June 25, 1972

Haldeman's diary:

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Got into the Martha Mitchell problem. Apparently she called [reporter] Helen Thomas the other night and said if John didn't get his ass out of politics she was going to kick him out of the house, but her phones were then pulled out either by her or someone in her room. She's demanded that they be reinstated, and the phone company has delayed on it, and she's now threatened to the phone man that if they don't get her phones in, she's going to blow the whole Republican deal, whatever that means.

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One of the many wild stories of Watergate. Martha Mitchell's phone had in fact been yanked out of the wall by a security man at the orders of Fred LaRue of the campaign committee. As Emery tells it: "She had then reportedly pushed her hand through a plate glass door and was sedated and secretly hospitalized...Once free from the hospital, she had been on the phone again to the press with allegations she was a 'political prisoner,' that she knew all about Watergate and threatened to leave her husband if he didn't quit politics.


Meanwhile, during that first weekend after the break-in, Acting FBI Director Pat Gray began having everything about the investigation sent to him at his house -- the better, it turns out, to keep John Dean informed of exactly what was happening.