W. Mark Felt is Deep Throat

ABC News | 5/31/1955 | ABC News

[CaptainK]

Just in on ABC News. He and his family admit it through his lawyer. Will be in upcoming Vanity Fair.

[Southack]

"I have to say you seem to be resistant to the evidence and prefer to cling to your preferred theory."

What evidence?!

Felt didn't smoke.
Felt was in the FBI, hardly the Executive Branch (one would really have to stretch for that).
Felt drinks martinis, not scotch on the rocks.

In his 1999 interview, Felt said that he wasn't Deep Throat.

Felt was convicted of authorizing illegal break-ins...hardly the whistle-blower type.

[Ditter]

You knew it was him? How?

[No Surrender No Retreat]

Laredo, what is funny is the democratic hysteria over Watergate. Klintoon's escapades of treason, file-gate, Waco, Ruby Ridge, selling missle technology, Vince Foster, Monica and being impeached are small potatoes to the demo-commies. Nixon did the manly thing, he resigned, klintoon did the commie (bOY) thing refused to resign NSNR

[GraniteStateConservative]

I actually ran across that, too. I'll look around.

[OESY]

Woodward and the Washington Post have had a huge credibility problem they have a strong vested interest in repairing, and cannot be trusted.

If Woodward lied about Felt's smoking, we know Woodward lies and can't be trusted on revelations re: Deep Throat.

Since Deep Throat didn't appear in the first drafts of Woodward's book, my money is still on the explanation that it was a literary device that was inserted in later drafts to make Woodward's case against Nixon more persuasive.

[Rodney King]

You knew it was him? How?

Lot of things, but mostly Carl Bernstein's kid blathering that it was him. There is no reason why Bernstein's kid would say anything to try to impress his freinds if he didn't know.

[cyncooper]

What evidence?!

There is plenty of evidence that supports the Felt story right here on this thread.

[Howlin]

Bernstein's kid talked?

[OESY]

Who Was Deep Throat?

August 6, 1999
Web posted at: 6:06 p.m. EDT (2206 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- There never has been a shortage of guesses about the identity of "Deep Throat," Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's celebrated source during the newspaper's Watergate coverage.

But everyone who has been fingered -- from presidential aide Al Haig to press assistant Diane Sawyer to presidential lawyer Leonard Garment -- has denied it, and it remains a mystery to this day.

Woodward has said he will not identify the source as long as the person is alive, or until he releases him "from our agreement of confidentiality." But he did indicate, during an appearance today on NBC's "Today Show," that he remains in touch with him.

Woodward also said that Deep Throat deceived his colleagues in denying he was the source.

"Twenty-five years ago he was risking a great deal personally and professionally," Woodward said. "You may assume that in the course of this he was not truthful with colleagues and family members and he denied that he had provided information."

Some Watergate buffs and former Nixon Administration officials have suggested Deep Throat was a composite, a literary device to add some cloak-and-dagger drama to Woodward and Carl Bernstein's 1974 book, "All The President's Men."

After all, some of the best scenes in the book involve clandestine, middle-of-the-night meetings in parking garages between Woodward and the source, arranged with a flower-pot-on-the-balcony signal.

But Woodward has said Deep Throat was a person, not a melange of informants. "It would be absurd for it to be a composite," he told The Associated Press.

Bernstein agrees, insisting "'Deep Throat' does exist."

"He was and is one person -- exactly who we have said, a highly placed official in the executive branch. ... If we had made up 'Deep Throat,' we would have been fired."

Katharine Graham, the Post's publisher during the Watergate era, wrote in her memoirs that her newspaper's top editor, Ben Bradlee, assured her of the "Deep Throat's" reliability.

"It's why I remain convinced that there was such a person and that he ... was neither made up nor an amalgam or a composite of a number of people, as has often been hypothesized," she wrote.

Bradlee, who waited until after Richard Nixon resigned to asked Woodward to tell him Deep Throat's identity, has said he "never told a soul" who the source was.

In their book, the reporters said Woodward's source was "in the Executive Branch" and "had access to information at CRP [Committee for the Re-election of the President] as well as at the White House."

Woodward had taken to calling him "my friend." But because the source insisted on talking on deep background -- no quotations, even anonymously -- then-Post Managing Editor Howard Simons coined the nickname, "Deep Throat," after the title of a famous pornographic movie of the era.

Some of the other suggested candidates over the years have included William Casey, who served the administration in several capacities and later headed the CIA; then-Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen; and John Dean's deputy, Fred Fielding.

http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/08/06/deep.throat/

[1Old Pro]

This one question has kept two mediocre journalists in the limelight for 30 years. I hope this so called "MYSTERY" is over.

Exactly. Bob Woodward is just awful yet he's gained job security from this "mystery" as the Post would never fire him unless he faded from the limelight. This would never occur as he appears weekly as a talking head, all based on his prior "fame" and this mystery.

[Rodney King]

Bernstein's kid talked?

Yeah, I used to have a radio show back in the east coast, and I once had as a guest a guy who wrote a book about all this (in 1999, or 2000) and he has said that Bernstein's kid was constantly blabbing about it to his friends at high school. That's what convinced me. That and Woodward pulled up in his limo and had lunch with the guy in 99 or 2000.

