| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"MrPepper11" |
| Date: |
31 May 2005 04:52:24 PM |
| Object: |
Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat' |
May 31, 2005
Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat'
Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee Reveal Former FBI Official as Secret
Watergate Source
By William Branigin and David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writers
The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former
number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source
who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in
the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard
M. Nixon.
The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two
Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their
former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's
family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a
retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided
crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate
stories.
The Vanity Fair story said Felt had admitted his "historic, anonymous
role" following years of denial.
In a statement today, Woodward and 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."
Felt's guidance to Woodward -- provided on "deep background" in secret
meetings -- helped keep public attention focused on the June 1972
break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in
Washington's Watergate office and apartment complex, and on a
subsequent cover-up effort. This ultimately led to a congressional
investigation that revealed the role of Nixon and a number of his top
aides. Under threat of impeachment, Nixon resigned in 1974.
Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee had kept the identity of "Deep Throat"
secret at the source's request, saying his name would be revealed upon
his death. "We've kept that secret because we keep our word," Woodward
said.
But with the Vanity Fair article and the family's statement, the three
decided today to break their silence.
Bradlee, who was the Post's executive editor during Watergate, said
today, "The thing that stuns me is that the ***** secret has lasted
this long."
Woodward went ahead despite skepticism that the former FBI official was
competent to decide to change the ground rules of their secret
relationship. Felt has been in declining health since suffering a
stroke in 2001.
Woodward, now a Post assistant managing editor, said he is writing an
article for Thursday's newspaper that will provide a personal account
of his and Bernstein's experience in covering Watergate. Bernstein is
now a freelance writer and lecturer.
Woodward said Felt helped The Post at a time of tense relations between
the White House and much of the FBI hierarchy. He said the Watergate
break-in came shortly after the death of legendary FBI director J.
Edgar Hoover, Felt's mentor, and that Felt and other bureau officials
wanted to see an FBI veteran promoted to succeed Hoover.
Felt himself had hopes that he would be the next FBI director, but
Nixon instead appointed an administration insider, assistant attorney
general L. Patrick Gray, to the post.
Bradlee, in an interview this afternoon, said that knowing that "Deep
Throat" was a high-ranking FBI official helped him feel confident about
the information that the paper was publishing about Watergate. He said
that he knew the "positional identity" of "Deep Throat" as the Post was
breaking its Watergate stories and that he learned his name within a
couple of weeks after Nixon's resignation.
"The number-two guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source," he
said.
"I knew the paper was on the right track," Bradlee said. The "quality
of the source" and the soundness of his guidance made him sure of that,
he said.
"We made only one mistake . . . and that had nothing to do with 'Deep
Throat,' " Bradlee said, referring to an error in reporting grand jury
testimony.
Bradlee said that over the years, "it was interesting to watch people
flounder around with odd choices" about the identity of "Deep Throat,"
a nickname borrowed from the title of a pornographic film. Although he
knew the source's identity, Bradlee said, "I've never met Felt. I
wouldn't know him if I fell on him."
In a family statement released today, Felt's grandson, Nick Jones,
said, "The family believes 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." The
statement added, "We all sincerely hope the country will see him this
way as well."
Jones said in the statement, "My grandfather is pleased he is being
honored for his role as 'Deep Throat' with his friend Bob Woodward. As
he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think "Deep Throat"
was a criminal, but now they think he was a hero.'"
The Vanity Fair article, by California attorney John D. O'Connor,
described Felt as conflicted over his role in the Watergate revelations
and over whether he should publicly reveal that he was the anonymous
source whose identity has been a closely guarded secret for more than
three decades.
"On several occasions he confided to me, 'I'm the guy they used to call
"Deep Throat," ' " O'Connor wrote. The author wrote that Felt "still
has qualms about his actions, but he also knows that historic events
compelled him to behave as he did: standing up to an executive branch
intent on obstructing his agency's pursuit of the truth."
The article concluded, "Felt, having long harbored the ambivalent
emotions of pride and self-reproach, has lived for more than 30 years
in a prison of his own making, a prison built upon his strong moral
principles and his unwavering loyalty to country and cause. But now,
buoyed by his family's revelations and support, he need feel imprisoned
no longer."
