Posted on 05/31/2005 9:55:19 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - A former FBI official claims he was "Deep Throat," the long-anonymous source who leaked secrets about President Nixon's Watergate coverup to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.
W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Post reporter Bob Woodward's source, the magazine said.
"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told lawyer John D. O'Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a news release.
Felt was initially adamant about remaining silent on the subject, thinking disclosures about his past somehow dishonorable.
"I don't think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of," Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. "You (should) not leak information to anyone."
Felt is a retiree living in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his daughter, Joan, the magazine said. He could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press. His family members disagreed with their father, feeling that he should receive accolades for his role in Watergate before his death.
The Washington Post had no immediate comment on the report.
O'Connor is a lawyer at the San Francisco firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin. A receptionist there said O'Connor was out of the office but confirmed he was the author of the Vanity Fair article.
The existence of Deep Throat, nicknamed for a popular porn movie of the early 1970s, was revealed in Woodward and Carl Bernstein's best-selling book "All the President's Men." In the hit movie based on the book, Deep Throat was played by Hal Holbrook.
But his identity of the source whose disclosures helped bring down the Nixon presidency remained a mystery.
Among those named over the years as Deep Throat were Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, and even ABC newswoman Diane Sawyer, who then worked in the White House press office. Ron Zeigler, Nixon's press secretary, White House aide Steven Bull, speechwriters Ray Price and Pat Buchanan, and John Dean, the White House counsel who warned Nixon of "a cancer growing on the presidency," also were considered candidates.
And some theorized Deep Throat wasn't a single source at all but a composite figure.
In 1999, Felt denied he was the man.
"I would have done better," Felt told The Hartford Courant. "I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?"
In 2003, Woodward and Bernstein reached an agreement to keep their Watergate papers at the University of Texas at Austin.
At the time, the pair said documents naming "Deep Throat" would be kept secure at an undisclosed location in Washington until the source's death.
I didn't bookmark any of those searches. I honestly thought it did though. That is what made me think of Byrd. I will back track on a few searches when I get a free browser. I have so many opened right now, I'm not sure what screen I'm in ^-^
LOL! :-)
I see Byrd was majority whip back then, so it seems possible he would've known Woodward in that capacity:
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
In 1971, Byrd entered a race against Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the position of Senate majority whip, and won.
I'm arriving late to the party, but....
LOL!!! That was my first thought when I saw the picture. ;)
Thus, when the New York campaign (Clinton vs. Cox) heats up Cox will be discredited in advance.
Won't report it?
I'm sooooo tired of hearing about Clinton's misdeeds. Information overload.
Agreed that he's a creep, and I wish he'd crawl in a hole and stay there, but please don't suggest that we haven't heard about his dishonorable doings. It's just that there are a lot of American voters who don't care what Clinton did and worship his sorry self regardless.
Enough already. Let's get the chips off our conservative shoulders, chuck the paranoia, and be more honest than either of those presidents were.
They were both disgraceful and disrespected the office.
Probaly arranged the fake moon landing videos.
"be more honest than either of those presidents were"
--
IMO you've bought into the media spin.
The MSM and the Dims just tried to do the same thing they did to Nixon with Tom Delay. Only now they can't get away with it. Yes, Delay didn't report some trips. But Nancy Pelosi didn't report more!
That doesn't make either action correct, but it does show how the MSM emphasizes any perception of anything done wrong by the Republicans.
Now my understanding of it was that Nixon did not know about the break-ins in advance. He did, however, participate in the coverup of his campaign's links to that breakin.
If I recall, Nixon's other "sins" that were reported at the time included (supposed) misuse of the FBI. (I doubt that 30 years from now the MSM will be celebrating every chance they get to bring up those FBI files illegally obtained/held by the impeached former president.)
I also recall that there was all kinds of outrage because Nixon had taped conversations in the Oval Office. Later, when it was revealed that Johnson had done the same thing, Johnson was lauded for the historical significance of his tapes.
A Republican would never be able to get away with "it's all about sex." (As well it should be! Republicans do tend to hold those in our party more accountable than the Dims do. I highly doubt that any Republican would be holding office if he'd pulled any Kennedy-style bridge-crossing stunts.)
Notice how often "he's supposed to be a Christian" becomes an issue. It's the convenient way that the left uses to discredit a conservative.
