Posted on 04/25/2006 2:43:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO - The man who revealed himself as Watergate's "Deep Throat" says in a new memoir that he saw himself as a "Lone Ranger" who could help derail a White House cover-up.
In the memoir, which hit bookshelves Monday, former FBI second-in-command W. Mark Felt explains what motivated him to become the key source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate investigation.
Felt said he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could apply some much-needed pressure on the administration to cooperate.
"From the start, it was clear that senior administration officials were up to their necks in this mess, and that they would stop at nothing to sabotage our investigation," Felt wrote in "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, 'Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington."
Co-written by family friend John O'Connor, who revealed Deep Throat's identity in a 2005 Vanity Fair article, the book includes excerpts from Felt's 1979 memoir, "The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside," and an unpublished memoir that Felt wrote in the mid-1980s.
Felt, now 92, was unable to offer much fresh insight in the book because of his age and weak memory, O'Connor wrote in his prologue. Felt suffered a stroke in 2001 and has been in declining health.
The scandal that brought down President Nixon began with a break-in and the attempted tapping of phones in the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office building during the 1972 campaign. It went on to include disclosures of spying by Nixon's henchmen and retaliation against the administration's perceived enemies.
Felt discusses his hesitation about working with Woodward. On one hand, he didn't want the FBI to be blamed for allowing Nixon to get away with a crime; on the other, he feared criticism if he violated his loyalty to the agency.
O'Connor says in the introduction that Felt was angered when the reporters revealed they had a senior source in the executive branch that they were calling Deep Throat.
"Deep Throat was a journalistic joke; Mark Felt never accepted the name," O'Connor wrote.
Felt also dismisses speculation that he became Deep Throat because he was angry at being passed over as J. Edgar Hoover's successor and wanted to sabotage the new boss, L. Patrick Gray.
"It is true that I would have welcomed an appointment as FBI director when Hoover died. It is not true that I was jealous of Gray," he wrote.
The book reveals that Felt's wife did not die of a heart attack in 1984, as he told people, but killed herself with his service revolver following years of depression. Audrey Felt's suicide, revealed in O'Connor's introduction, is never directly addressed by Felt himself.
While drawing few conclusions about his role in Watergate, Felt remained stalwart in his belief that the public needed to know the truth.
"People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward," he wrote. "The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out, and isn't that what the FBI is supposed to do?"
Joan Felt and her father W. Mark Felt appear in front of their home Tuesday, May 31, 2005, in Santa Rosa, Calif. A memoir released Monday, April 24, 2006 by the man known as 'Deep Throat' sheds little new light on former FBI agent Mark Felt's relationship with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Instead, 'A G-Man's Life: The FBI, 'Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington' combines unpublished writings with material from Felt's 1979 memoir. It also reveals that Felt's wife did not die of a heart attack in 1984, but killed herself with his service revolver because of the strain from his legal troubles and FBI duties. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File) (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
He wasn't a leaker, He was a whistleblower.
and Mary McCarthy sees herself as who?
Felt said he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could apply some much-needed pressure on the administration to cooperate.
Using the words Whistle-Blower and Deep Throat in the same article just ain't right.
Who was Tonto?
Felt also dismisses speculation that he became Deep Throat because he was angry at being passed over as J. Edgar Hoover's successor and wanted to sabotage the new boss, L. Patrick Gray.
"It is true that I would have welcomed an appointment as FBI director when Hoover died. It is not true that I was jealous of Gray," he wrote.
A couple of fine movies, I must say.
a thin broad.
Self-glorifying, lone wolf, wannabe hero.
Like any absolute loser who wants to make history by assassinating someone or becoming a double spy.... Oswald, Mcveigh, Robert Hanssen. And this guy.
There is no fool like an old fool.
One more dick in a long line of dicks.
If he was so proud of what he did why didnt he come out instead of hiding all these years.
Or a senile old coot who Woodward has duped into believing that he was "Deep-throat". I still believe that there was no deep throat.
Yup, some might say, right up there with Harry Reid's soon to be released remake of
"Dirty Harry"
The Searchlight Kid
I don't recall anything that he provided to Woodward and Bernstein that would have brought down Nixon.
Whoever was in charge of the Nixon tapes early on was the one that provided the first hand information that brought down the President.
And I don't think anyone knows who that was.
Special Report
Deep Throat and Genocide
By Ben Stein
Published 6/1/2005 12:22:42 AM
Re: The "news" that former FBI agent Mark Felt broke the law, broke his code of ethics, broke his oath and was the main source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's articles that helped depose Richard Nixon, a few thoughts.
Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?
Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.
That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.
When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:
1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.
2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.
So, this is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide. If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide. I hope they are happy now -- because their future looks pretty bleak to me.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu, and author of "Ben Stein's Diary" each month in The American Spectator.
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