WASHINGTON, 2 June 2005 — “Deep Throat,” the secret source that led to the Watergate scandal and ended a presidency, was the No. 2 man at the FBI when the agency was fighting for its independence against the administration of Richard M. Nixon, who also denied “Deep Throat” the opportunity to become head of the FBI.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who protected Mark Felt’s identity for more than thirty years, confirmed Tuesday he was indeed the source dubbed “Deep Throat.”
Felt, now 91, had the means and the motive to help uncover the web of internal spies, secret surveillance, dirty tricks and cover-ups that led to Nixon’s unprecedented resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, and to prison sentences for some of Nixon’s highest-ranking aides.
Felt’s identity as Washington’s most celebrated secret source had been an object of speculation for over three decades until this week, when his cover was blown in a Vanity Fair magazine article.
But the news — timely after a misstep by Newsweek magazine created an uproar over anonymous sources — has also caused an immediate reaction by the right and left wingers in Washington.
“Felt’s revelations and tips kept the investigation alive by pulling back the shroud of secrecy hiding the criminal activities of the Nixon White House,” said Mike Gravel, a US Senator from 1969-81.
“Felt should receive the American Medal of Freedom for his courage and patriotism in defense of our democracy. The greatest threat to democracy is secrecy. It is a generic flaw of our representative system of government. Secrecy is endemic to government; it is the device government officialdom uses to hide the truth and to manipulate the media and the public, and is the slippery slope leading to tyranny.”
But former Nixon White House lawyer Leonard Garment said he believed Felt kept his role in Watergate secret for 31 years “because he felt that what he had done could well be considered dishonorable”.
“The question at heart here,” Garment said, “is ... when government persons, having private, secret, confidential information, are justified to become the whistle-blower and defy or ignore their sworn obligation to maintain security and go to the press with it.”
Richard Ben-Veniste, a top lawyer in the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, said Felt’s acknowledgment of his role showed that “the importance of whistle-blowers shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly when there are excesses by the executive branch of government — which in this case went all the way to the executive office.”
But Charles W. Colson, a senior Nixon adviser who served seven months in prison for obstruction of justice in connection with Watergate abuses, told journalists he was “personally shocked.”
“When any president has to worry whether the deputy director of the FBI is sneaking around in dark corridors peddling information in the middle of the night, he’s in trouble,” said Colson, who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries after leaving jail. “There were times when I should have blown the whistle, so I understand his feelings. But I cannot approve of his methods.”
Speaking last night on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” former Nixon speechwriter Patrick Buchanan labeled Felt a “traitor” for having worked with reporters on stories that did severe damage to the administration.
But others credited Felt with having performed a great public service, at a time when many top officials of the government, including officials in the FBI and the Justice Department, were attempting to brush the scandal under the rug.
Terry Lenzner, a senior Democratic counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee, said the special panel “wouldn’t have existed if those articles hadn’t been written, because the whole thing would have been buried.”
“Frankly, I think the reason Felt turned into Deep Throat was that he had a sense that (FBI Director L. Patrick) Gray was participating in the cover-up and that it would destroy the reputation of the FBI. He was a classic FBI guy,” Lenzner said. “His motives were that he had to protect the FBI. And he did.”
