Martha Mitchell

2022 - 6 - 6

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Image courtesy of "The Washington Post"

How Martha Mitchell's firing of a bodyguard spurred Watergate ... (The Washington Post)

The second episode of “Gaslit” features a hapless Watergate lookout named Alfred Baldwin. What it doesn't say is that Baldwin was only there because he'd ...

On the other hand, it is hard to say that McCord and his bosses — G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt — might have found a more competent watchman. In a “but for” world, maybe Watergate never would have happened had Martha Mitchell kept Baldwin as her bodyguard. She told Forsberg that she considered Baldwin “pushy, vocal and someone who would not stay in the background.” He was sacked after one trip. And then, fatefully, Baldwin found himself in a hotel room listening from early morning to midnight to bugged telephone conversations from the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate across the street. The FBI traced a number in the Howard Johnson phone logs to Baldwin’s Connecticut home. What we do know is that once the lights started flashing in the DNC, Baldwin tried too late to warn the burglars by walkie-talkie. “They got us,” was the last transmission from McCord and his group. The transcripts of these calls were so disappointing that a second break-in was ordered for the night of June 16-17, 1972 — 50 years ago this month. They were alone together on the trip the next day from Detroit to New York City, when the train hit and killed a pedestrian. Baldwin was identified as a potential bodyguard for Martha Mitchell just a month before the break-ins began. In the ex-FBI agent registry, Baldwin underscored that he could be available on short notice for any new security assignments. McCord was having trouble finding a good candidate for the protective detail because of Martha Mitchell’s reputation for drinking and abusing employees.

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Image courtesy of "Vulture"

Gaslit Recap: What's Your Point, Ed? (Vulture)

Liddy and the Mitchells' trials are recounted in maybe the most uneven installment of the series to date. A recap of “Year of the Rat,” episode seven of the ...

He was kinda sidelined in this episode because we needed the scenes with Liddy and the rat shit. He sees a small hole in the wall of his cell and starts screaming, “I found you!” while picking at it. Why was this narrated by Liddy talking about Nazis?? He says their noble leader (you mean NIXON, sir?) has also been devoured by rats (like the episode title!), and their sickness has infected the rest of them. The storylines merge when Liddy narrates a whole thing about how his Nazi nanny died by suicide because she was so sad about the death of Hitler. Meanwhile, Martha is standing outside the TV studio on the sidewalk, seemingly about to walk into traffic? He paints his face with rat shit, floods the toilet, yells, “I STRIKE AT THEE” when the rat shows up and he tries to nail it with the lunch tray, only he misses and lands in the water in his underpants. I am waging a holy war against the demon that is my own weakness — see how weird this all is next to the Martha Mitchell plotline? While there, he hears a rat (hey, like the episode title!) and finds rat droppings. So being trapped in a tiny room with a rat and also you’re G. Gordon Liddy in Gaslit and therefore completely unhinged already? Mitchell comes in and a massive fight ensues that involves some shoving on her part and then some choking on his — good LORD. They verbally abuse each other and he admits he was responsible for her kidnapping and abuse in California. It’s all hurtful and awful. But as I’ve only been able to find a photograph of the interview and no video or transcript, I have no idea if she actually sounded that disjointed and unfocused. They’re both very into each other, even though it makes zero sense that she’d be so into him since they’ve only just met and he is no Dwight Eisenhower (can you imagine if I used Eisenhower as a barometer for attractiveness?). She makes a wish on his eyelash. The time shift was not queued up for us at all, other than John Mitchell having darker hair, so I assumed it was present-day and that he had dyed it to appear younger.

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