Christians know that no one is without sin. The only time liberals acknowledge sin is when they try to blame one/some on a Republican.
I guess now ..... he's just an old, rotten, and senile SLIMEBALL.
----
High class prostitute............ they went into O'Brien's office for the book of hotties servicing the Dems. What was her nickname as a prostitute............ CLOUT???
***
McCord was a double agent, imo. After the tape was found he replaced it.
Too bad Vince Foster didn't live long enough to go to the press.
Or maybe he did . . . and the reporter betrayed him right back to Clintoon WH . . .
Sorry, I haven't bought into any "media spin." I'm an old timer who watched the whole scandal unfold in real time (the Senate hearings were televised live, even back in those dark ages!) and formed my own opinions. I was dismayed as it just got worse and worse. Dismayed and betrayed, as were many Republicans of that time. Nixon did us great harm.
You obviously don't know much about the Watergate scandal. It was much bigger and more involved than you seem to think. It involved MUCH more than some illegal break-ins and burglaries.
There was no outrage that Nixon taped conversations in the Oval Office. There was just surprise, because he had kept the taping system secret, and the tapes implicated Nixon himself. Yes, Johnson also had a taping system, and all White House tapes are a very interesting addition to history. Nut Nixon's tapes were his undoing.
Go back and read the history. Leave politics out of it and you'll likely find it both fascinating and unsettling.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349874/posts
Full-Throated Record
NRO ^ | February 23, 2005, 9:13 a.m. | Jonah Goldberg
Posted on 02/23/2005 8:03:08 PM PST by Checkers
If there is a Deep Throat, he should make the record clear.
by Jonah Goldberg
I have a request to make of William Rehnquist, Bob Dole, Henry Kissinger, Robert Bork, George Bush Sr., Al Haig, and a host of other Washington graybeards. While you're getting your affairs in order, could you please prepare an affidavit - or, even better, sworn video testimony - to be released posthumously, clarifying whether you are Deep Throat?
Let's back up a bit. As we all know, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pretty much brought down the Nixon administration by exposing the Watergate cover-up. They then cemented their status as iconic American journalists with the book All the President's Men, which was made into a near-hagiographic film of the same title, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
All the President's Men, both book and movie, were huge successes. What made them so, besides the engaging subject matter of high government misconduct, was a thrilling cloak-and-dagger plot. And central to this was the mysterious character known only as "Deep Throat." In the film, but not the book, it was Deep Throat who advised the reporters to "follow the money" in order to unravel the tangled web of lies spun by the White House. He was also the shadowy figure in a trench coat who allegedly warned Woodward that the duo's very lives were in danger, probably from the CIA. The implication was that Richard Nixon, the man who couldn't orchestrate a "third-rate burglary," was going to have the CIA terminate two Washington Post reporters.
Woodward and Bernstein have long promised that they will reveal the identity of this super-source on the occasion of Deep Throat's demise. Speculation and anticipation in Washington have been rising of late as the health of various potential candidates has deteriorated. Professional Watergate veteran John Dean recently wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Mr. Throat is very ill and that his obituary has already been written.
Here's the first problem: Nothing is easier than pinning a crime on a dead man. Here's the second problem: I don't think Deep Throat exists.
I'm not alone. 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's evidence was secondhand 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.
This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.
Obst also runs down several of the implausible details about Deep Throat in the book. Woodward was supposed to have signaled to Throat that he needed to talk by putting a cloth-topped stick in a flowerpot and moving it to the back of his balcony. If Throat saw the signal, they would meet at a prearranged underground garage. Inconveniently, however, the pot couldn't be seen from the street. In other words, this major Washington figure was supposed to drive to Woodward's building, get out of his car, and walk down Woodward's alley every single day. That's not very secretive behavior for someone trying to stay secret.
A similar problem is Woodward's claim that Throat would secretly mark page 20 of Woodward's home-delivered New York Times with a hand-drawn clock marking the time of their next meeting. But Woodward's Times was delivered to the building's lobby, writes Obst, "unmarked and stacked in a pile" before 7 A.M. How did Deep Throat figure out the right paper? And why would a super-secret, high-profile source devise a system that required regularly skulking in a public lobby before dawn?
Anyway, there are more questions and more answers to all of this. But I think history deserves a full accounting. Presumably, if Deep Throat exists he is aware that he will be named when he dies. So, gentlemen, why not get your side of the story on paper - or video - now? If you suspect you might be fingered for doing something you didn't, you have even more reason to get your version squared away.
