judge the times we grow up in and looking back our views are often colored by pleasant memories and the real emotions we felt at the time are often long gone. Changed or forgotten, we prefer to remember past days with rose-colored glasses. Martha however not only didn't want to be left alone, she wanted the world to know how she felt about things. About how Nixon ruined her husband, made him the "fall guy" for Watergate - ultimately tearing her family apart. How she was the victim of the President's dirty tricks against her - attempted to silence and discredit her by innuendo and outright lies. She even claimed the President's agents drugged her to keep her silent - those mysterious injections years later being the cause of the cancer that ultimately killed her. Or so she believed - and said all of this quite publicly. Her phone was her comfort and weapon and she wielded it in a long series of late night phone calls to various reporters. It was a machine-gun of invective and pain directed at Washington big-wigs.
You see, Pine Bluff's own celebrity would not play the political games that everyone else did - she told the truth as she saw it. Indeed, felt it was her obligation to do so. If she wouldn't stand up for her country and her family - then who would? Not the elite of Washington, D.C. She knew she had a voice and was going to use it. Wasn't that her right as an American? She had a privileged forum and nothing was going to stop her from using it. Nothing. Speaking not only for herself, but for the millions of others whom she knew did not have a voice. And for a while, we listened. In Richard Nixon's own words, "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate."
"I believe most of the Pine Bluff population at the time loved Martha," Bob said. "They remembered that she grew up in Pine Bluff and came back to work here after college. So yes, she was well known and admired, and certainly after she was a big figure in Washington D.C. and New York. She was loved."
For those around the country and more local, a visit to the house should be part of every school in Pine Bluff and indeed the county. In these volatile political times, here is political history in our very own back yard, so why not take advantage of it? And of the future of the Martha Mitchell house and museum?
Bob Abbott explains, "Right now the plans are to keep the House open for tours as it has been for the last thirty plus years. Perhaps at the same time we should look for a new caretaker/owner that will appreciate what it is and hopefully it can be maintained and available for our history for many, many years to come. After all, I can't live forever no matter how hard I try and the house and its history is too important to the city and the country to just let it go to waste. The house was the first one in Pine Bluff to be placed on the National Register of Historical Places, and that's something to be proud of."
Inside one can also see the truly famous painting of Martha that was done by the great artist Ms. Gloria Schumann from New York (and later of Muskogee, Oklahoma). Even the painting has an interesting tale to tell says Bob. "Ms Schumann was commissioned to paint a portrait of Richard Nixon for the Inaugural and I have a copy of a letter from the White House, signed by Nixon, thanking her for doing such a great job. He said he knew he was in good hands when he saw the painting of little Martha Mitchell that she had previously done. Ms Schumann had actually painted two portraits of Martha - one sitting and one standing - and it was her wish that the painting either be placed in the Martha Mitchell Home, or the Metropolitan Fine Arts Center. She had stated many times that she thought the portrait of Martha standing was one of her very best paintings."
So, if you are all feeling overwhelmed by the state of the nation - and think you are alone and forgotten and pawns in the hands of great men in far away Washington, D.C. - take some comfort that out there in the world is someone with the courage to stand up for you, waiting to be heard above the din. Whether it will be another Martha, who can say. That person might even turn out to be you.
But in the meantime, let me send out a little call for help while we are waiting: Martha, we need you more than ever. So, from wherever you are, please pick up your pink Princess telephone and give us a call - and feel free to reverse the charges.
