The Martha Mitchell effect

In a California hotel room in June 1972, the wife of the Attorney General of the United States was forcibly sedated to stop her from exposing the Watergate conspiracy. It would take years, and the ruin of powerful men, before history admitted she was telling the truth.

Martha Mitchell was born in 1918 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She was outspoken by nature, charming by reputation, and by 1972 she was one of the most recognizable political wives in Washington. Reporters loved her. She called them directly, sometimes late at night, with things she was not supposed to say.

That habit would almost get her killed.

On June 17, 1972, the night of the Watergate break-in, Martha was at the Waterfront Hotel in Newport Beach with her husband John Mitchell, who was then running Nixon's reelection campaign.  When she heard about the arrests, she called Helen Thomas, the veteran wire reporter, and told her that Nixon's people were behind it. She was going to go public.

She never got the chance to finish the call.

Her security detail, acting on orders, physically restrained her.  She was held against her will, injected with tranquilizers, and prevented from speaking to anyone for days.  She suffered a laceration on her hand during the struggle.  When she finally resurfaced, her husband and the White House did what they had already been doing: they called her unstable.  They said she was drinking.  They implied, and sometimes stated outright, that she was not to be believed.

It worked, for a while.

John Mitchell denied her account.  The press, much of it, went along with the framing. Martha was cast as the volatile wife of a serious man, someone whose calls to reporters were a source of embarrassment rather than intelligence. The coverup held, and Martha's credibility was the price it extracted.

But the Watergate investigation continued.  Reporters kept digging.  Tapes surfaced. Testimony accumulated.  And piece by piece, what Martha had said in that interrupted phone call turned out to be exactly correct.

John Mitchell was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury.  He served around 19 months in federal prison, released in 1979.  Martha and John had divorced in 1973.  She died in 1976, before the full weight of her vindication had settled.

She never saw herself properly acknowledged.

In the decades since, something quieter happened.  Psychiatrists and researchers began to document a pattern they were seeing in clinical settings: patients who reported real events, correctly, but were disbelieved and pathologized for it.  The tendency of institutions, families, and authorities to gaslight accurate witnesses into doubting themselves.

They named it the Martha Mitchell Effect.

Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien at the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in Gander

When we visited Newfoundland and Labrador we got a real feel for the citizens of this province.  They were all so friendly and welcoming.  I'd seen the movie and Broadway play "Come from Away".  I loved them both.  I wanted to watch the 9/11 ceremony from Gander.  I put on CBC Newsworld and they broadcasted it live.  I like CBC as they always have an interpretter when they start speaking French.  

I was shocked when they invited Pete Hoekstra, the US Ambassador to Canada.  He's said some pretty nasty things about Canada.  There is a petition to expel him from our country.  I must say I thought he had an excellent speech.  No one heckled or disrespected him.  We are better than that.  He thanked the Canadian Military for liberating his parents in the Netherlands in WWII!

Jean Chrétien’s speech at the 25th anniversary of 9/11, delivered at age 92, drew multiple standing ovations and was widely described as fiery, patriotic, and deeply moving.

The core of his message echoed exactly what you felt watching it:

• “We bow to no one.”

• “Never mistake our generosity for weakness.”

• “Never, never mistake our kindness for softness.”

He reminded Americans — including Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who was sitting right there — that Canada stood shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the U.S. after the attacks, invoking Article 5 of NATO and sending troops to Afghanistan.

But he also spoke plainly about the fractured political relationship between the two countries today, saying that friendship requires honesty.

The audience responded exactly as you saw: hats off, people on their feet, long applause. It was a moment of pride, resolve, and unity — very much in the spirit of Newfoundland and Labrador’s extraordinary kindness during 9/11.

We are a bilingual country but the CBC translates it.  At the very end of this video, Pete Hoekstra goes out of his way to give Jean Chrieten a hug!  I hope this event changes some minds of those in the US from trying to annex us. 

If you want to watch the entire broadcast, it's wonderful.  The music and speeches were inspiring and made you happy you live in such a wonderful country.  It is the entire live broadcast.  The actual ceremony starts at 33:30.  Enjoy and get a kleenex.

https://www.youtube.com/live/0ljbciajB5I?si=RjYFsiajmvNkHaXm

September 11 - how Canada responded

Canada could have sent a bill.  Canada could have complained.  Canada didn't.  Canada wouldn't.  Canada welcomed.  

 𝐆𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 was the most famous
 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐯𝐞𝐫 received the most people
 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐱 received the most aircraft

On 9/11, 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐘𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐑𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐨𝐧 ultimately diverted as many as 238 aircraft carrying over 33,000 people to Canadian airports. 