Watergate prompted a generation of preening journalists to lecture America from a pedestal. The least Deep Throat can do - or, the least the leading Deep Throat suspects can do - is to let us know if the journalists belonged on that pedestal in the first place.
I followed the Watergate happenings, and watched the hearings. We obviously formed vastly different opinions based on our observations.
All, a couple of thoughts on 'Deep Throat'.
First, wasn't Woodward & Bernstiens' first reaction at hearing Felt had been outted interesting? They denied. They refused to confirm. Further, they have lied about him in the past (little details like that he was a chain smoker). In other words, they covered up. Isn't it interesting?
Second, neither Felt, his family, the guy who wrote the piece for Vanity Fair, or Vanity Fair itself ever contacted Woodward & Bernstein for a reaction prior to the piece going to print. Clearly nobody trusted them to keep this quiet until the VF piece was printed, and surely with good reason. At the first hint that Felt was going to help someone in announcing his identity as Deep Throat, they would have rushed a piece into the next edition of the Washington Post as quickly as possible to get another 15 minutes of fame. So much for journalistic integrity.
Third, despite Felt's family's contentions, the man is no hero. He did what he did out of spite and envy. If he'd been a hero, he wouldn't have hid behind a couple of hacks for 30+ years. He'd have gone before congress, or openly contacted journalists to make his claims. No, he's a vindictive tattletale without the intestinal fortitude to stand up for a principle.
The first cracks of thunder came three weeks after Helms flew to Iran, during the long-postponed confirmation hearings of Acting FBI Director Gray. The Senate Judiciary Committee had previously been busy with antitrust hearings against ITT, and Gray had been out for most of November, convalescing from abdominal surgery, and Nixon had wanted to evaluate Gray's performance. But in late February 1973, Nixon finally had sent Gray's name to the Hill. That was a strange decision indeed, inasmuch as Gray was certain to be grilled about the FBI's Watergate work. Ehrlichman and others had therefore strongly opposed Gray's nomination, but Nixon had gone ahead -- perhaps because Gray had been a Nixon loyalist since 1960, and had only been trying to look out for the President by ratting on Dean and Ehrlichman in July; perhaps because Nixon feared Gray might expose the Watergate coverup if unceremoniously dismissed for his loyal service. In any case, the hearings were a total disaster.
They began on February 28, with Gray insisting that the FBI had conducted "a full- court press" on Watergate. He then volunteered, without being asked, that he had routinely furnished Watergate investigation summaries to the White House. That unleashed angry badgering from Senators such as Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who believed that Gray had been, wittingly or not, abetting a White House coverup. To appease them, Gray said they could review all the FBI Watergate files it wished, but in that he was promptly overruled by the White House. By early April, Senators had so many questions about how Gray had conducted himself as Acting Director, and whether his Watergate investigation had been independent of the White House, that his prospects seemed weak. Gray himself was meanwhile beginning to have some questions about the President he had been trying to serve, and in early April, he withdrew his name from nomination. "In the service of my country, I withstood hours and hours of depth charging, shelling, bombing," Gray later reflected, "but I never expected to run into a Watergate in the service of the President of the United States, and I ran into a buzzsaw, obviously."
>>>if Felt is assumed as Deep Throat
That is where I'm at.
If Felt is Deep Throat...it gives the Nixon debacle more of a 'hero' view.
Nixon tried supressing the protesters. The VVAW propaganda was needed here to win the Nam war.
So, if it wasn't Felt, if it was a setup, by a Byrd type, than Deep Throat holds a guilty status vs. the current hero view.
So, what does it take these days to get a story that doesn't have some disclaimer, wiggle-room, out, etc.? The word "reportedly" will enter the same domain as "so-called" before too long.
Is the media no longer certain of anything?
-PJ
"First, wasn't Woodward & Bernstiens' first reaction at hearing Felt had been outted interesting? They denied."
Actually, they didn't deny, they just restated the same thing they've been saying for years, that they had agreed not to release the source's name until after his death. Keeping a promise is a mark of integrity.
The statement later in the day confirming Deep Throat's identity most likely came after Felts or his family released Woodward/Bernstein from the long-standing agreement.
There are few heroes in the Watergate shame, and Felts certainly isn't one.
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