Martha Mitchell Effect
As Martha Mitchell Effect is called a misdiagnosis since the late 1980s, when factual evidence and rationally justified beliefs as fantasies and delusions are interpreted. This misjudgment can arise when someone discovers signs of a conspiracy or other machinations that are dismissed and rejected by others as absurd and nonsensical for various reasons.
The effect was named by Brendan Maher after Martha Mitchell (1918–1976), wife of John N. Mitchell , Richard Nixon's campaign manager and later United States attorney general . Their allegations turned out to be true in the course of the Watergate scandal .
background
When Martha married her second husband, John Mitchell, in 1957, he was still a lawyer in New York . In the years to come, he became an important contributor to Nixon, who had met him when their offices were merged. After his successful election as 37th President of the United States , Nixon named his confidante attorney general , and the family moved to Washington, DC .
Martha soon attracted attention in her environment because of her strange behavior. Unlike other wives of high government officials, she was often quite blunt and did not want to limit herself to common activities such as fundraising galas and charity events.
During the 1972 election campaign , police arrested five burglars who tried to install wiretapping systems in the Democrats' election campaign district Watergate . After one of the perpetrators stated that the wiretapping had been ordered by Mitchell and John Dean , the affair escalated. While Nixon was initially able to maintain the facade, it became increasingly difficult for John N. Mitchell to talk his way out.
His wife had called reporters several times in the early hours of the morning , often from the bathroom, so that her husband wouldn’t notice. They whispered that she had been drunk on many of the conversations and did not take her views seriously. Now she got in touch with the journalist Helen Thomas again and stated that Nixon had to be aware of what was going on: If her husband should know about the break-in, the president could not hide it. Nixon must resign. In further phone calls she confirmed her allegations and often spoke in a sluggish voice, which was attributed to both her alcohol consumption and the southern accent . She assumed a conspiracy in which the president was involved and for the cover up of which her husband would act as a scapegoat . It soon emerged that Nixon had not only initiated and supported the break-in, but also other actions, which confirmed Martha Mitchell's suspicions, which many held to be absurd.
Martha Mitchell is the role model for the first lady "Martha Logan" played by Jean Smart and wife of the corrupt Charles Logan in the successful American television series 24 about the anti-terrorist specialist Jack Bauer .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Grüter, Freemason, Illuminati and other conspirators. How conspiracy theories work . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, 3rd edition, p. 130
- ↑ Maher, Brendan A. (1988) "Anomalous Experience and Delusional Thinking: The Logic of Explanations". In T. Oltmanns and B. Maher (eds) Delusional Beliefs. New York: Wiley Interscience. Quoted in: B. Maher, Language Disorders in Psychoses and Their Impact on Delusions , Psychopathology and Philosophy, 1988, pp. 109-120, p. 110
- ↑ Thomas Grüter, Freemason, Illuminati and other conspirators. How conspiracy theories work . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, 3rd edition, p. 127
- ↑ Thomas Grüter, Freemason, Illuminati and other conspirators. How conspiracy theories work . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, 3rd edition, p. 129