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| User: "c-bee1" |
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| Title: Re: Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat' |
31 May 2005 07:14:24 PM |
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Yeah, I remember when I felt my first deep throat...
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| User: "©hri§tÇræm® " |
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| Title: Re: Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat' |
31 May 2005 05:37:13 PM |
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Woodward said Felt helped The Post at a time of tense relations between
the White House and much of the FBI hierarchy.
As is the case now. Is this a call for a new deep throat to emerge?
--
©hri§tÇræm®
"The power of Cream compels you."
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| User: "Sid9" |
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| Title: Re: Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat' |
31 May 2005 07:52:37 PM |
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©hri§tÇræm® wrote:
Woodward said Felt helped The Post at a time of tense relations
between the White House and much of the FBI hierarchy.
As is the case now. Is this a call for a new deep throat to emerge?
It's time for patriotic Americans
to step out and put their country
ahead of their party and expose
the Bush/ Cheney criminal cabal.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: The revelation of Deep Throat's identity creates another mystery |
03 Jun 2005 02:30:59 PM |
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// John W. Dean is the former counsel to President Nixon.
Deep Throat revelation creates another mystery
By John W. Dean
(FindLaw) -- The Bush administration prosecutes government officials
who leak sensitive information, even when that information is not
classified.
The Bush administration also is prepared to send reporters to jail when
they refuse to reveal their sources to a grand jury, as I noted in
another column.
I doubt the Justice Department will go after W. Mark Felt -- the
91-year- old former Deputy Director of the FBI -- even if he is the
greatest leaker in American political history. Still, in the context of
the Administration's stances on leaking, the surfacing of Deep Throat
at this time is rather ironic.
Bob Woodward (and Carl Bernstein) have confirmed the Vanity Fair story
identifying W. Mark Felt as their legendary Watergate source. The best
kept secret in Washington, for three decades, is no more.
But this is not to say the mystery is resolved. To the contrary, while
Mark Felt is alive, his memory for the details of his relationship with
Woodward seems to be all but gone. So the revelation of his identity
raises many new questions that it seems Felt himself will not be able
to answer.
A tribute to good sleuthing -- now ended
The game of guessing the identity of Throat, which moved from the
parlors of Washington to serious inquiry during the last 30 years, is
over. A number of us who were fascinated by the inscrutability of it
all have been forced into retirement.
Adrian Havill, a freelance author who did some good digging, most
recently thought Throat could be no less than former president George
H. W. Bush.
Leonard Garment, my successor as Nixon White House counsel, focused his
considerable intellect and keen intuition on the issue, and first
thought Throat must have been former Nixon White House aide John Sears.
Later, however, Garment was convinced that Throat had to be a composite
(a hypothesis which has yet to be shown to be incorrect - but has been
denied by Woodward and Bernstein).
Similarly, yours truly (the senior Throat sleuth) has made several
incorrect runs at Throat's true identity. So I tip my hat to former Los
Angeles Times reporter Jim Mann, who figured it out, and wrote about
Felt in a 1992 Atlantic Monthly essay. Tim Noah of Slate was not far
behind, forcing Felt to deny.
When I took a hard look at Felt years ago, I concluded he could not
have known what Throat knew when the information was given to Woodward,
particularly since he was gone from the FBI at the end, and scratched
him off the list of viable candidates.
In fact, so sure was I that, even after reading the Vanity Fair piece
and before Woodward had confirmed Felt's identity, I bet an NBC news
person $100 it was not Felt, the morning the Vanity Fair story broke.
Fortunately, though, I knew my bet was covered, for I'd made an early
wager, also for $100, with former Chicago Tribune investigative
reporter William Gaines. Gaines, who now teaches journalism at the
University of Illinois, has used Throat sleuthing as a teaching tool,
but I was confident that he was wrong in naming my former Nixon White
House deputy Fred Fielding as Throat.
Scrutiny of Throat and those at the Post
Woodward disliked this sleuthing. Now that the issue of Throat's
identity appears resolved, I suspect Woodward is going to be even less
enchanted with those who focus on his journalism. And Throat himself,
Mark Felt, is going to be probed as he might never have dreamed.
