Washington DC
Posted on 12/22/2008 5:01:36 AM PST by RKV
When I decided to write something on Mark Felt who passed away this week at 95, an online friend, Narciso, wrote of the “incremental irony of Mark Felt.” When I asked him to elaborate he wrote back:
He conducted illegal or at least dubious surveillance against the Weathermen, he then faults Nixon for the same tactics, he undermined his own agency and ultimately almost ended up in jail.
Besides sage words about being wary of the motives of government employees bearing tales of corruption to the press, Narciso’s words constitute as complete an epitaph of Mark Felt as I can summon.
Felt has been lionized in the media for his revealed role as “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal. But he also has a history that shows him to be less than deserving of those accolades.
1. He Conducted Illegal or at Least Dubious Surveillance Against the Weathermen
In 1972 and 1973, the FBI was vigorously pursuing the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group who had planted bombs at the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the Department of State. On nine occasions, Felt authorized FBI agents to secretly break into five different residences in New York and New Jersey occupied by persons believed to be associated with the Weathermen.
These break-ins — called “black bag” operations — were conducted without court-approved search warrants. In United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court declared such warrantless surveillance to be unconstitutional, and the Carter administration, under Attorney General Bell, investigated the FBI’s role in the matter. As a result, Felt was charged with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens (Title 18, Sec. 241 USC) in 1978. After an unsuccessful attempt to plea bargain, the case went to trial in 1980.
Former President Nixon, driven from office by Felt’s revelations to Woodward and Bernstein, still did not know he had been his betrayer. Nixon not only contributed to his defense, but also testified on his behalf – as did other members of his administration.Though found guilty of violating the civil rights of citizens, Felt received a relatively light sentence of a $5,000 fine, and even escaped that when, in March 1981, then-President Reagan pardoned him to the great joy of his fellow agency employees, officers, and Nixon.
2. He Faulted Nixon for the Same Tactics
Unknown to those in the agency who defended him, and to Nixon who supported him, Carter who indicted him, and to Reagan who pardoned him, Felt had been the source “Deep Throat.” His work for Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters whose conversations with Felt revealed details of the “black bag” operatives working for Nixon, illuminated the entire illegal intelligence operation that included the break-in at the Watergate Hotel.
In fact, during the 1976 grand jury investigation of Felt’s own “black bag” operation, Assistant Attorney General Stanley Pottinger had learned that Felt was Deep Throat but the secrecy of grand jury proceedings prevented him from disclosing that to anyone.
So, while his colleagues were toasting his pardon and Presidents Reagan and Nixon were doing what they could to exonerate from blame a man whom they considered unjustly convicted, he was continuing to conceal his role as the individual who brought down the Nixon Administration. His reason? Probably for appointing someone else, not him, to the directorship of the FBI.
3. He Undermined His Agency and Ultimately Almost Ended Up in Jail
With the revelation years later of his double role, some argued that Felt was nevertheless a hero for exposing Nixon’s wrongdoing. Others — and I consider myself among them — believe he could have resolved this more honorably by telling what he knew to the grand jury investigating the break-in at the Watergate offices. (Today, of course, legitimate whistleblowers can bring any presumed wrongdoing to the attention of inspector generals in their departments or to the appropriate congressional committees.) Calling it in to the New York Times as Mr. Tamm did on the FISA program or to the Washington Post as Felt did seems more like an act of a wounded ego or spite than something designed to improve government operations.
In Felt’s case, it is hard to imagine a more monstrous betrayal than his. He reviewed every FBI report on the Watergate investigation and gave it to the reporters almost as soon as it hit his desk. One can only imagine the chaos and paranoia that action caused and how it impacted everything the FBI was working on.
Felt escaped punishment for his own wrongdoing and avoided any consequences for his betrayal of the very people who stood by him when he was charged with that wrongdoing.
So if you’re looking for an Aesop Fable-like moral to this story, as in most real life accounts of double dealing, there isn’t one.
All roads lead to Rome, Don’t they?
