She had a down-to-earth Arkansas personality that didn't fit in well with politics, especially during a secretive Nixon administration. She began calling reporters (including Helen Thomas) to tell them about things she had seen. She had just spoken to a UPI reporter on her bedroom phone when 5 men entered, pinned her down on the bed, & gave her an injection.
Here's a couple of links:
In December 1971 a wire story ran about Vice President Spiro Agnew's gag Christmas gift list. Included on the list were: "For Martha Mitchell, a brand-new Princess phone. For John Mitchell, a padlock for a brand-new Princess phone."
"Why did Martha Mitchell call you?" someone asked me after I filed my first story based on one of her many telephone calls in which she expressed her outraged a few days after the Watergate break-in.
I wasn't the only reporter she called, but I did take her seriously and I wrote about what she told me. Sometimes the stories made it to the wire and sometimes they go spiked. But Martha perhaps put the answer best herself when she told an interviewer, "Helen knows me well enough to know I'm not going to give her a line of bull. We just kind of fell into each other's arms. Several other reporters had been recommended to me, but when I talked to them they were cold fish. They were calculating, and, I thought, unwilling to stick their necks out. Helen Thomas, I knew would print the truth no matter what it cost her personally, and I wanted the truth to be known."(1)
I don't think the dust will ever entirely settle on the Watergate scandal, but I do think Martha deserves more than a footnote in its history. She should be remembered as the woman who tried to blow the whistle on what was going on, but sometimes her stories seemed so out there, it was close to impossible to get anyone to listen. However, I listened and I wrote and I'll let history decide.
From Helen Thomas' Front Row At the White House (btw, I'm a proud owner of this book!)
Four days after the arrests at the Watergate Hotel, Martha Mitchell called a UPI reporter from Newport, California:
"I am sick and tired of politics."
"I gave (John) an ultimatum I would leave him if he didn't get out."
"I am a political prisoner."
"Politics is nothing but a cops and robbers game."
"I know dirty things."
"I saw dirty things."
"I am not going to stand for all those dirty tricks that go on."
"I am sick and tired of the whole operation."
"They threw me down on the bed, five men, and stuck a needle in my behind. A doctor stitched my fingers after the battle with five guards." (She had bruises on her arms and thighs.)
Why Was Martha Mitchell Kidnapped?