I'm among those who believe Woodward is truly one of the great
journalists. (Not an opinion shared by many of my former White House
colleagues.) No Washington reporter has so consistently had access to
those in power - meaning Woodward has often had uniquely compelling
stories to tell. And Woodward's reporting is fair and honest - one
reason he may maintain the access he has.
Still, Woodward's use of unidentified sources - a controversial
practice, and one now banned at Newsweek after the "Koran desecration
debacle" -- has been extreme. And because Woodward's key Watergate
source was unidentified, until now, no one could test his Watergate
reporting.
Bob once told me that when I learned who, in fact, Deep Throat was, all
my questions would be clarified. That, however, has not happened. To
the contrary, I only have more questions now that I know Throat was
Mark Felt.
I will raise a few of them here, in the hope of getting some answers,
while Woodward is still out and about doing talk shows.
But first, for those not following this story closely, a little
background is in order:
Felt's position -- and power -- during Watergate
At the time of Watergate, Mark Felt was the Deputy Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Former Director J. Edgar Hoover, who
had elevated Felt to this post, had died only weeks earlier. President
Nixon had selected the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil
Division, L. Patrick Gray, to serve as the Acting Director of the FBI.
Even before Hoover's death, however, Felt was for all practical
purposes running the FBI -- as Hoover wanted it run, with a few
exceptions. For example, when Hoover wanted to end surreptitious black
bag jobs (entries onto premises without a court warrant), Felt
continued them.
Later, Felt would be indicted and convicted by President Carter's
Justice Department for continuing the practice of illegal searches,
only to be pardoned by President Ronald Reagan for the practice. One
wonders if Felt would have been pardoned by Reagan had it been known he
was Deep Throat. Plus, I seriously doubt former President Richard Nixon
would have testified on Felt's behalf - as indeed he did -during his
trial, had he known of Felt's actions as Deep Throat. Deep Throat had
earned top ranking on Nixon's post-presidency enemies list (one notch
above yours truly.)
When Pat Gray became Acting Director of the FBI, I don't believe he had
a clue how to run the place. In fact, he did not really focus on trying
to do so. Rather, he spent much of his time traveling throughout the
country literally campaigning at various FBI Field Offices to win the
support of rank-and-file FBI agents for the job of Director. Thus,
during much of the Watergate investigation, Gray was not even in
Washington.
When I talked to Gray during the Watergate investigation, he typically
said he would have to check with Felt and get back to me. No one at the
Nixon White House believed Gray had any control whatsoever of the FBI.
To claim otherwise, as Felt apparently did with Woodward, is absurd.
What Felt told Woodward
Notwithstanding the article in The Washington Post (from his
forthcoming book) about Mark Felt, Bob Woodward, so far, has told us
little of his working relationship with Felt. Given Felt's aging
memory, which is widely acknowledged to be less than razor sharp, it
will be Woodward's story -- not Felt's.
Yet we do know something about the information Felt, as Deep Throat,
provided to The Washington Post from Woodward's book, All The
President's Men. Woodward reports some fourteen meetings (depending on
how they are counted).
Recently, I went through the book again, and pulled out every fact --
or factoid -- that Throat/Felt shared with Woodward, and noted when the
information exchange had occurred. For a list of these facts - and an
indication of which of them I believe may well be untrue -- please see
the Appendix to this column.
This summary of what Throat told Woodward and when, according to All
The President's Men, is particularly illuminating now that we know
Throat's identity. It, along with a few more clues Woodward has dropped
since confirming Felt's role, raises new questions about the Watergate
investigations and about Felt's leaking to Woodward.
Here are just a few questions that need to be answered:
How could Felt get so many things wrong?
In his position as the No. 2 man in the FBI, and the man running the
Watergate investigation for the FBI, Felt saw virtually all the raw
data from the FBI's field investigations. In the few days since the
revelation of his identity, I have not had an opportunity to compare
the material from the FBI's Watergate investigation with the
information that Felt gave Woodward to see if it is possible to
determine how he got it wrong. But such a comparison will doubtless be
fascinating.
