Hello, GabFest listeners.

This is the first episode of Slow Burn, a podcast about Watergate.

It's a new slate miniseries hosted by Leon Nafak that asks, what was it like to live

through the greatest political scandal of the 20th century?

I hope you enjoy it.

If you do, subscribe to Slow Burn and Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm going to start with a story that you've probably never heard. It takes place in June of

1972, just a few days after five men broke into the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C.

It's a story about a woman named Martha Mitchell, who was at at the time, very famous, and whose life was

destroyed in large part because of her proximity to the Watergate conspiracy.

Martha's husband worked in politics.

His name was John Mitchell, and in June of 1972, he was in charge of the Committee to

Reelect President Richard Nixon.

Before that, Mitchell had an even bigger job.

He was the Attorney General of the United States.

Nixon called John Mitchell his most trusted friend and advisor.

Others simply called him deputy president.

Historians disagree on what exactly Martha really knew about Watergate.

But in the aftermath of the burglary,

she was treated by Nixon's men as someone who knew too much.

That was the beginning of my being held a prisoner.

Later, Martha would tell David Frost of the BBC everything that happened to her that weekend.

...