I think you meant never testified [at the Watergate hearings]. Felt was not some powerless bureaucrat mired at the bottom of the FBI. Felt was the number 2 guy who could have used an internal FBI office to report anonymously these alleged crimes or he could have resigned and gone public. The fact that he never even testified before the Watergate Commission shows what a coward he was.
I would also add that Felt never disclosed that he was Deep Throat until now. Why? Because he knew that he committed a crime by disclosing privileged information to the press. Felt was essentially the clearing house for all of the information pertaining to this investigation. He was not a disinterested party. He should have recused himself at the very least.
If you read Pres. Reagan's pardon, Felt really did step forward to take the heat so his subordinates wouldn't have to. He is a hero of the Cold War, and nothing will change that.
I read the pardon, but Felt is no hero in my mind. It is like saying that Benedict Arnold was a hero of the French and Indian wars and then just compartmentalize those actions from what he did during the Revolutionary War. Felt was a cowardly, disgruntled, vindictive bureaucrat who took down a President.
Reagan had just taken office. He pardoned Miller and Felt the same way Carter pardoned the Vietnam draft evaders and desserters. I bet Reagan would not have pardoned Felt if he knew that he was Deep Throat.
But I have a feeling his reasons stemmed from the War on Terror that was being prosecuted at the time.
There was no WOT, at least at that time. This was domestic terror aimed at the USG and its institutions, mainly due to the opposition to the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle. Comparing it to what is going on now with AQ and militant Islam,global terrorism, is erroneous.
Besides, Nixon was an unprincipled sellout. He went to Red China, he buried the investigations that would have rooted-out the Commies riddled throughout the US government...I could go on and on. I think there will be many surprises as this story unfolds. And almost all of them will embarrass the Left.
I don't hold the same view you do of Nixon. I am surprised about your description of Nixon as "an unprincipled sellout" given your moniker and Nixon's involvement with HUAC and the Hiss case. I have no problem with what Nixon did with China. It was just a recognition of reality and the fact that a nation of about a billion people had to be dealt with.
==I don't hold the same view you do of Nixon. I am surprised about your description of Nixon as "an unprincipled sellout" given your moniker and Nixon's involvement with HUAC and the Hiss case.
Excerpt taken from "Soviet Moles in the CIA (Part I)"
ISWR 1994
Too many moles to count
Pentration of the CIA is certainly not a new Soviet goal. The Communists found their best opportunity at the time the CIA was first created--during World War II, when the new agency was known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Nathaniel Weyl, who broke with the Communist Party, USA, wrote that "In the Office of Strategic Services... employment of pro-Communists was approved at very high levels provided that they were suited for specific jobs."10 As it turned out, OSS director General William "Wild Bill" Donovan had systematically recruited his OSS personnel directly from Communist Party membership.
Nor was Donovan shy about admitting this. When confronted by the FBI with clear evidence of Communist agents in the OSS, Donovan boasted, "I know they're Communists; that's why I hired them."11
When the OSS became the CIA in 1947, the original personnel were largely retained, Communists and all. By 1952, CIA director Walter Bedell Smith publicly confirmed that hidden Communist agents were working inside his agency.12
Since no one in the Executive branch seemed to be interested in rooting out these spies, Congress began to take an interest. Joseph McCarthy's subcommittee specifically raised the idea of a formal investigation, as later described by legal advisor Roy Cohn:
“One desired investigation that never got started was that of the Central Intelligence Agency, headed by Allen W. Dulles. Our staff had been accumulating extensive data about its operations and McCarthy was convinced that an inquiry was overdue.
Our files contained allegations gathered from various sources indicating that the CIA had unwittingly hired a large number of double agents-individuals who, although working for the CIA, were actually Communist agents whose mission was to plant inaccurate data....
...although we spent far more for intelligence than other countries, the quality of the information we were receiving was so poor that at times the CIA found out what was happening only when it read the newspapers....
When the news broke out that McCarthy was contemplating an inquiry into the CIA, consternation reigned at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue [the White House]. Vice-President Nixon was assigned to the delicate job of blocking it.”13
Block it Nixon did, and no outside investigation of spies in the CIA has ever been held. The consequences were obvious. Even the Eisenhower administration was forced to admit in 1954 that CIA intelligence measures against the Soviet Bloc had been a dismal failure.14 Since the end of World War II and continuing to this day, the United States has never been able to infiltrate the KGB or recruit double agents of any significance.
Relevant Notes:
12 Burnham, J., The Web of Subversion, Western Islands, Belmont, MA, 1965, p. 182.
13 Cohn, R., McCarthy: The Answer to "Tail Gunner Joe", Manor Books, New York, 1977, pp. 63-64.
14 Martin, D.C., Wilderness of Mirrors, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, p. 62.