John N. Mitchell

John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913 to November 9, 1988) was a New York lawyer, law partner of Richard Nixon, manager of Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, Attorney General of the United States from January 21, 1969 until March 1, 1972, and head of the Committee to Re-elect the President until July 1, 1972.¹² A federal jury in New York City acquitted him in April 1974 on all counts of an indictment charging conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with a secret cash contribution by the financier Robert Vesco.³ A jury in Washington, D.C. convicted him in January 1975 of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in the Watergate cover-up, and he served 19 months in prison, including five months of medical furlough.⁴⁵

Law Practice and the 1968 Campaign

Mitchell was admitted to the New York bar in 1938, was a partner in Caldwell, Trimble & Mitchell from 1945 to 1966, and was a partner in Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Mitchell from 1967 to 1968.¹ Testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee on July 10, 1973, he said that he had a casual acquaintance with Nixon before Nixon came to New York in 1963 to practice law, that the two law firms merged at the end of 1966, that he and Nixon practiced together until both retired from the firm, and that he was known as the campaign director in the 1968 campaign.⁶

On December 10, 1968, Mitchell wrote to Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence, on the stationery of the Office of the President-elect at 450 Park Avenue, New York. The letter thanked Helms for a letter of December 9 concerning William E. Colby and stated that Mitchell would "take the matter up with the appropriate persons."⁷

Harry L. Sears, a former Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly and Majority Leader of the State Senate, became acquainted with Mitchell through work on the 1968 Republican presidential campaign. After an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for governor left Sears with campaign debts, a testimonial dinner for him was held at which Attorney General Mitchell was the guest of honor. Robert Vesco had made a contribution to Sears's campaign and had arranged a bank loan for him.⁸

Attorney General

President Nixon appointed Mitchell on January 21, 1969.¹ Asked in 1973 about the 1970 interagency intelligence plan associated with the White House aide Tom Charles Huston, Mitchell testified that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cartha DeLoach and J. Edgar Hoover brought it to his attention, that he had the plan in his possession during those discussions, and that he "joined Mr. Hoover in opposing its implementation." He said he later spoke to H. R. Haldeman and to the President about it and that "that was the end of it."⁹ He testified that he learned of the White House "Plumbers" unit only after June 17, 1972.¹⁰

On November 6, 1970, Mitchell authorized a warrantless wiretap on the telephone of William Davidon, a Haverford College physics professor who belonged to a group that, according to information received, had made plans to blow up heating tunnels linking federal office buildings in Washington and had discussed kidnapping National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger. The FBI installed the tap in late November 1970 and it stayed in place until January 6, 1971, intercepting three conversations between Davidon and Keith Forsyth. In Mitchell v. Forsyth (1985), the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Attorney General was not absolutely immune from damages for national security actions but that Mitchell was entitled to qualified immunity, because the legality of a warrantless domestic security wiretap was an open question in November 1970.¹¹

In Zweibon v. Mitchell, a suit by members of the Jewish Defense League, the record showed that the Attorney General approved an FBI request to wiretap the League's headquarters during October 1970, the month of the 25th session of the United Nations General Assembly, and approved a second request, for a 90-day tap beginning in early January 1971. The first approval was given, the opinion stated, because of fear of international embarrassment or Soviet retaliation against Americans in Moscow. The district court had sustained the Attorney General's assertion and granted summary judgment for the defendants, and in August 1973 Judge Griffin Bell, writing for a Fifth Circuit panel in United States v. Brown, cited that district court decision as accord for the proposition that the President may authorize warrantless wiretaps to gather foreign intelligence. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided the case en banc on June 23, 1975.¹²¹³

