Deep Throat Comes Out

Deep Throat Comes Out

PEJ News - The anonymous source of intrepid Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's earthshaking reports on Watergate, reports that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon's presidency, has remained anonymous for more than thirty years. Today, the insider's name has been revealed. -{ape}

Deep Throat Comes Out
C. L. Cook
May 31, 2005

Vanity Fair, a U.S. culture and news magazine has broken the story that eluded both reporters and Washington D.C. insiders for decades. They have revealed the source of the leaks that sunk the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. A mystery more tantalizing to political junkies than U.F.O. conspiracies, the identity of "Deep Throat" has had an enduring appeal.

In 1974, with the scandal of the administration's sanctioned burglary and theft of Democratic National Committee party files and strategies prior to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election bid broken wide-open, Nixon resigned his post to avoid the ignominy of impeachment. He then faded from the American political scene, his accomplishments over-shadowed by the events surrounding the "Watergate" fiasco. The literal mother-of-all-"Gates," today the suffix is synonymous with political dirty tricks.

But how did a cunning, and seemingly all-powerful "War-time President"come to be unseated?

Even among his enemies, Richard Milhous Nixon was respected for his political acumen, and feared for his ruthlessness. Mentored by the infamous "Tail-gunner" Joe McCarthy of the Witch hunt era, Nixon's obsessive need for secrecy was legendary. So, how then did someone get close enough to "Tricky Dick's" inside circle to do so much damage? And, who could it be?

Everyone knew W. Mark Felt was an ambitious guy. The Number 2 in the F.B.I. had ambitions of taking up recently deceased, J. Edgar Hoover's mantle as the next perennial overlord of the agency. It was this Felt's naked averice that convinced Nixon he was a man they could manipulate.

Nixon was desperate to quash the F.B.I. investigation into Watergate, knowing each day that investigation continued brought the truth closer to the Oval Office and its complicity.

Felt never got the post he coveted, but he did manage to do irreparable damage to the man who denied him. Long a controversial figure, he was convicted of violating civil rights through authorizing illegal searches of the homes and offices of perceived enemies of the White House, Felt never admitted his now revealed double life. He had been rumoured the leaker, even accused in print, but he never cracked.

Nixon's White House tapes reveal, as early as 1972, Nixon confidante and felon to be, J.R. Haldeman told the president he "knew" the leaks were coming from Felt. For their part, both Woodward and Bernstein refuse to confirm, or deny the Vanity Fair story, saying they will stick to their original agreement not to release the name of their informant while he or she is alive.

The revelations take the wind out of another theory, identifying George H.W. Bush as the informant, that made the media rounds several months ago.

W. Mark Felt is 91, and said to be in failing health.



Chris Cook hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada.

[note: Late Tuesday(31/05) both Woodward and Berstein confirmed Felt's story.]