Those Were the Days

Last week, in a rare instance of being out of the apartment sans kids, my wife and I attended the opening night of “Dirty Tricks” at the Public Theater (my better half and her friend run a special events company that produced the opening night party for Shakespeare in the Park this past summer, hence our juice). The play was savaged by the press (especially The NYT), but I thought Judith Ivey’s 90-minute solo performance was pretty amazing. Plus, I had no idea who Martha Mitchell was and her role in exposing Watergate, so it was interesting on that level alone. (I was but a wee lad when all of this was going down, and can’t even recall any mention of Vietnam from those days.) Her husband, John Mitchell, was Nixon’s Attorney General, who resigned to head up his re-election effort in ’72 (named CREEP, the Committee to RE-Elect the President), and approved the funds for the bungled break-in at the DNC headquarters (earning him jail-time and public scorn).

Since Mrs. Mitchell frequently spoke to the press (Helen Thomas of AP in particular) -- her phone lines were tapped to keep tabs on her -- Nixon had his goons smack her around and dope her up in a hotel room in an effort to keep her quiet. It all seems so quaint now. If Watergate had taken place on Dubya's watch, Rove's henchmen would have pummelled us all with their talking points, and the Republicans would have launched an "investigation" headed nowhere to be soon forgotten by press and the public...(Bush had his spooks spy on UN weapons inspector Hans Blix during the run-up to the Iraq invasion/occupation, without a peep of outrage here in the US).

On the way to the opening night party, we shared an elevator with the diminutive (in stature, not talent) Charlotte Rae of “Facts of Life” (and “Diff’rent Strokes”) fame (I luff huh! And will always have a thing for Jo!), and then found ourselves waiting in line behind “60 Minutes’” Morley Safer looking at the Herblock political cartoons from that era (I wanted to ask him what it was like to see the play, having been a reporter during those years, but wussed out). Just imagine the six degrees of separation we can map out with these two celebs…