Chile and the 40 Committee, September to December 1970

A staff report of the Senate Church Committee recorded that on September 15, 1970, after Salvador Allende finished first in the Chilean presidential election, Nixon met with Helms, Kissinger and Mitchell and that Helms was directed to prevent Allende from taking power without the knowledge of the Departments of State and Defense or the ambassador.¹⁴ The Committee's interim report on assassination plots reproduced Helms's handwritten notes of the meeting, which read in part "One in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!" and "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary."¹⁵ The same report stated that on the morning of September 15, at the request of Donald Kendall, president of Pepsi-Cola, Kissinger and Mitchell had breakfast with Kendall and Agustin Edwards, publisher of El Mercurio (the report cited the Mitchell calendar), the subject being the political situation in Chile and "the plight of El Mercurio and other anti-Allende forces."¹⁶

At the 40 Committee meeting of October 15, 1970 the principals present were Kissinger, Mitchell, David Packard, Alexis Johnson and Admiral Moorer, together with CIA and State Department officials and Ambassador Korry.¹⁷ A memorandum of December 2, 1970 from Helms to Kissinger stated that Helms had given a recapitulation of the CIA's Track II activities to Attorney General Mitchell, who would deliver it personally to Kissinger. Kissinger told the Committee he did not recall receiving the report and was puzzled that it was to be delivered through Mitchell.¹⁸

The Reelection Committee and Liddy

John W. Dean, counsel to the President, testified that on November 24, 1971 he brought G. Gordon Liddy to Mitchell's office to be interviewed for the post of general counsel of the reelection committee, after Egil Krogh had cleared the suggestion with John Ehrlichman. Dean described a general job interview with virtually no discussion of intelligence plans, and submitted an agenda that Liddy had prepared for it.¹⁹ Mitchell testified that this was the first time he met Liddy, that he knew Liddy had been an assistant prosecutor in New York State, a candidate for Congress, an FBI agent, and a Treasury and White House staff member, and that a one-line reference to intelligence gathering in Liddy's prospectus was not discussed. He said that on December 8, 1971 Krogh brought Liddy to his office for a meeting on the drug abuse law enforcement program, and that he did not then know that Liddy also worked for Krogh as one of the Plumbers.²⁰

Howard Hunt testified that in late November 1971 Liddy told him that Attorney General Mitchell had proposed a large-scale intelligence and counterintelligence program with Liddy as its chief, that he and Liddy designed a budget for it under the name Gemstone, and that he understood it to have been approved by Jeb Stuart Magruder and Dean and later by Charles Colson.²¹

Magruder, deputy director of the reelection committee, testified that on January 27, 1972 he, Dean, Liddy and Mitchell met in the Attorney General's office, where Liddy presented about six charts, each headed by a code word, one of them Gemstone, with a total budget of about $1 million. The projects included wiretapping, electronic surveillance and photography, the abduction of radical leaders to Mexico during the San Diego convention, and call girls. Magruder said that all three listeners were appalled and that Mitchell, "in an understated way," indicated that the project was not acceptable and that Liddy would go back to the drawing boards.²² Dean testified that Mitchell took a few long puffs on his pipe and told Liddy that the plan was not quite what he had in mind and that the cost was out of the question, that Mitchell winked at him during the presentation, and that Dean told Liddy as they left to destroy the charts. Dean described a second meeting on February 4, at which Liddy presented a scaled-down plan and Dean ended the discussion by saying that it could not continue in the office of the Attorney General.²³

Mitchell testified that Liddy's presentation was "a complete horror story," that he told Liddy "to go burn the charts," and that in hindsight he "should have thrown him out of the window." He testified that the February 4 meeting was short, that the revised plan was rejected again, and that no targets were discussed.²⁴ He also testified that between February 4 and June 15, 1972 he did not see or speak to Liddy, and he called Magruder's account of showing him Gemstone material "a palpable, damnable lie."²⁵

In July 1973 Senator Herman Talmadge asked Mitchell whether he had played an active role in the campaign while still Attorney General. Mitchell answered that "What I did was succumb to the President's request to keep an eye on what was going on over there," and, when Talmadge used the word "supervisory," said "If you would change 'supervisory' to 'consulting', I think I would be much happier." Talmadge then read him an exchange of March 14, 1972 between Mitchell and Senator Edward Kennedy before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "Senator Kennedy. No re-election campaign responsibilities? Mr. Mitchell. Not as yet." Mitchell said the answer related back to the Republican Party.²⁶