Yes. 𝐘𝐐𝐗 𝐆𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 was the most famous small-airport story, but it wasn't alone.

 𝟐 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓.

▪︎ 𝐘𝐕𝐑 - 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐯𝐞𝐫 received the most people: more than 8,500 passengers aboard 33 diverted flights. 

▪︎ 𝐘𝐇𝐙 - 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐱 received the most aircraft
- NAV CANADA says 47 aircraft & 7,300 people 
- Transport Canada counts 40 flights & 8,800 guests 

Across the country, Transport Canada specifically notes that smaller airports suddenly had to accommodate aircraft and passenger volumes they were never designed to handle. 

 𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐃𝐀
Across Newfoundland and Labrador alone, 78 diverted aircraft carrying more than 13,000 passengers and crew had landed by 5 p.m. on September 11 

▪︎ 𝐘𝐉𝐓 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞, 𝐍𝐋 welcomed 8 aircraft, and >1,700 people - to an airport that normally screened only about 37 passengers per day - almost 50 times its normal passenger volume.

▪︎ 𝐘𝐘𝐑 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲-𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐲, 𝐍𝐋 was the first place NAV CANADA began directing the transatlantic aircraft that couldn't turn back. 

▪︎ 𝐘𝐃𝐅 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐞, 𝐍𝐋 welcomed a private aircraft that was diverted.

▪︎ 𝐘𝐐𝐌 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐧, 𝐍𝐁 received 10 aircraft, while...

▪︎ 𝐘𝐘𝐓 𝐒𝐭. 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧'𝐬 welcomed 21.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐱
On the afternoon of September 11 itself, 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐱 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐢𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 was reporting 44 aircraft and an early estimate of 6,000 passengers, illustrating how the numbers evolved.

 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇
▪︎ 𝐘𝐗𝐘 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞, 𝐘𝐊 received 2 aircraft
▪︎ 𝐘𝐙𝐅 𝐘𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐤𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐞 in the Northwest Territories - 1. 

 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓
Several western Canadian airports received substantial numbers:
▪︎ 𝐘𝐕𝐑 - 𝐄𝐝𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐧 (6)
▪︎ 𝐘𝐘𝐂 - 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲 (13) 
▪︎ 𝐘𝐖𝐆 - 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐠 (15)
▪︎ 𝐘𝐕𝐑 - 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐯𝐞𝐫 - (33) 8,500 passengers 

 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐃𝐀
▪︎ 𝐘𝐘𝐙 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 (14)
▪︎ 𝐘𝐌𝐗 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥 (10)
▪︎ 𝐘𝐔𝐋 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐨𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐥 (7) (𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘶)
▪︎ 𝐘𝐇𝐌 𝐇𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐨𝐧 (4)

 𝐁 𝐘 𝐓 𝐇 𝐄 𝐍 𝐔 𝐌 𝐁 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒
Halifax (47)
Gander, NL (38 aircraft)
St. John's (21)
Winnipeg (15)
Calgary (13)
Moncton (10)
Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL (5-7)
Edmonton (6)
Hamilton (4)
Whitehorse, YK (2)
Deer Lake, NL (1)
Yellowknife, NT (1)

 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆
Gander wasn't an isolated act of Canadian hospitality.

Volunteer organizations, churches, emergency services, schools, businesses, municipal governments and everyday folks across the country mobilized to look after stranded passengers from around the world.

"Why?," people asked, genuinely surprised by the overwhelming response.

𝘞𝘩𝘺?

Because 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝.
Because 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧.
Because 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥.

 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠. 

Luba Tryszynska - an inspiring lady!

At Auschwitz, they took away her three-year-old son. A year later, she saved 44 children marked for death.

In January 1943, Luba Tryszynska arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp alongside her husband Hersch and their little boy Isaac. 

She was a Polish Jewish woman whose whole world revolved around her family. On the cold selection platform, Nazi guards tore the toddler from her arms. 

Little Isaac was sent straight to his death. 

Shortly after, her husband was separated from her and killed.  Luba was left entirely alone in the darkness of the camp, forced to live with an agonizing question. 

Why was she still alive when everyone she loved was gone?

In late 1944, the Nazis transferred Luba to the Bergen-Belsen camp.  It was a place where starvation, freezing cold, and diseases killed hundreds of people every day. 

In December of that year, something unusual happened near her barracks. 

Dozens of abandoned children suddenly appeared. 

They were the young sons and daughters of Dutch Jewish families who had been split apart during transport.  The adults had been sent away to other camps, leaving the tiny children alone in the freezing mud without protection, food, or anyone to look after them.

Luba heard their soft crying in the dark and went outside to look.  Standing in the cold were children far too young to understand why the world had abandoned them. 

