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Felt Pen (In '99, a term paper identified Deep Throat, prompting a little cover-up by Bernstein)
The American Prowler ^ | 6/1/2005 | George Neumayr

Posted on 05/31/2005 9:42:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway

In 1999, a teenager broke the story of Deep Throat's identity as W. Mark Felt in a high school history term paper. He got a B on it. Or "something ridiculous like that. The teacher is...an idiot in my opinion," said Chase Culeman-Beckman to the Journal News of New York in 1999.

How did he figure it out? Chase Culeman-Beckman had attended a posh Long Island summer camp with Carl Bernstein's son Jacob roughly a decade earlier and had heard Jacob (then all of 8) popping off learnedly about "Mark Felt" as Deep Throat.

"We entered into a very precocious discussion of politics. Somehow the conversation degenerated to talk about Watergate and in a burst of braggadocio, he said that Deep Throat was Mark Felt," said Culeman-Beckman to the press in 1999. "He said I'm 100 percent sure that Deep Throat is Mark Felt."

Now that Felt has identified himself as Deep Throat in Vanity Fair, this young man's "idiot" history teacher owes him a retroactive A+. Showing considerable enterprise, he, according to 1999 New York press accounts, heavily footnoted his 20-page term paper, copyrighted it, attached a two-page bibliography, and went to the trouble of subjecting All the President's Men to rigorous textual analysis, noting that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had identified their source at one point as My Friend, the initials of Felt's name.

Carl Bernstein owes his son's summer camp pal an apology too. Bernstein had conducted a little cover-up after his story reached the press. Judging from his bobbing and weaving in press accounts, Bernstein was sweating. He appeared to be alternately playing dumb, lying, and putting his son up to squashing the story. The Hartford Courant reported that Bernstein "didn't have time to call Jacob to ask him about it" and asked its reporter innocently, "Is Mark Felt still alive?" Then it looks like Bernstein tried to fake the paper out through lying bluster: "I hate to ruin your story, but Jacob Bernstein has not a clue as to the identity of Deep Throat. Bob and I have been wise enough never to tell our wives, and we've certainly never told our children."

Jacob Bernstein, for good measure, was later trotted out to support this line, telling the press: "At no point did my father Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward reveal the identity of Deep Throat."

This 1999 story wasn't covered very widely, but covered enough that Felt himself was contacted and he lied too. "No, it's not me," he said, adding unconvincingly that "I would have done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?"

Director Nora Ephron, former wife of Bernstein and mother of Jacob, was also helpful in confusing the matter, for she had theorized in a 1993 interview that Mark Felt was Deep Throat. So Bernstein could credibly dismiss his son's summer-school yarn to Culeman-Beckman as just a regurgitation of some "guesswork" his mother (on her own, of course) had shared with him.

Yet a few people, even in 1999, wondered how Bernstein's son had an obscure name like Mark Felt on the tip of his tongue as an 8-year-old at summer camp. Adrian Havill, author of Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, marveled to the press: "If he'd told [Culeman-Beckman] the name Henry Kissinger, John Dean or even Alexander Haig, they were at least prominent public figures. Mark Felt, by 1988, was long retired and forgotten. How the Bernstein kids [sic] would come up with that name boggles the mind."

Slate's "Chatterbox" was doing spadework on this issue in 1999 and correctly suspected Felt of being Deep Throat (Chatterbox gave an assist to James Mann, who had theorized in an Atlantic Monthly article several years earlier that Deep Throat was Felt and certainly a G-man). Chatterbox tracked Culeman-Beckman down and carefully questioned him, which unintentionally helped Bernstein's cover-up a bit in that Culeman-Beckman acknowledged that he assumed Jacob Bernstein knew of Felt's identity through his father but didn't hear him exactly say that.

Vindicated, Culeman-Beckman's term paper now belongs in the sequel to All the President's Men. How a high school student got Carl Bernstein lying and sweating like Richard Nixon deserves its own journalistic footnote.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California; US: Connecticut; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: deepthroat; felt; feltgate; george; markfelt; media; neumayr; washingtonpost
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1 posted on 05/31/2005 9:42:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Canticle_of_Deborah; Lancey Howard; maryz

George Neumayr Ping


2 posted on 05/31/2005 9:45:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway (I'm Only Alive, Because a Judge Hasn't Ruled I Should Die...)
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To: nickcarraway

BTTT.

