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Identity of 'Deep Throat' source confirmed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-01 07:48
Breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped
forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped
bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper
ratified his claim.
![Former FBI deputy director Mark Felt waves to the press as his daughter Joan Felt (L) and grandson Nick Jones (R), look on from the front door of his home in Santa Rosa, California, May 31, 2005. [Reuters]](xin_40060201095055399063.jpg)
Former FBI deputy director Mark Felt waves to
the press as his daughter Joan Felt (L) and grandson Nick Jones (R), look
on from the front door of his home in Santa Rosa, California, May 31,
2005. [Reuters] | "It's the last secret" of the story, said Ben Bradlee, the paper's top editor
at the time the riveting political drama played out three decades ago.
It tumbled out in stages during the day — first when a lawyer quoted Felt in
a magazine article as having said he was the source; then when the former FBI
man's family issued a statement hailing him as a "great American hero," and
finally when the Post posted a story on its Web site confirming him as the
secret leaker of long ago.
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein confirmed former FBI number-two W. Mark Felt (C), seen here
with daughter Joan Felt (L) and grandson Nick Jones, was the 'Deep Throat'
source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal and bring down President
Richard Nixon. [AFP] | "I'm the guy they used to
call Deep Throat," Felt, the former No. 2 man at the FBI, was quoted as saying
in Vanity Fair.
He kept his secret even from his family for almost three decades before his
declaration.
Felt, who lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., is said to be in poor mental and
physical health because of a stroke. His family did not immediately make him
available for comment, asking the news media to respect his privacy "in view of
his age and health."
A grandson, Nick Jones, read a statement. "The family believes that my
grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and
beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a
horrible injustice," it said. "We all sincerely hope the country will see him
this way as well."
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward, seen
here in 2004, and Carl Bernstein confirmed former FBI number-two W. Mark
Felt was the 'Deep Throat' source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal
and bring down President Richard Nixon.
[AFP/File] | In a statement issued later,
Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was
'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as
the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other
reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post
about Watergate."
The reporters and Bradlee had kept the identity of Deep Throat secret at his
request, saying his name would be revealed upon his death. But then Felt
revealed it himself.
Even the existence of Deep Throat, nicknamed for an X-rated movie of the
early 1970s, was kept secret for a time. Woodward and Bernstein revealed their
reporting had been guided by a Nixon administration source in their best-selling
book "All the President's Men."
A hit movie starring Robert Redford as Woodward, Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein
and Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat was made in 1976. In the film, Holbrook's
shadowy, cigarette-smoking character would meet Redford in dark parking garages
and provide clues about the scandal.
The movie portrayed the cloak-and-dagger methods that Woodward and Deep
Throat were said to have employed. When Woodward wanted a meeting, he would
position an empty flowerpot containing a red flag on his apartment balcony. When
Deep Throat wanted to meet, the hands of a clock would appear written inside
Woodward's New York Times.
The identity of the source has sparked endless speculation over the last
three decades. Nixon chief of staff Alexander Haig, White House press aide Diane
Sawyer, White House counsel John Dean and speechwriter Pat Buchanan were among
those mentioned as possibilities.
Felt himself was mentioned several times over the years as a candidate for
Deep Throat, but he regularly denied that he was the source.
"I would have done better," Felt told The Hartford Courant in 1999. "I would
have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House
crashing down, did he?"
Felt had expressed reservations in the past about revealing his identity, and
about whether his actions were appropriate for an FBI man, his grandson said.
According to the article, Felt once told his son, Mark Jr., that he did not
believe being Deep Throat "was anything to be proud of. ... You (should) not
leak information to anyone."
His family members thought otherwise, and persuaded him to talk about his
role in the Watergate scandal, saying he deserves to receive accolades before
his death. His daughter, Joan, argued that he could "make enough money to pay
some bills, like the debt I've run up for the children's education."
"As he recently told my mother, `I guess people used to think Deep Throat was
a criminal, but now they think he's a hero'," Jones said.
Woodward, who had visited with Felt as recently as 1999, refused to confirm
or deny, even to the man's family, that Felt was his source, and wondered
whether Felt was mentally competent to decide whether to go public after all
these years, the magazine reported.
Woodward and Bernstein were the first reporters to link the Nixon White House
and the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters in
Washington's Watergate complex.
Nixon, facing almost-certain impeachment for helping to cover up the
break-in, resigned in August 1974. Forty government officials and members of
Nixon's re-election committee were convicted on felony charges.
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.
Felt was convicted in the 1970s for authorizing illegal break-ins at homes of
people associated with the radical Weather Underground. He was pardoned by
President Reagan in 1981.
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