Martha Mitchell was the wife of US Attorney General John Mitchell. She was a well-known gossip and frequent guest on talk and variety shows, prompting the nickname "the Mouth of the South." John Mitchell controlled a slush fund used to pay for clandestine political operations, including the Watergate break-in. To prevent Martha Mitchell from divulging incriminating information to reporters, she was held against her will in a hotel room and forcibly tranquilized. Nixon aides further sought to discredit Martha in the press. The bodyguard in charge of her confinement, former FBI agent Steve King, was appointed US Ambassador to the Czech Republic in 2017.