Deep Throat to be named

San Francisco Chronicle | Leah Garchik

[Temple Owl]

Deep Throat to be named

Leah Garchik

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

John Dean, the White House counsel whose revelations about the Nixon presidency were the first flames in the volcano of Watergate scandal, is about to turn up the heat again by revealing the identity of Deep Throat.

At an L.A. Times book festival discussion of "Abuse of Power, Then & Now" --

including panelists Oliver Stone and Arianna Huffington, moderated by Chronicle Columnist Bob Scheer -- Dean said "The Deep Throat Brief" will be published online by Salon.com on June 17.

Dean told TIC yesterday that he'd spent about 20 years going through archives and tapes. "I thought that 30 years of hiding was long enough. It's a great brainteaser, and an avocational pursuit that I finally got serious about buttoning up for the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in." June 19, two days after publication, is also the anniversary of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's first conversation with Throat about Watergate, says Dean, who's familiar enough with the protagonist to call him by one name.

As new Nixon material comes to light with grinding regularity, those whose lives were most closely intertwined with him have watched with fascination. "As Woodward said, 'It's the gift that keeps on giving,' " said Dean. "I did a book called 'The Rehnquist Choice' based on Nixon's recorded conversations about all the people involved in filling the two vacancies on the Supreme Court. I put it together as dialogue, and it fell into a three-act play. . . . He astounds. He just never stops surprising us. His anti-Semitism has now become old hat, but his take on women is amazing. He didn't think they should be educated, he didn't think they should vote, he didn't think they should be in his Cabinet. He was serious about putting a woman on the Supreme Court for political reasons." Reading the archived material, "I would just break out laughing."

The advantage of publishing an e-book, said Dean, who did not receive an advance from Salon, is that "I can work on it up to the last minute." Time magazine is planning to run an excerpt.

Publication of the 35,000-word text will fulfill a longtime dream of Dean's.

"There's one person who's headed into Richard Nixon's eternal history who outranks me as his worst enemy, and that's Deep Throat. Nixon said Dean was a traitor and Deep Throat was even worse. I wanted to visit with this person."

[apochromat]

Someone in the press should ask Heidi Fleiss what she thinks of all this business.

[NordP]

"There is no Deep Throat, only Deep Pockets!"

No, it's the "hot pockets" -- try them, they're FABULOUS!

Signed,

Deep Dr. Evil

[Swordmaker]

Actually, THREE people know who "Deep Throat" is... Woodward, Bernstein and Deep Throat. Perhaps John Dean was Deep Throat?

[SkyPilot]

There is no "Deep Throat." There never was.

It is all a bunch of this:

I think at best it was a made up character of several people--most of them dubious. Woodward is a proven liar who always believed he was living in a spy novel (see CONTRA, IRAN).

Go rent "All the Presidents Men" again--but take some medication before hand so you won't be sick. Watch that Hollyweird scene of the reporters waiting for the "PHONE CALL" back to confirm their "source." Filled with faux tension--it serves as a symbol of these people's arrogance and self-importance. They tried to communicate how they wouldn't "Go With" a story unless it was true and confirmed.

Bovine Scatology!

Reporters are some of the most unethical people in the world.

[ijcr]

From Deep Throat suspectsWoodward has kept his 1972 promise to protect his source's identity because he says Deep Throat wishes to remain anonymous. But some bits of information have been disclosed over the years: Deep Throat is one person, not a composite of several sources, he is a man and he is still living. Woodward noted that Deep Throat was a smoker and that he drank Scotch. "Aware of his own weaknesses, he readily conceded his flaws," the reporters wrote. "He was, incongruously, an incurable gossip, careful to label rumor for what it was, but fascinated by it. ... He could be rowdy, drink too much, overreach. He was not good at concealing his feelings, hardly ideal for a man in his position."

Me thinks this is case for Quidam, the Free Republic's greatest detective.