So we believe it just because Felt (who has previously denied it), Woodward, and Bernstein (who worked for teh Washington Post and are therefore ipso facto liars) say so?


3 posted on 05/31/2005 9:45:50 PM PDT by TBP
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To: nickcarraway
omg THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!!!

not.

4 posted on 05/31/2005 9:47:57 PM PDT by Nachum
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To: nickcarraway

If Bernstein told his kid, how many other people did he tell?


5 posted on 05/31/2005 9:48:21 PM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AD fan club: "Very well stated, AD." -- Diana in Wisconsin; "LOL!!!" -- MikeinIraq)
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To: TBP

I'm not convinced.


6 posted on 05/31/2005 9:49:23 PM PDT by nickcarraway (I'm Only Alive, Because a Judge Hasn't Ruled I Should Die...)
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To: onyx

this is good also [burp , havin' a popsicle]


7 posted on 05/31/2005 9:55:06 PM PDT by Dad yer funny
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To: Dad yer funny


Are you? I am too! Lime, my favorite!


8 posted on 05/31/2005 9:58:01 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: onyx

yup , POPSICLES , the best foodgroup when its time to contemplate


9 posted on 05/31/2005 10:01:30 PM PDT by Dad yer funny
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To: nickcarraway

Interesting. Thanks.


10 posted on 05/31/2005 10:04:07 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
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To: Dad yer funny


What flavor is your fav?


11 posted on 05/31/2005 10:04:07 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: nickcarraway
Chase Culeman-Beckman, if you're reading this, sign up here and contact me. I have a journalistic project for you....
12 posted on 05/31/2005 10:07:06 PM PDT by The Spirit Of Allegiance (SAVE THE BRAINFOREST! Boycott the RED Dead Tree Media & NUKE the DNC Class Action Temper Tantrum!)
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To: onyx

Edy's Lime , but the food delivery screwed up and we have something else, but I'm thankful[my Dad would say , " if yer hungry , you'll eat it"]


13 posted on 05/31/2005 10:08:08 PM PDT by Dad yer funny
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To: Dad yer funny


Ah, lime too. :)


14 posted on 05/31/2005 10:08:33 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: TBP
So we believe it just because Felt (who has previously denied it), Woodward, and Bernstein (who worked for teh Washington Post and are therefore ipso facto liars) say so?

Plus the editor (who is now like a VP or some junk, but didn't comment at the time).

The problem, is the only 4 people who ever could claim to know who deep throat was, are ones saying who it is, and its going to be impossible to prove otherwise, outside of simply faith that they are lying.

The good thing to come out of this, is that Mark Felt has royally cost these guys some serious money.

15 posted on 05/31/2005 10:13:19 PM PDT by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: onyx

Now I'm hungry for a popsicle too.


16 posted on 05/31/2005 10:20:48 PM PDT by Kirkwood
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To: Kirkwood


Lime too...lol?


17 posted on 05/31/2005 10:23:15 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: nickcarraway

Felt did it because Nixon passed him up for the top
FBI job. Felt is a piece of crap.


18 posted on 05/31/2005 10:40:11 PM PDT by TomasUSMC (FIGHT LIKE WW2, FINISH LIKE WW2. FIGHT LIKE NAM, FINISH LIKE NAM.)
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To: nickcarraway
I still don't believe much of what Woodward says. Saying that, how was Felt supposed to have known so much of what was happening on the political side at CREEP?
This all breaks very conveniently for Woodward. An old man, said to be failing, 'fesses up to being DT? Be wary before swallowing whole.
19 posted on 05/31/2005 10:40:26 PM PDT by thegreatbeast (Quid lucrum istic mihi est?)
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To: thegreatbeast

If you want read a great historical fiction book about the Watergate and many of the players grab ‘The Amendment’ a novel by John Fitzgerald. It’s a fascinating story, if true what an eye opener.


20 posted on 05/31/2005 11:00:32 PM PDT by bondsman
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