Woodward, it appears, was seldom in a position to correct information
that Felt gave him that was wrong. But when writing All The President's
Men, he did correct one major false statement from Felt. Sometime in
early May, 1973, Felt told Woodward "In early February, [Patrick] Gray
went to the White House and said, in effect, 'I'm taking the rap on
Watergate.' He got very angry and said he had done his job and
contained the investigation judiciously, that it was unfair that he was
being singled out to take the heat.
He implied that all hell could break loose if he wasn't able to stay in
the job permanently and keep the lid on. Nixon could have thought this
was a threat, though Gray is not that sort of guy. Whatever the reason,
the President agreed in a hurry and sent Gray's name up to the Senate
right away. Some of the top people in the White House were dead set
against it, they couldn't talk him out of it."
It appears that Felt has invented this statement out of whole cloth -
or was seriously misinformed. It never happened this way, as the Nixon
White House tapes make clear.
To reflect this, Woodward did add a footnote in this instance, stating
that Pat Gray's attorney advised Woodward that the suggestion Gray had
pressured or blackmailed Nixon was "outrageously false."
But most of Felt's bad information has never been corrected. In fact, a
few writers about the period have quoted Felt's bad information as
historical fact. As can be seen from the Appendix, some of these
inaccuracies are minor (although I doubt not so minor to persons
erroneously maligned by Felt). But some are not.
Given the complexity of Watergate, it is not difficult to understand
how Felt made some mistakes when meeting with Woodward in the dead of
the night. Yet in other instances, it is not easy to comprehend how the
No. 2 man in the FBI could have provided such bad information, knowing
it could become public. And why has Felt let this bad information sit
on the historical record for the past three decades?
My opinion as to which information, provided by Felt, is wrong is based
on my many years of reviewing great swathes and stacks of documents
about the Watergate investigation. The Appendix speaks for itself. But
here, allow me to flag just one (of several) particularly egregious
sessions where Felt gave Woodward appalling information, apparently to
try to manipulate Woodward and The Washington Post.
Was felt trying to frighten The Washington Post?
It must be noted, according to Woodward's reports, that Felt frequently
told Woodward -- falsely -- they he and The Washington Post were under
surveillance. And based on Woodward's most recent article about Felt,
it seems Felt equated Nixon with Hitler, and that he saw the Watergate
investigation as a Nazi hunt (harking back to his pre-FBI days in the
military).
A month before Felt retired from the FBI, he had one of his more
remarkable sessions with Woodward. On May 16, 1973 (as reported at
pages 317-18 of All The President's Men), Woodward says Felt has become
"transformed" by the Watergate investigation, and talks to him almost
in a monologue. When finished, Felt departs; Woodward wrote it all down
in a notebook, which he later typed out for Bernstein.
It is one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie, "All The
President's Men": With a Rachmaninoff piano concerto playing in the
background, a frightened Woodward types his notes from this session
with Felt. Woodward's dread is understandable. The No. 2 man at the FBI
has told him - now, it clearly seems, falsely -- "Everyone's life is in
danger . . . electronic surveillance is going on and we had better
watch it. The CIA is doing it." The CIA role in Watergate was
investigated, and had this occurred, it would be known today.
The report continues: "Dean talked with Senator Baker after [the]
Watergate committee formed and Baker is in the bag completely,
reporting back directly to [the] White House." This is absolutely
false. I never spoke with Baker. And Baker certainly was not in the
bag.
Felt says that the "President threatened Dean personally and said if he
ever revealed the national security activities the President would
insure he went to jail." This never happened, a fact that can be
corroborated by Nixon's tapes.
As my Appendix notes, the flow of false facts continued. At one point
Felt says, "The covert activities involve the whole U.S. intelligence
community and are incredible," although he refused to give Woodward any
details, claiming "it is against the law." In fact, no such operation
was ever directed out of the Nixon White House.
Even more absurd are Felt's claims that those involved in the Watergate
cover up were "chipping in their own personal funds. And Mitchell
couldn't meet his quota [so] . . . they cut Mitchell loose." Absurd,
too, is his claim that "these guys in the White House were out to make
money and a few of them went wild trying."
Because Woodward could not quote Felt directly, none of the surprising
number of false statements highlighted in my Appendix made their way
into The Washington Post, but apparently Woodward believed them
sufficiently to include them in his book.
