Read Online The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate by James Rosen - Free Book Online Page B

makes the editorial writers so damned mad is that he ignores them. They needle him, but he won’t jump.” 7
    Of course, White House documents and tapes later revealed almost the complete opposite of everything Mitchell said: that Nixon never put the resentments of the early sixties behind him; that he frequently flew into uproars, during and between crises; that he seldom moved breezily on to the next problem but chewed the same ones over and over again, often to no discernible resolution; that he got sidetracked by minutiae, such as the placement of end tables in the East Wing and wine selection for state dinners, every day of his presidency; and that, most acutely, far from ignoring the needles of the press, Nixon literally obsessed over them, spent hours dictating punitive memoranda in response to them, was driven quite near insane by them. 8
    Beyond putting the best public face on his boss, Mitchell was likely having a bit of sport with van der Linden, as he’d had with the
Newsday
reporter who inquired about his childhood, baldly propounding things he knew to be untrue purely for the perverse pleasure of making fools of reporters. A series of private remarks later reported publicly, some heretofore unpublished, reveal Mitchell harbored a far different view of Richard Nixon than his comments to van der Linden implied. Out of earshot, Mitchell derisively referred to Nixon as “Milhous”—the middle name Nixon loathed so much he banished even the letter
M
from his press releases and gravestone. Senator Howard Baker never forgot what Mitchell said when Baker introduced him to his wife at the 1968 Republican National Convention. “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” Mrs. Baker said cheerfully. “You are in Mr. Nixon’s law firm.” “No, madam,” Mitchell replied pointedly. “Mr. Nixon has joined
my
law firm.” 9
    Mitchell’s remarks were even more pointed shortly after he assumed control over Nixon’s ’68 campaign, when a group of Republican congressmen summoned Mitchell for a luncheon on Capitol Hill.
What business
, the lawmakers wanted to know,
did a bond lawyer have running Richard Nixon’s campaign?
“I’m the only man,” replied Mitchell, “who can say ‘no’ to Richard Nixon. I’ve made more money in the practice of law than Nixon, brought more clients into the firm, can hold my own in argument with him and, as far as I’m concerned, I can deal with him as an equal.” 10
    Indeed, over the years, Mitchell occasionally voiced contempt for Nixon. Mitchell’s press secretary at Justice, Jack Landau, remembered his boss “didn’t think Nixon was very smart. He didn’t think he had any resolve.” “Nixon couldn’t piss straight in the shower if I wasn’t there to hold him!” Mitchell once told Landau. This feeling persisted until Mitchell’s death. “I have ceased to be mystified by Nixon’s actions,” he told an interviewer in 1988. “Everybody always says what a complicated individual [Nixon] is. He’s about as complicated as my grandson.”
    What, then—if not awe of intellect or will—explained Mitchell’s boundless loyalty to Richard Nixon? Certainly it was not any expectation of reciprocity. Asked once if Nixon failed to return Mitchell’s loyalty, Henry Kissinger paused. “I think that’s a fair statement,” he finally answered.

    Nixon had no really close relationship with anybody. So I thought Nixon had high regard for Mitchell. And since Mitchell never asked for anything for himself, at least as far as I could ever tell, [Nixon] had less of a hold over Mitchell than over some others. And I think he respected him. Which didn’t keep him from sending him over the wall at the end.

    Why did Mitchell, even after the White House tapes revealed Nixon’s betrayal, persist in undiminished loyalty, never turning on the disgraced ex-president to improve his own prospects before courts of appeal, the bar of history, or the publishing industry? Ultimately, the answer resides not in