No, I've got two hard facts on my side.
1. Mark Felt never smoked.
2. Woodward and Berstein won't confirm Felt as being Deep Throat.
My money says that people are taking advantage of an old man suffering from dementia. That's not grasping at straws; that's a very real possibility.
Ok, very good point
2. Woodward and Berstein won't confirm Felt as being Deep Throat.
They are media whores and won't do it unless they are scheduled for a tv interview. Give them a few days to see what they do. And could it be that deep throat was more than one person?
If he didn't smoke, as you say, and Woodstein wanted to "disguise" Deep Throat in the book..the best way is to make him a smoker...
And Felt's FBI position could have strengthened Woodward's desire to protect Deep Throat—by all accounts, he has been extraordinarily careful not to give any clues as to who his source was. An editor at the Post told us: 'Woodward disguised Deep Throat. Woodward tried not to lie, but he tried to keep people off the track as much as possible. For instance, Woodward made a lot of Deep Throat smoking cigarettes, but I had the feeling that Deep Throat doesn't smoke." Obviously Woodward had plenty of reason to disguise a Felt-type Deep Throat—if the FBI source for the Post's Watergate investigation were revealed, it could look like the FBI was using the Post and it also would detract from the picture of two young reporters out knocking on doors to find out all by themselves who was behind Watergate. -- From The Washingtonian magazine of August 1974
You just fell for the misdirection he used. That was the purpose.
There was a story in the NY Post today that Felt quit smoking in the 1940s.