[fatima]

On March 1, 1974, seven former aides of the president -- Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson, Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson -- were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. (The grand jury had named Nixon an unindicted co-conspirator, and Dean, Magruder, and lesser figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty.) Colson later pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Ellsberg case and was relieved of the cover-up charges. Charges against Strachan were dropped. The remaining five went on trial in October 1974, and on Jan. 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. court of appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian, and subsequently all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman voluntarily entered prison in 1976 and the other two entered prison in 1977.

[I. M. Trenchant]

Thanks for the link. Of course none of those mentioned at the Post's website would match the criteria I have outlined. If Haig or Kissinger were 'Deep Throat', there would appear to be substantial violations of their oaths of office, and this would indeed explain the need for anonymity until death: to avoid retroactive prosecution. What I find intriguing about the individual I have described is that, even if he is not 'Deep Throat', how could he have escaped prosecution by the Sirica court when others who were guilty of much less were convicted ?

[PRND21]

Deep Throat=Quidam

[I. M. Trenchant]

Excellent. I waived on Parkinson whose participation seemed slight by comparison with Gordon Strachan, whose actions, as H.R. Haldeman's assistant, seemed inescapably culpable. Whether or not Strachan conforms to the characteristics pointed out by ijcr in post #46 I don't know, but then again, I don't know where these characteristics that are attributed to 'Deep Throat' at the Post website, were previously scribed by Woodward -- if indeed they ever appeared outside of the Post website. The only quote I can ever recall having been attributed to Strachan was, in effect: "Liddy is a Nazi, but he's our Nazi."

[Roni Dowd]

JOHN DEAN IS DEEP THROAT. HE IS FINALLY COMING CLEAN AS THE BACK STABBING DUAL AGENT. WHY HAS LINDA TRIPP BEEN TREATED SO BADLY AND HE IS LIKE A MEDIA HERO? IT JUST MAKES ME SICK

[Chemnitz]

You are right about Woodward, the Yalie ex-Navy spook. I think we have to allow for the possibility of DT being invented or simply a composite. Everyone should remember that the dream team from the NY Times broke all kinds of laws in getting their stories. They interfered with a grand jury, lied, etc. But it was for a good cause so that make it ok. That's what they accused Nixon of - breaking the law for a good cause.

I despise W and B because they made journalistic excess glamorous. They also made lawyers seem glamorous. So we have far too many activistic ninnies in the guise of reporters and lawyers. I was no fan of Nixon, but he did not deserve the treatment he got. That was the end of trusting authority in America. We have suffered ever since.

Lady Macbeth Clinton's role in Watergate reminds me of the Russian revolution. The Tsar was toppled because he was accused of being an agent for the Germans. (The Germans probably used Rasputin's role in advising Alexandra, the Tsar's wife.) So the Germans paid Lenin to enter Russia and take over the revolution and end the war (WWI) with Germany. A real German agent came in to replace a man falsely accused of being a German agent. Nicholas, a pious Christian, was called "the bloody Tsar" for the people killed during his reign. That was nothing compared to the Marxists. They butchered Nicholas, Alexandra, their son and their beautiful daughters - in cold blood, then lied about it.

The Clintons rolled into town, shocked by all the scandal and greed they found in Reagan/Bush's 12 years. Most of it was invented and far below normal corruption levels for Demon_rants. Then Boy Clinton and Lady Macbeth immediately began to loot the country and murder their enemies. They were anti-authority, until they got into power. Then they were Leninist/Stalinists!

[big bad easter bunny]

Actually I would lone to hear who it is!

[ijcr]

I have always thought it was Dean, he could have pleaded the fifth,however, he gave evidence for 5 days.

