Deep Throat Revealed
The Washington Post's Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and Ben Bradlee today confirmed the name of Watergate source "Deep Throat." He is W. Mark Felt, the number two official at the FBI during Watergate.
Bradlee, who was the Post's executive editor during Watergate, said today, "The thing that stuns me is that the goddamn secret has lasted this long."
ABC has a brief backgrounder on Felt:
Felt was born in 1913 in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 1913. According to Vanity Fair, he was an outgoing, ambitious man raised in "modest circumstances." He graduated from the University of Idaho and became the head of his fraternity. From there he went to George Washington University Law School and married a fellow Idaho graduate, Audrey Robinson.
Felt, 91, joined the FBI in 1942 and worked his way up to become the bureau's acting associate director when Nixon was in the White House. He became the FBI's No. 2 man in the '70s.
His ascent up the ranks of the FBI began in 1962 when he was named second in command of the FBI's training division after a successful turn at stifling Kansas City's mafia. Felt's succinct style appealed to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. "In a move to rein in his power-seeking head of domestic intelligence, William C. Sullivan, Hoover promoted Felt to a newly created position overseeing Sullivan, vaulting Felt to prominence," O'Connor writes in Vanity Fair.
Wow. Now we know.
[Update: The revelations were sparked by an article in Vanity Fair, available here.]
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May 31, 2005
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2:59 p.m.
May 31, '05
Wow. They should build a memorial to him: the most patriotic American of the last century. He is far from a perfect person - but a patriot.
May 31, '05
Gee, I wonder how W and Dark Dick would handle such a serious leak in their administration?
"Hello, GitMo..."
May 31, '05
Damn liberal media, depending on anonymous, single sources...
12:07 a.m.
Jun 1, '05
Actually, in the early phase, D.T.'s role was simply to serve as a second source on other reporting. It was only later that he began to serve as a primary source.
8:23 a.m.
Jun 1, '05
The whitewash is already starting. David Gergen(!!) was out on the circuit last night warning that we needed to look at motivation. Buchanan and Howard Hunt among others are already attacking his credibility on the calbe shows.
Given that this administration has arguably committed scores of offenses that would have gotten them investigated or impeached as recently as five years ago, I look for them to defend Nixon and his boys. They will undoubtedly blame Watergate on LibrulsthathateAmerica just as Bush was doing yesterday in discussing those pesky Gitmo allegations.
<hr/>Mentioned the Galloway testimony to a conservative friend last weekend and he went directly to the knee-jerk conservative response of attacking Galloway's character while ignoring the actual statements and evidence (or in Galloway's case, the lack thereof).
<hr/>If only Nixon had had the benefit of a press as compliant with power as ours is today.......
Jun 1, '05
Kari,
I nominate Daniel Ellsberg.
10:20 a.m.
Jun 1, '05
Meanwhile, convicted felon and purveyor of prison Bible studies, Chuck Colson, is accusing Felt of "violating his oath to keep this nation's secrets." I guess that's one way to look at it. . .
Jun 1, '05
"The whitewash is already starting. David Gergen(!!) was out on the circuit last night warning that we needed to look at motivation. Buchanan and Howard Hunt among others are already attacking his credibility on the calbe shows."
What I heard Gergen saying was not to canonize Felt before looking at the entirety of his role in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Everyone will be talking about or presuming motivation of one sort or another. Maybe it is a story -- and he a man -- that is not just black and white.
Add (!!) to that.
Jun 1, '05
To me Felt is a hero. He got the truth out that Nixon was bugging the DNC. To resign without revealing the truth would have been the coward's role. To believe that handing the information to anyone but a reporter would absolve him from accountability is absurd. I know nothing about the rest of Mr. Felt's life, but at the moment, he let his conscious be his guide and reporters at that time had a conscious as well.
If only reporters today would trumpet the truth as those reporters did, we might see Dubya suffer the same fate, and deservedly so.
Jun 1, '05
Robert F. Kennedy once famously said, "Richard Nixon represents the dark side of the American spirit." Well, RFK never met George W. Bush.
The reactions of Nixon contemporaries and today's Bush sycophants to yesterday's Deep Throat revelations are predictably - and eerily - similar. But the Bush team's own overt war against anonymous single sources and brutal retribution against whistle-blowers is no joke. The tragedy for American democracy is very real indeed...
For the full story, see:
"Gagging on Deep Throat: The Nixon Legacy in the Bush White House"
7:57 p.m.
Jun 1, '05
disposessed,
It is because I've always respected Gergen as the thoughtful and ethical opposition, that I added the exclamation points.
I sort of agree with your take on what he said, but to me it appeared that he was a little uncomfortable doing the now standard "diversion shuffle", where the range of topics available: the death of investigative reporting; Bob Woodward Then and Now; High Crimes and Misdemeanors Then and Now all take a back seat to character examination--er--assasination. Only one of many legitimate topics surrouding this story. And the only safe topic for any reporter or commentator that wants to wake up with a job tomorrow.
Maybe I got the wrong impression--and maybe not.
Jun 2, '05
[Content deleted by editor. Brian, take your hatespeech elsewhere.]
Jun 3, '05
Wow. They should build a memorial to him: the most patriotic American of the last century. He is far from a perfect person - but a patriot.
Far from perfect? That might be a slight understatement. A patriot? Well, one Ronald Reagan sure thought so. Here's the statement America's 40th commander-in-chief issued when he saw fit to grace Mr. Felt with a presidential pardon so the latter could skirt punishment for his role in authorizing illegal FBI break-ins against United States citizens as part of the odious COINTELPRO program in the 1960s.
Jun 4, '05
Here's more from a Washington Post columnist on the unlawful activities and systematic abuses of power perpetrated by Mark Felt while he was employed by the United States government.
Suffice it to say, at least prior to these "Deep Throat" revelations, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales probably considered Felt a "hero" and "a patriot" just like some of the folks here on BO are now suggesting.