John N. Mitchell

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Former United States Attorney General Mitchell enters the Senate to testify before the Watergate Committee, 1973

John Newton Mitchell (born September 15, 1913 in Detroit , Michigan , † November 9, 1988 in Washington, DC ) was an American lawyer . He became known as Richard Nixon's campaign manager and as his Attorney General, as well as through his involvement in the Watergate affair .

Life

John N. Mitchell was born in Detroit and grew up in Long Island , New York . He graduated from Fordham University in 1938 . Except for his three years in the army, he practiced as a lawyer in New York from 1938 to 1968.

Richard Nixon met Mitchell in 1967. Mitchell worked for the joint law firm Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Mitchell. They both became friends, and Mitchell became Nixon's campaign manager. After Nixon was elected US president in 1968 , he appointed Mitchell as attorney general in his cabinet , where he remained until his resignation in 1972. In this capacity, among other things, he ordered the wiretapping of certain persons / institutions without a court order in matters of national security. At the same time he was also the head of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP) and ordered the break-in of the Watergate Hotel by the "plumbers".

For his role in the Watergate scandal, he was sentenced to several years in prison on February 21, 1975 for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury, of which he only served 19 months before he was paroled. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The public statements of his wife Martha were particularly famous and notorious. When she said her husband was involved in illegal activities by the White House, she was considered mentally ill. After the Watergate scandal was uncovered, claims made by her turned out to be correct; the wrong diagnosis of mental illnesses (paranoia etc.) due to statements that were perceived as unpleasant, allegedly or allegedly incorrect, was referred to as the Martha-Mitchell effect .

In the 1995 film Nixon (with Anthony Hopkins as Nixon), Mitchell was portrayed by EG Marshall .

Web links

Commons : John N. Mitchell  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Biography on the website of the United States Attorney General (English)
• John N. Mitchell at the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs (English)
• John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75 by Lawrence Meyer, Washington Post obituary, November 10, 1988