She could have easily turned away and closed her door.  In Bergen-Belsen, trying to help anyone else meant risking your own survival. 

Finding a single scrap of bread was nearly impossible, and hiding dozens of kids could mean immediate execution.

Instead, she opened the door and brought them inside.

"Come in, you are safe with me now," Luba whispered as she gathered the shivering toddlers into her arms.

With the help of a few other women in the barracks, she began searching everywhere for extra food.  She shared her own microscopic rations, washed the children whenever she found clean water, and hid them whenever the guards walked past. 

The little ones quickly learned to stay completely silent when danger was near, even when hunger was tearing at their stomachs.

Luba gave them much more than shelter and physical protection.  She gave them maternal warmth and hope. Years later, when people asked her why she risked everything for strangers, she explained her choice with a simple truth.

"I gave them my love because I had lost my own son," she said.

On April 15, 1945, British soldiers arrived and liberated Bergen-Belsen. They discovered around 60,000 survivors living in horrific conditions, alongside thousands of unburied bodies.  But inside one of the wooden barracks, they found Luba and her small army of young children. 

They were weak, thin, and exhausted, but they were breathing. Out of the 46 children Luba had taken under her wing, 44 survived until the day of liberation.

After the war ended, Luba personally accompanied several of the children back to the Netherlands before eventually moving to the United States to rebuild her life. 

For decades, she spoke very little about what happened in the camp. Then, in 1995, an incredible reunion took place in Amsterdam. Thirty-one of those saved children returned to see her again. 

They were full-grown adults now, many of them parents and grandparents. 

Some learned for the very first time that day that their childhood camp companions had also survived. The city presented Luba with a medal for her humanitarian bravery, but her real reward was sitting right in front of her.

Luba Tryszynska-Frederick passed away in 2009 at the age of 91. Her little Isaac never came back, but dozens of children walked out of Bergen-Belsen alive because a grieving mother chose to open her heart when everything else was lost.

As Luba looked around the room in Amsterdam, seeing bright smiles, warm hugs, and newborn babies held by the adults she once sheltered in the dark, she knew her love had won. 

The darkness of Bergen-Belsen could never erase the light of forty-four living legacies who grew up to fill the world with love.

Standing among the thriving families that existed only because she cared, Luba smiled through her tears and knew her tiny Isaac was never truly forgotten. Every joyful laugh from every grandchild in that room was a sweet, eternal victory of love over hatred.

>We Are Human Angels<

Authors

Awakening the Human Spirit

We are the authors of 'We Are Human Angels,' the book that has spread a new vision of the human experience and has been spontaneously translated into 14 languages by readers.

**I just checked and the book not avaliable in the Surrey Public Library**

**It was British and Canadian soldiers that liberated Bergen-Belsen.  My uncle, Bill Parker, was one of the Canadians who was part of the liberation.  According to his daughter, Dale, the sights he saw haunted him for the rest of his life. **

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron was an American writer, playwright, journalist, and filmmaker.  Known for writing and directing romantic comedy films, she received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Writers Guild of America Awards.  I loved everything she did.  I did not know she was married to Carl Bernstein.

August 1979. Georgetown, Washington D.C.

Nora Ephron was moving slowly through her home, seven months pregnant with her second son, when she found what Carl Bernstein never intended her to find. Not just any husband.  Carl Bernstein.  The man who exposed Watergate alongside Bob Woodward.  The journalist whose reporting brought down a presidency.   A name the entire country associated with truth, accountability, and moral courage.

The woman he had been seeing was Margaret Jay, daughter of the British Prime Minister and wife of the British Ambassador to the United States. Someone who had sat at their dinner table.

Washington had been whispering for months. It always does. The wife is always the last to know.

Nora flew to New York and collapsed. "My heart is broken," she told her therapist. "I will never be the same."

Her therapist said something she never forgot.

"You were going to leave him eventually."

On August 15, 1979, Nora gave birth to their son Max. By December, the affair had become official Washington scandal. By January she had packed two babies, a nanny, and what remained of her dignity, and moved back to New York.

Most women in her position would have gone quiet. Protected their privacy. Swallowed the humiliation the way powerful men have always quietly counted on their wives to do. Nora Ephron had a different idea.  

In 1983, she published Heartburn.  One hundred and seventy-nine pages.  Barely fictionalized.  A cookbook author named Rachel.  A political journalist named Mark.  A pregnancy.  A betrayal.  Real recipes woven through the story because Nora understood that food and heartbreak live in the same neighborhood.  And at the center of it all, a Key Lime pie thrown directly into a husband's face.  With one line that stopped readers cold.  "If I tell the story, I control it. If I tell it, I can make you laugh. I would rather have you laugh at me than pity me."

