John N. Mitchell

John Newton Mitchell (September 15, 1913 – November 9, 1988) was the 67th Attorney General of the United States, serving under President Richard Nixon and was chairman of Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns.

Prior to that, he had been a municipal bond lawyer and one of Nixon's associates.

He was tried and convicted as a result of his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

He attended Fordham University from 1932 to 1934, and earned his law degree from Fordham University School of Law in 1938.

Mitchell carried out postgraduate study at St. John's University Law School in 1938 and 1939

During World War II, Mitchell served for three years in the United States Navy and attained the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) as a PT boat commander.

Stories Mitchell told about his naval service were later debunked, including having received the Silver Star and Purple Heart, served as John F. Kennedy's commanding officer, and saved the life of Pappy Boyington.

Except for his period of military service, Mitchell practiced law in New York City from 1938 until 1969 with the firm of Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Mitchell and earned a reputation as a successful municipal bond lawyer.

School segregation had been struck down as unconstitutional by a unanimous Supreme Court decision in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), but in 1955, the Court ruled that desegregation needed to be accomplished only with "all deliberate speed," which many Southern states interpreted as an invitation to delay.

Mitchell devised a type of revenue bond called a "moral obligation bond" while serving as bond counsel to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s.

In an effort to get around the voter approval process for increasing state and municipal borrower limits, Mitchell attached language to the offerings that was able to communicate the state's intent to meet the bond payments while not placing it under a legal obligation to do so.

Mitchell did not dispute when asked in an interview if the intent of such language was to create a "form of political elitism that bypasses the voter's right to a referendum or an initiative."

Richard Nixon was a partner in the firm from 1963 to 1968.

Mitchell's second wife, Martha Mitchell, became a controversial figure, gaining notoriety for her late-night phone calls to reporters in which she accused Nixon of participating in the Watergate cover-up and alleged that he and several of his aides were trying to make her husband the scapegoat for the whole affair.

In 1967, the firm of Caldwell, Trimble & Mitchell, where Mitchell was lead partner, merged with Richard Nixon's firm, Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, & Alexander.

Nixon was then officially in "political retirement" but was quietly organizing a return to politics in the 1968 Presidential Election.

Mitchell, with his many contacts in local government, became an important strategic confidant to Nixon, who referred to him as "the heavyweight."

In 1968 John Mitchell agreed to become Nixon's presidential campaign manager.

During his successful 1968 campaign, Nixon turned over the details of the day-to-day operations to Mitchell.

Allegedly, Mitchell also played a central role in covert attempts to sabotage the 1968 Paris Peace Accords which could have ended the Vietnam War.

As a result, some 70% of black children were still attending segregated schools in 1968 when Nixon became president.

After Nixon became president in January 1969, he appointed Mitchell as Attorney General of the United States while making an unprecedented direct appeal to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the usual background investigation not be conducted.

Mitchell remained in office from 1969 until he resigned in 1972 to manage Nixon's reelection campaign.

Mitchell believed that the government's need for "law and order" justified restrictions on civil liberties.

He advocated the use of wiretaps in national security cases without obtaining a court order (United States v. U.S. District Court) and the right of police to employ the preventive detention of criminal suspects.

He brought conspiracy charges against critics of the Vietnam War, likening them to brown shirts of the Nazi era in Germany.

Mitchell expressed a reluctance to involve the Justice Department in some civil rights issues.

"The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency," he told reporters.

"It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society."

However, he also told activists, "You will be better advised to watch what we do, not what we say."

Near the beginning of his administration, Nixon ordered Mitchell to go slow on desegregation of schools in the South, in fulfillment of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" which accused him of focusing on gaining support from Southern white voters.

After being instructed by the federal courts that segregation was unconstitutional and that the executive branch was required to enforce the rulings of the courts, Mitchell began to comply, threatening to withhold federal funds from those school systems that were still segregated and threatening legal action against them.

It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court renounced the "all deliberate speed" rule and declared that further delay in accomplishing desegregation was no longer permissible.

Enrollment of black children in desegregated schools rose from 186,000 in 1969 to 3 million in 1970.

After his tenure as U.S. Attorney General, he served as chairman of Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign.

By 1972, as a result of President Nixon's policy this percentage had decreased to 8%, a greater decrease than in any of the previous three presidents.

Due to multiple crimes he committed in the Watergate affair, Mitchell was sentenced to prison in 1977 and served 19 months.

As Attorney General, he was noted for personifying the "law-and-order" positions of the Nixon administration, amid several high-profile anti-Vietnam War demonstrations; this generated irony when he became one of very few Cabinet members ever convicted of a crime.

Mitchell was born in Detroit to Margaret (McMahon) and Joseph C. Mitchell.

He grew up in the New York City borough of Queens.