Magruder testified that on March 30, 1972, at Key Biscayne, Florida, where Mitchell was vacationing, he went over decision papers with Mitchell and Fred LaRue, that the last item was Liddy's proposal reduced to about $250,000, that it was approved for entry into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington and possibly later into other targets, and that Mitchell "simply signed off on it."²⁷ Mitchell testified that the plan was rejected for a third time at that meeting, that LaRue was present throughout, that LaRue was not enthusiastic and concurred that the plan should not be approved, and that he did not believe Magruder paid Liddy $250,000.²⁸ The opinion of the court of appeals affirming Mitchell's convictions summarized the trial evidence as showing that Liddy had pared his budget to $250,000 and that on March 30 Magruder obtained Mitchell's approval for Gemstone at a meeting in Key Biscayne attended only by Mitchell, Magruder and LaRue.⁵

The same court recorded the testimony of Hugh Sloan, treasurer of the Finance Committee to Re-elect the President, that he turned over to Liddy a total of $199,000 in cash, mostly in $100 bills, and that bills of that denomination later were found in sequence on the five men arrested in the Democratic National Committee offices.²⁹ Committee counsel Samuel Dash read to Mitchell the testimony of Maurice Stans, chairman of the Finance Committee, that after Sloan questioned a request by Liddy for money Mitchell said Magruder directed the spending and that Sloan should pay Liddy what Magruder directed. Mitchell testified that he had told Stans that Magruder had "continuing authorization" to authorize expenditures, disputed that large sums were discussed, and said he would not dispute Stans's statement about Magruder's continuing authority.³⁰

On June 15, 1972 Liddy came to Mitchell's office with the committee's public information officer, Van Shumway, about a letter to the Washington Post on charges by the General Accounting Office under the Corrupt Practices Act. Mitchell testified that this was the only conversation he had with Liddy between February 4 and June 15.²⁵

According to the court of appeals, after the June 17 arrests Liddy reported the capture to the committee's senior officials, who were in California, and Mitchell, Robert Mardian, LaRue and Magruder decided to ask the new Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst, to arrange the release of James McCord before his alias was penetrated. Kleindienst refused special treatment.³¹ Kleindienst testified that on Saturday, June 17, Liddy and Powell Moore came to the Burning Tree Club in Washington, where he was playing in a tournament; that Liddy said some of those arrested might be employed by the White House or the reelection committee and, in Kleindienst's less precise recollection, that Mitchell had asked him to come and talk to Kleindienst; that Kleindienst found this incredible, telephoned Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen to instruct that those arrested be given no different treatment, and told Liddy to leave.³² A press release denying any link between the committee and the burglars appeared on June 18 under Mitchell's name; Haldeman approved it by telephone although Magruder had told him the break-in was "Liddy's operation."³¹ Mitchell, Mardian and LaRue returned to Washington on June 19 and met that evening in Mitchell's apartment with Dean and Magruder. Mitchell testified that there was no discussion of destroying documents; Magruder testified that the group discussed what to do about the problem, and the court of appeals summarized the evidence as showing that Magruder removed the Gemstone materials from the committee's files and took them to his home.³³ Mitchell testified that Mardian and LaRue told him, after debriefing Liddy, that Liddy had been involved in the entry into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist and in the matter of the ITT lobbyist Dita Beard, whom, as Mitchell understood it, Liddy had assisted in leaving New York for Denver.³⁴

Mitchell resigned as campaign director on July 1, 1972. He testified that the President urged him to stay and that he had spent the previous week working on a family situation so that he could stay as husband and wife.²

Vesco

In its disciplinary opinion on Sears, the Supreme Court of New Jersey recorded that Vesco's corporation, International Controls Corporation, was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its 1970 purchase of control of Investors Overseas Services; that Vesco asked Sears several times to speak to Mitchell in the hope that Mitchell would induce SEC Chairman William J. Casey to monitor and limit the inquiry; and that Sears conveyed these requests in two letters and three meetings with Mitchell.³⁵