Carl Bernstein was furious. His only public comment was a tight, clipped sentence: "Obviously, I wish Nora hadn't written it." There was nothing he could  do.  Heartburn became a bestseller.  He threatened legal action to block the film adaptation.  It changed nothing.  In 1986, the movie premiered with Meryl Streep playing Rachel and Jack Nicholson playing Mark.  The entire world watched. Carl despised every frame of it.  Still nothing he could do.  Because Nora had already moved on.  She was building something.

When Harry Met Sally. Sleepless in Seattle. You've Got Mail. Films that defined romantic comedy for an entire generation, written and directed by the woman Carl Bernstein had left pregnant and alone in a Georgetown townhouse. She did not just survive the betrayal. She turned it into a career that outlasted, outshone, and outran everything he thought he had taken from her.

In 1987 she married Nicholas Pileggi, journalist and screenwriter, and they remained together for the rest of her life. A real partnership. Built on solid ground. She never publicly forgave Carl Bernstein.  She did not need to.  The book had already said everything worth saying.  Meryl Streep had delivered it to the world at full volume.

On June 26, 2012, Nora Ephron died of leukemia at 71. She had kept the illness entirely private, living on her own terms until the very end, the same way she had always done everything.

Her memorial service brought together Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Mike Nichols, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. Carl Bernstein attended too, sitting quietly among the evidence of everything she had built from the ruins of what he had done.

Her son Jacob later made a documentary about her life called Everything Is Copy, named for the belief that had guided her from the very beginning. Everything that happens to you is material. The betrayal.  The humiliation.  The collapse.  The early labor.  The loneliness of packing two babies into a car and driving away from a life you thought you were going to have.

All of it is copy.

And the copy became art.

Carl Bernstein helped expose a presidency. He had institutional power, professional prestige, and the particular indulgence that has always been extended to brilliant men who behave badly toward the people closest to them. But Nora had something he could not threaten, could not sue away, and could not silence.  Her voice.  Her story. Her name on the cover.  The most powerful investigative journalist of his generation could not stop a pregnant woman with a pen and something true to say.

The pen outlasted the betrayal. It always does.

Back to School

 

Every September, Surrey seems to take a deep breath and start again. The buses run a little earlier, crosswalks fill with small backpacks and oversized hopes, and the neighbourhood settles into a familiar rhythm we somehow forget every summer. It’s not just children returning to classrooms — it’s the whole community shifting gears.

There’s something grounding about it.

For parents, it’s the return of routines. For teachers, it’s the start of another year of shaping young minds. For seniors, it’s the reminder that the streets will be busier and the mornings noisier. Even those of us without school‑aged children feel the change — the city moves differently in September.

I’ve always thought of this time of year as a quiet reset. A chance for everyone, regardless of age, to tidy up the edges of life a little. Summer is loose and unstructured; September asks us to be just a bit more intentional.

You see it in small ways:

•  Drivers slowing down near school zones again.

• Neighbours watching out for kids walking alone.

• Crossing guards returning to their posts with that mix of authority and kindness.

• Families juggling schedules, lunches, and after‑school plans.

• Seniors timing their errands around the morning rush.

It’s a reminder that a community isn’t just a place — it’s a shared rhythm. When children go back to school, the rest of us adjust too, often without even noticing.

And maybe that’s the beauty of it.

September nudges us toward better habits: being patient in traffic, being kinder to stressed parents, being more aware of the people around us. It’s a chance to reset our own routines — organize the house, start a new project, plan autumn outings, or simply enjoy the cooler evenings.

Back to school isn’t just for students. It’s for all of us. A gentle reminder that life moves forward, seasons change, and communities thrive when we pay attention to one another.

The royal bride who stopped on her way to the altar

On 26 April 1923, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon entered Westminster Abbey to marry Prince Albert, Duke of York, the future King George VI.

Her father walked beside her. Eight bridesmaids followed. The Abbey was filled with royalty, politicians and military uniforms, while enormous crowds waited outside.

Then Elizabeth stepped away from the procession.

Before reaching the altar, she placed her bouquet of white roses on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. She did it in memory of her elder brother, Fergus Bowes-Lyon, who had been killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915.  His body had never been recovered.

In the middle of a royal spectacle watched by an entire country, Elizabeth had made room for one absent man.

She then returned to her father’s side and continued towards the altar without her bouquet.

The bride would one day become Queen Elizabeth, later known as the Queen Mother. But on her wedding morning, before becoming a royal duchess, she was a sister remembering the brother who had never come home.

Had you heard the real reason Elizabeth left her wedding bouquet at the tomb?

Source: Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Chapter Four, “A Royal Wedding”.