The Daley family, the Ayers family, and the Land of Coincidences
http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2008/04/daley-family-ayers-family-and-land-of.html
Yes. It was this hamfisted COINTELPRO operation that (combined with his rich daddy’s lawyers) that enabled Ayers to come in from the cold.
I’ve reached the conclusion that Nixon’s biggest error was in not sensing the political winds of his time. The Democrats were terrified that Nixon was about to launch a major investigation of “Who is to blame for Vietnam?”
Remember that a younger Nixon had terrified the left when as a lawyer for the House Un-American Affairs Committee (HUAC), he had helped to purge hundreds of communists and communist sympathizers from the government. Not a whole lot of them were Republicans.
Had Nixon conducted such an investigation, today people like John Kerry and Jane Fonda and many, many others would only now be getting out of prison. The Democrat party would have been in shambles.
So the Democrats were desperate for “trading cards” that could be swapped in exchange for Nixon laying off and not prosecuting them.
For this reason, they launched fishing expedition inquiries of several kinds against the Nixon administration.
And then the Watergate break-in happened. They finally had the tool they needed to stop Nixon’s investigations. But Nixon never started his investigation. So the Democrats just kept pressing on with Watergate, to see what they could get.
Do not think this is far fetched an idea, either. Remember when those federal prosecutors were fired? A perfectly legal act, yet the Democrats behaved as if the administration had done something horrible, illegal and unthinkable.
Likely, the Democrats were again nervous that Bush was going to start an investigation of the fifth column in the US who sought to undermine the war effort in Iraq.
But it soon became obvious that he wouldn’t, so that, and about a dozen other Henry Waxman investigations, just petered out.
Mark Felt was a traitor who should never have been trusted.
Nixon was a good man who the press demonized and made the scapegoat of everything they didn’t like about Republicans.
Mark Felt should have served time for betraying his country.
I’m afraid the charge is true. I actually read Felt’s autobiography last year, supplemented and updated for recent events (he was no longer able to contribute significantly). The gist of it was that, after decades of loyal service, being the quintessential “G-Man” and spending several years as J. Edgar Hoover’s de facto 2nd-in-command (Tolson being a sickly drunk), Felt was overcome with pique at being passed over by Nixon for FBI director for a political appointee.
It is true that he was righteously worried by Nixon’s politicized depradations and misuse of his beloved bureau and certainly should have done all he could to put a stop to it, but slipping inside info to Woodward & Bernstein was not the way to do it.
Not so sure I’d be buying Felt’s story, given as to the level of self-interest involved. And his methods convict him more eloquently than I can with words.
Excellent points.
Did Nixon know about the tapes?
Yes. He recorded himself.
The Watergate wiretaps may have been a prostitution investigation by Dean with no political motive at all.
So did JFK (who installed the White House taping system) and LBJ (who expanded the taping system).
The LBJ and JFK tapes drip out from time to time. As people involved die off. The American public has a right to review those tapes too. LBJ’s own corruption is revealed on them. As to JFK, we’d need access to the tapes.
There was no HUAC. It was the House Committee On Un-American Activities.
Then why was the White House and CREEP funding it? Not exactly proper behavior for the President to allow his henchmen to pursue personal investigations at government and campaign expense.
In any case, my primary point stands. The investigation wasn’t aimed at people who were trying to kill Americans.
We paid for them alright.
It was aimed at people who were undermining the war effort in Vietnam, many of whom had pro-communist sympathies. They were siding with the enemy and undercutting our troops. It DID lead to the killing of Americans, if not by their own hands, then by the North Vietnamese's who they emboldened!
Has that really been proven? Follow-up question: did the tapes prove that he had conspired to cover up his scandal?
HUAC and HCUA are used interchangeably. The important point is that they worked, and rooted out a lot of bad guys who were very clear about their intent to work against the interests of the US.
It also deeply rattled the American left, who to this day has to effectively conceal their agenda from the public, adopt euphemistic labels to describe themselves, and lack the confidence to say what they really think, because they know it would still be rejected by the people.
Yep. He used the system that Kennedy and Johnson started. Why don’t you know this? This is very basic stuff. And yes, obstruction of justice was caught on tape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_tapes#The_.22Smoking_Gun.22_tape
Washington DC
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