The opinion placed one of those meetings on February 11, 1972, when Mitchell was still Attorney General. Sears again asked Mitchell to induce Casey to oversee the investigation and mentioned that Vesco intended to contribute up to $500,000 to the 1972 campaign. Mitchell replied that he would discuss the matter with Stans. By March 11, 1972 Vesco had pledged $250,000 to Stans, who wanted it in currency. At a meeting on April 3, it was decided that $50,000 would be contributed publicly through the New Jersey Finance Committee and the remainder as a secret cash contribution. Sears noted that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which required disclosure of contributions above $50,000, would take effect on April 7, 1972; Stans told him that the date of delivery was unimportant. On April 10, 1972, Larry Richardson, president of International Controls, delivered $200,000 in cash to Stans in Washington. Justice Sullivan, who would have disbarred Sears, wrote in dissent that Richardson told Stans, "He'd like to get some help," and that Stans answered, "that is John Mitchell's department." At 2 p.m. that day Sears told Mitchell about the cash contribution and reminded him of the SEC investigation and of his requests for a meeting with Casey. While Sears was in the office, Mitchell telephoned Casey and arranged a meeting between Sears and Casey for later that day, at which, according to the majority opinion, Casey gave personal assurances that International Controls would be afforded an opportunity to respond to the SEC's findings and that he would review its allegations of SEC harassment; Justice Sullivan wrote that Casey told Sears the Commission was not in the habit of taking precipitous action but did not give "any assurance" that the company would be allowed to appear before the Commission itself.³⁶

The opinion recorded that by October 1972 the SEC had traced funds representing the $200,000 to the International Controls treasury and had issued subpoenas to company officers, including Richardson. Sears met Mitchell in October 1972, when Mitchell expressed the belief that the subpoenas would ultimately be withdrawn, and again on November 21, 1972, when Sears gave Mitchell a file compiled by Vesco's Washington counsel and a memorandum from Vesco intended for the President's brother Donald Nixon and ultimately for the President. Mitchell and Sears agreed that the file should be returned to Vesco.³⁷ The SEC sued Vesco on November 27, 1972 for a $224 million stock fraud.³⁸

At the 1974 trial, according to Time, John Dean testified that beginning about July 14, 1972 he made eight to twelve telephone calls to Casey at Mitchell's behest, relaying Mitchell's complaints that the SEC was harassing Vesco, and that in late October 1972 Mitchell asked him to have Casey postpone the November 2 appearances of subpoenaed Vesco staff, saying that it would be embarrassing for them to take the Fifth Amendment before the election. Dean said that Casey answered that nothing could be done and that the witnesses took the Fifth Amendment. Dean also testified that on March 20, 1973 Mitchell telephoned him after a New York federal grand jury appearance, said "those little bastards were all over me," and told him to call Kleindienst, then Attorney General, "and tell him what's going on"; Dean passed the message to Kleindienst. Defense counsel Peter Fleming brought out that the tape of Dean's conversation with Nixon that day did not mention the request. G. Bradford Cook, the SEC general counsel and later chairman, testified that Stans implied he should remove a reference to Vesco's missing $250,000 from the SEC complaint and that he complied; he acknowledged lying about this to the grand jury and a congressional committee, and resigned as SEC chairman on May 16, 1973 after ten weeks.³⁸

The indictment returned on May 10, 1973 (73 Cr. 439, S.D.N.Y.) charged Mitchell, Stans, Sears and Vesco in a conspiracy count alleging an agreement to obstruct justice in relation to the SEC investigation and proceedings against Vesco and to defraud the United States in relation to the functions of the SEC and the General Accounting Office; Mitchell was also charged with counts of endeavoring to obstruct justice and with six counts of perjury before the grand jury. Paragraph 16(r) of the conspiracy count alleged that in October 1972 Vesco threatened to disclose the $200,000 cash contribution delivered to Stans on April 10, 1972 unless an SEC subpoena issued to him was withdrawn and that Sears relayed the threat to Mitchell. Judge Gagliardi ruled on the pretrial motions on August 29, 1973, denying Stans's motion to dismiss on grounds arising from the grand jury questioning of his lawyer Kenneth Parkinson and granting alternative relief suppressing Parkinson's grand jury testimony and certain documents.³⁹ Sears was indicted on May 11, 1973 and, after plea negotiations, accepted transactional immunity and prepared to testify for the prosecution.⁴⁰