[fatima]

page 18 MARCH 22, 1973, FROM 9:11 TO 10:35 A.M.29HALDEMAN:Well, that's right. Keep forgetting aboutStrachan. And Gord-uh, what's his name, Deansays he's going to (unintelligible).PRESIDENT:What we do with getting information in sort ofa-he may not have known about how we're-youknow what I mean. I think Strachan is, is notthat bad if his fish is gonna get fried. He'sat too low a level. -HALDEMAN:That's a good sign, I know it.PRESIDENT:(Unintelligible) he got a tremendous amount of-he just got information but he didn't issueorders or anything on what he wanted to do.HALDEMAN:Right. You look at Gordon Strachan. Here's alittle, young lawyer, who used to work for JohnMitchell in his law firm, and came- down toWashington to work in the government, and he'sworking under a campaign with Attorney Generalof the United States is in charge of it. Now,how the hell do you expect him to decidewhether something that's being done is right orwrong?PRESIDENT:That's right.HALDEMAN:I don't know, I don't think,- Gordon doesn't Idon't think, doesn't worry Dean much and hedoesn't worry, I don't, I would not beconcerned about Gordon. He is-PRESIDENT:A hell of a guy.
I edited this.

[Fabozz]

"Nah, she just sleeps with the elephants when the circus is in town."

Heh. I'm not joking, though—somebody start a pool, I put my money on Sawyer. Notice how Dean is deliberately vague about Deep Throat's gender—he never says "man" or "he," he says "person" or "Deep Throat." Notice how Dean spends time elaborating how misogynistic Nixon was. Then think: Why would Woodward and Bernstein call a man "Deep Throat"? (And yes, the code name was based on the movie.)

[tjg]

"hen they were Leninist/Stalinists!"

Nah. They were never anything but Billist/Hillaryists. You have to have a political ideology to be a Communist. The Clintons only cared about themselves.

[I. M. Trenchant]

Thanks for that. I expect that this was a discussion netween HRH & RMN of Dean's assessment of Strachan's culpability, at a time when Dean was telling Nixon that virtually no one in his Administration was culpable. However, it soon developed that Dean was wrong and a great many proved to be culpable. I simply cannot see how Strachan was exonerated without punishment of any sort by the Sirica court unless he took some action that mitigated the fact that he knew in advance when a criminal break-in at the DNC was going to occur and did nothing to block it, and later, that he knowingly and deliberately shredded documents that deprived investigators of the evidence they needed in their prosecution, namely, transcripts of the wiretaps at the DNC. To this day, Strachan is more knowledgeable than anyone alive about what information was on those tapes, most of which were never vetted by HRH or RMN personally.

The sort of speculations that abound in books such as Silent Coup, which implicates Dean as the prime mover in the DNC break-in, would have been subject to more discerning tests if those transcripts still existed -- as would many other theories of why the DNC was chosen as a target. Mitchell went to his grave insisting he had never known the DNC was an intended target of Liddy's brigade, and Magruder later told the authors of Silent Coup that, indeed, Mitchell had not known the DNC was a target. Give LBJ credit: when he ordered the FBI to bug Nixon's 1968 election plane, it made some sense that he might obtain some useful political intelligence, but as HRH & RMN went to their graves wondering: who in the hell would think there would be anything of value to be had in bugging the DNC ?

[I. M. Trenchant]

You may well be right, but I'd still like to know how anyone, in this case Strachan, could be acquitted by a hostile (Sirica) court in the face of admitting to having foreknowledge of a criminal break-in and doing nothing about it, and later, to knowingly and deliberately shredding the evidence of same. If you are right about Dean, would that not cast the entire issue of 'Watergate' in a different light -- almost the equivalent of a calculated and deliberate frameup of the client (Nixon) by his own lawyer ! Aren't there supposed to be laws against that sort of thing ?

[Chemnitz]

I don't agree with you about Hillary. She has always been a movement radical. And the only pure radical is a Marxist. I spent a long time studying the socialists. They were always in awe of Marxism. As for Bill, I don't think we will ever know the exact nature of his "study" at Oxford and Russia. When he went back to Europe years later he went to the home of a prominent Marxist. I agree with the old saying, "Measure them by their friendships."