Short Stuff: The Gaslighting of Martha Mitchell

This episode tells the wild true story of Martha Mitchell, the outspoken Southern wife of Nixon's Attorney General who became one of the first conservative political pundits by refusing to stay quiet. When the Watergate break-in happened in 1972, her husband John Mitchell and the Nixon campaign realized she knew too much about their involvement, so they literally kidnapped her, held her in a hotel, confiscated phones, and even had her sedated by a doctor to keep her from talking to the press. The episode covers her remarkable resilience in the face of a brutal smear campaign designed to paint her as a crazy drunk, how her forced confinement actually inspired the term "Martha Mitchell Effect" in psychology, and the ultimate irony that her loyalty and willingness to blow the whistle may have been the only thing that actually brought down Nixon's lies.