[OESY]

More Skepticism on Deep Throat

February 23, 2005

I wrote earlier this month that Woodward and Bernstein’s Deep Throat May Be A Composite of Multiple Sources, which has been the opinion of Nixon aide Charles Colson. Here, Jonah Goldberg explains why he believes Deep Throat is “Bob and Carl’s imaginary friend.”

Goldberg also adds to the composite theory:

Recently, Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns' evidence was second-hand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein - the legendary Alice Mayhew - and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of "All the President's Men" contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.

-- http://www.stonescryout.org/archives/2005/02/more_skepticism.html

[Southack]

"There is plenty of evidence that supports the Felt story right here on this thread."

No, there's just hearsay. Woodstein's kid said "Felt." Felt's family claims that he's Deep Throat, though Felt himself has dementia and can't remember.

That's not evidence; that's hearsay. You don't even have a direct witness...just 2nd or 3rd hand gossip.

The three who *know* aren't saying. There's no confirmation from Woodward and Bernstein, for example.

Furthermore, Felt didn't smoke...drank martinis instead of scotch...was in the FBI, not exactly the White House...Felt himself said in his 1999 interview that he was NOT Deep Throat, too.

Color me unconvinced.

[toddlintown]

"I'm Spartacus!"

No...I'm Spartacus!

[Tatze]

This would seem to rule out Felt as well:

The reporters (Woodstein) revealed in their book that Deep Throat had told Woodward that the Nixon tapes missed sections. The Woodward and Bernstein story in the Post attributed this information to sources in the White House and none other.

In the book, at page 333, the reporters revealed their story "quoted anonymously Deep Throat's remark that there were gaps of 'a suspicious nature' which 'could lead someone to conclude that the tapes have been tampered with.'" In the Nov. 8, 1973 issue of the Post, the same quote as in the book was attributed to one of their White House sources.

Also, the FBI did not investigate the circumstances surrounding the tapes. All of that came out in testimony of White House officials.

[AFPhys]

From the WikiPedia article:

First cut:
Over the years, political observers have suggested many possible candidates as Deep Throat, including FBI director L. Patrick Gray, Nixon advisor Alexander Haig, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and even former U.N. ambassador (and later president) George Bush, Sr..

[I never suspected any of these, personally - but had no idea myself who else to suspect]


Second cut:
Leading candidates

Generally acknowledged to be the three leading candidates are W. Mark Felt, Fred Fielding, and William H. Rehnquist.

W. Mark Felt was the third highest official in the FBI at the time of Watergate. James Mann, who had worked at the Post at the time of Watergate and was close to the investigation, brought a great deal of evidence together in a 1992 article in Atlantic Monthly that fingered Felt and convinced many. He argued that the information Deep Throat gave Woodward could only have come from FBI files. Felt was also embittered at having been passed over for the Director General position and the FBI in general was hostile to the Nixon administration. In previous unrelated articles Woodward had made clear he had a highly placed source at the FBI and there is some evidence he was friends with Felt. Felt was Richard Nixon's personal candidate as Deep Throat. Bernstein's son blurted to others that Felt was Deep Throat many years ago. Bernstein's wife at that time, Nora Ephron, tried to explain it away, saying that their son overheard her "speculations." Woodward has kept in close touch with Felt over the years, even showing up unexpected at his house in 1999, after Felt's dementia began. Some suspected at that time that Woodward might be asking Felt if he could reveal him to be Deep Throat, though Felt, when asked directly by others, has consistently denied being Deep Throat.
---

...
Somebody here got it right... Nixon was right, too.

[Southack]

"In their book, the reporters said Woodward's source was "in the Executive Branch" and "had access to information at CRP [Committee for the Re-election of the President] as well as at the White House."

Felt had little to no access to the White House and CRP.

[gopwinsin04]

My money was on Diane Sawyer or Pat Buchanan.

[CaptainMorgantown]

Without excusing any of the Watergate misdeeds of the Nixon administration, it is actually a little disconcerting to me that the identity of Deep Throat was actually a top FBI official. For three decades we have been led to believe that the Deep Throat was a Nixon administration insider who was so concerned with the ethical lapses that they had reluctantly come forward. Another aspect of the Deep Throat myth was that secrecy was necessary to protect Deep Throat from political retaliation. A third aspect of the Deep Throat myth was that the individual did not have the power or authority to act on his convictions working within his job, so that leaking to the press was the only means available to him.

If this report is correct, the public has been misled as to the position and motivations of Deep Throat. Deep Throat was not 'an administration insider', he was a career FBI official. Deep Throat's identity was not protected to shield him from political retaliation, but to shield him from possible criminal prosecution. Furthermore, Deep Throat was not powerless to pursue his concerns within the normal scope of his job; he had the full investigative resources of the FBI with which to pursue his concerns.

Additionally, the apparent Deep Throat was not averse to unauthorized break-ins when it served his purposes, and may well have had political/personal motivations for his hostility to the Nixon administration.

Again, this does not excuse Nixon's many mistakes and misdeeds. But it does paint a picture of a hostile investigator who decides to pursue his case in the press because he doesn't have enough facts to make anything stick. This is quite different from the selfless mid-level Nixon administration official that Woodward & Berstein portrayed, who is speaking out only because of conscience.

[kabar]

Justice Department -- FBI. LOL