If Felt was not trying to manipulate the Post, it is not clear what he
was doing. Surely, he had to know - or at least, should have known --
that much of his information was worse than speculative; it was plain
wrong.
In short, the amount of bad information that Felt gave Woodward is
alarming. How and why did it happen?
Was Felt working alone?
Woodward reports -- in The Washington Post story recently excerpted
from his forthcoming book on Throat/Felt -- how he and Felt devised a
system indicating that Woodward needed to talk to Felt, since Felt did
not want him calling his office.
"If you keep the drapes in your apartment closed, open them and that
could signal me, [Felt] said. I could check each day or have them
checked, and if they were open we could meet that night at a designated
place." (Emphasis added.) But because Woodward liked to keep his drapes
open, they agreed that Woodward would place a flowerpot with a road
construction flag in it on his balcony as the signal.
Clearly, Woodward suspects that Felt, who would have been extremely
busy running the day-to-day activities of the FBI, was not checking his
apartment balcony daily himself. Woodward writes, "How [Felt] could
have made a daily observation of my balcony is still a mystery to me. *
* * The Iraqi Embassy was down the street, and I thought it possible
that the FBI had surveillance or listening posts nearby. Could Felt
have had the counterintelligence agents regularly report on the status
of my flag and flowerpot? That seems highly unlikely, if not
impossible."
I don't think it is impossible at all. To the contrary, I believe that
Felt had to have one or more persons working with him. Thus, others in
the FBI must have known Felt was feeding The Washington Post.
This is evident from the last reported conversation in All The
President's Men between Throat and Woodward. Felt retired from the FBI
five months before this last contact during the first week of November
1973. As a result of the conversation, Woodward (breaking his prior
agreement not to quote Felt directly) uses his words in the Post story,
which told of gaps of "a suspicious nature" in Nixon's secret tapes
that "could lead someone to conclude that the tapes have been tampered
with."
How did Felt, no longer in the FBI, get information that "one or more
of the tapes contained deliberate erasures"? And when reporting this
story in The Washington Post, on November 8, 1973, why did Woodward
quote Felt as an anonymous "White House source"? Was Woodward by this
time aware that Felt had an agent inside the White House, or a mole?
What is Felt's legacy?
There has been much discussion, on television in particular, as to
whether Mark Felt is a hero or villain, not to mention what his legacy
will be now that we know Throat's identity. Clearly, he is history's
supreme whistleblower.
Because of my own involvement in Watergate, my knowledge of how those
who sought to discredit my testimony (particularly before the Nixon
tapes surfaced) operate, and my knowledge of the historical record, I
know that Nixon apologists will attack Felt -- and Woodward.
These attacks will be senseless (but that has long been the operative
word with Watergate). It is time to learn from what happened, not
refight battles Nixon has, for good reason, lost.
As my Appendix shows, the quality of Felt's information -- at least as
reported so far and what is found in All The President's Men -- is of
questionable value, given the amount of misinformation. It seems it was
Felt's position alone that gave Woodward, and in turn, Woodward's
editor at The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, confidence in pursuing a
story that other news organizations initially largely ignored.
(Initially, Bradlee only knew Woodward had a source who was a high
official in the Department of Justice - and Bradlee did not learn more
until after Nixon had resigned).
To me, a true hero of Watergate is Ben Bradlee, who not only supported
Woodward and Bernstein, but had the trust of the Post's owner,
Katharine Graham. Initially, the rest of the national media and the
nation ignored the story. Although The Washington Post never "cracked
the case," their keeping the story in the news within the Beltway had a
great influence on the Congress, making it an important story. Had
Bradlee not done so, history might have been much different.
We still need to know much more about Mark Felt's activities, not to
mention his accomplices, to understand the Byzantine workings of the
FBI of that era. I hope Bob Woodward will answer these questions --
about which he has knowledge -- sooner rather than later, while there
is still interest in the story. For it is information that is as
uniquely relevant today -- with the current White House hell-bent on
returning the presidency to the imperial status it occupied before
Watergate.
-------
John W. Dean is the former counsel to President Nixon who has written
extensively on Watergate.
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