Martha Mitchell's Revenge: The Bombshell Truth About the Prolific Watergate Tea Spiller
On Sept. 21, 1972, Woodward flew to New York, where the Mitchells had since relocated and were staying at the Essex House while waiting to move into their grand new apartment on Fifth Avenue.
When Woodward called their hotel the next morning, he was initially told Martha wasn't available. Waiting in the hallway, he saw a security guard leave so he ran downstairs and called again, and this time Martha answered. When the operator broke in to say another 5 cents was needed to extend the call, she quipped, "I wouldn't want Katie Graham to spend another nickel on me.
During their 15-minute chat, Woodward reported in the book, Martha was "visibly nervous" when the subject of Watergate came up and didn't have anything to say about it or her previous comments about "dirty politics" and the sordid situation she'd been in that June. She told him she was writing a book about her life in Washington—and that Nixon was going to win re-election in a landslide.
"I think there shouldn't be an election," she said. "If you ask me, the President should have a seven-year term and, boom, then put him out. They start running again after they're in office two years. I don't care which party you're talking about."House of Cards"Why do they keep asking me about the Watergate affair?" Martha joked at a $1,000-a-plate Republican fundraising dinner she attended with John just weeks before Election Day.