On April 28, 1974 the jury acquitted Mitchell and Stans on all nine counts against them. Assistant United States Attorney John R. Wing said afterward: "If we could have gotten Vesco back it would have been different." Vesco had left the country and the government had been unable to secure his return.³ The Supreme Court of New Jersey, by a vote of four to one, suspended Sears from the practice of law for three years effective October 15, 1976; Justice Sullivan would have disbarred him.⁴⁰

Senate Testimony and the Cover-up Trial

Mitchell appeared before the Senate committee on July 10, 1973 under subpoena, accompanied by counsel William Hundley, Plato C. Cacheris and Marvin Segal. Hundley stated for the record that by letters of June 18 and July 9, 1973 Mitchell had asked the committee to withdraw the subpoena, that the committee had refused, and that Mitchell would make no opening statement.⁴¹

A grand jury indictment in the case that became United States v. Mitchell et al., D.C. Criminal No. 74-110, charged Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Mardian, Parkinson and Gordon Strachan with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and false statements to the FBI, the grand jury and the Senate committee. The jury acquitted Parkinson, convicted Mardian of conspiracy, and convicted Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and all the perjury counts submitted. The sentences were concurrent terms of 20 months to five years on the conspiracy and obstruction counts and 10 months to three years on each perjury count, the latter consecutive, for a total of two and a half to eight years. The court of appeals, sitting en banc, affirmed on October 12, 1976, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 23, 1977.⁵

The court's summary of the trial evidence stated that Magruder, preparing his grand jury testimony in August 1972, reviewed his account with Mitchell, who urged him to minimize Mitchell's role in running the campaign, and that when E. Howard Hunt demanded another $122,000 on March 16, 1973, Dean relayed the demand to Ehrlichman and, at his suggestion, to Mitchell.⁴² An Associated Press obituary reported that on a March 22, 1973 White House tape Ehrlichman said "John says he's sorry he sent those burglars in there," Nixon replied "That's right," and Mitchell said "You are very welcome, sir." The same report stated that the verdict was returned on January 1, 1975 and that the sentence was two and a half to eight years.⁴

On June 17, 1976 the New York Court of Appeals rejected Mitchell's appeal from an Appellate Division order striking his name from the roll of attorneys on the basis of the federal judgment.⁴³ The Associated Press obituary stated that he served a 19-month term that included five months of medical furloughs.⁴

Testimony in the Felt and Miller Trial

In 1980 Mitchell and Kleindienst testified at the trial of the former FBI officials W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, indicted in April 1978, during the tenure of Attorney General Griffin Bell, on charges of conspiring to deprive relatives and acquaintances of fugitives from the Weather Underground of their rights under 18 U.S.C. 241. Mark D. Cummings, a lawyer who was assigned to Felt's defense, wrote in the National Security Law Journal that Mitchell testified that J. Edgar Hoover's 1966 halt on surreptitious entries was motivated less by legal concerns than by regard for the Bureau's image, and that neither Mitchell nor Kleindienst had ever been asked to approve a covert entry but both agreed it was a legal tool when national security was at stake. Cummings cited trial transcript pages 5742 to 5826 for the testimony of the two former Attorneys General.⁴⁴

Later Life and Death

Mitchell died on November 9, 1988, in Washington, D.C., after collapsing on a street in Georgetown; the Associated Press reported that he had suffered a heart attack.¹⁴

Attributed Introduction of Jeffrey Epstein and Steven Hoffenberg

In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Vicky Ward wrote that Steven Hoffenberg said he and Jeffrey Epstein were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor, and that "Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general."⁴⁵