WATERGATE Inside Watergate’s Final Chapter After 33 years of secrecy, the identity of Deep Throat is at last revealed. But questions persist over his motivations and how valuable a source he really was in the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.

By JOHANNA McGEARY loyalists convinced the President was wrongfully hounded from power by a vengeful press, who e’s a confused old man now with an refuse to accept that Felt and Deep Throat are one ordinary name, but he will live forever in and the same. “I thought Deep Throat was essen- American history as Deep Throat. The tially a composite character” folding in a number real W. Mark Felt, the fbi bureaucrat of informers, “and I still think it is,” says G. Gordon unveiled by Vanity Fair magazine as the Liddy, the tough-guy White House operative who Hcountry’s most famous anonymous source, will went to jail for, among other dirty tricks, helping always be obscured by that mythic shadowman to plan the break-in of the Democratic National who whispered secrets to a young Committee offices at the Water- Washington Post reporter in an W. Mark Felt was reluctant gate complex in Washington by underground garage, bringing the to disclose his identity five men who were caught in the presidency of Richard M. Nixon to act, carrying eavesdropping its eventual downfall. to the public, fearing that equipment. In the public memory, Water- others would judge it Felt, for his part, had good rea- gate is generally summed up like dishonorable. But his son to speak up now, according this: the Washington Post and its family argued posterity to Vanity Fair: mortality and inseparable reporting team of Bob money. At 91, wrote author John Woodward and Carl Bernstein would regard Felt as a O’Connor, a lawyer for the family, brought down President Nixon “true patriot” who “did Felt, who had a stroke in 2001, is by unraveling the Administration’s the right thing.” frail and suffers from confusion cover-up of political espionage in and memory loss. Although he a thrilling journalistic chase led by the ghostly had admitted his secret identity to friends and figure known as Deep Throat. family in recent years, he was still reluctant to dis- Felt’s revelation stunned Washington, includ- close it to the public, fearing that others, especially ing (and perhaps especially) the three other men his coworkers at the fbi, would judge it dishon- who had protected his secret for so long. For years, orable. But his family argued that posterity would the Post reporters and their boss, Ben Bradlee, regard Felt as a “true patriot” who “did the right who was executive editor of the Post during the thing” and now deserves the credit. Watergate era, had vowed never to expose Felt And the money. The Felt family saw how Wood- before his death, and Woodward and Bernstein ward and Bernstein had cashed in on the Deep argued against confirming his identity even after Throat mystery in the book and the movie. Felt’s the Vanity Fair story came out. Even now, there daughter Joan, a mother of two, told her father, are a handful of people, especially among Nixon “[W]e could make at least enough money to pay

2 time, june 13, 2005 WATERGATE some bills, like the debt I’ve run up for the kids’ When you go back to the Post’s coverage, education.” Felt’s ability to produce a memoir at this instead of the movie myth of Watergate, a more point is in question, but he seemed eager to try complex picture emerges of what Deep Throat when he cheerfully told reporters besieging his brought to the case—and what he didn’t. A review daughter’s California house, where he lives, “I’ll of Post stories and Woodward and Bernstein’s book arrange to write a book or something and get all points to a handful of instances in which Deep the money I can.” Caught by surprise at the sudden Throat’s leaks advanced the story in specific ways. exposure of a secret he had obviously hoped to Generally, other sources provided the details publish once Deep Throat was dead, Woodward while Deep Throat distantly guided the hunt. He is rushing to print next month with a slender corroborated information, tipped the duo where to volume recounting his relationship with Felt. dig, steered them off side paths, and encouraged In a perceptive 1992 article in Atlantic Monthly, them to keep pushing the story hard, especially in former Post reporter James Mann speculated that the early days when Watergate was an inside-the- Felt or another top fbi official was the one who had Beltway tale that might have petered out under the leaked to Woodward as a way to protect his beloved White House campaign to cover things up. fbi from Nixon’s efforts to use the agency for But the myths of Watergate look a bit different political purposes. Deep Throat, wrote Mann, now that we have a name and a biography to attach probably resented the appointment of outsider to Deep Throat. The real man had scores to settle and Nixon loyalist L. Patrick Gray to replace fbi as a thwarted bureaucrat as well as principles to Director Hoover, who had died six weeks before the defend. He is at once a narrative hook for a com- Watergate break-in, and wanted to blunt White plicated story of political intrigue and a marketable House efforts to suppress the fbi investigation of commodity in this age of celebrity. Yet to look the burglary. Of course, the fbi under Hoover had at his record is to realize a deeper truth about its problems with operations outside the normal Watergate: it was less about one character than bounds of law enforcement. In 1980, Felt was about the process working the way it should. And convicted of approving “black-bag jobs,” illegal as everyone has long accepted, it wasn’t the dirty searches of homes of relatives and friends of fugi- tricks that destroyed the Nixon Administration; it tive American radicals. (Felt was pardoned by was the White House’s sustained attempt to cover Ronald Reagan in 1981.) Mann speculated that them up. That unraveled mainly through official Felt became Deep Throat for revenge as well: he investigations begun at the trial of the Watergate thought himself ready and able to replace Hoover break-in conspirators and pursued in a Senate as fbi director and resented being passed over. hearing room. As for Felt, at least he knows that Deep Throat will not go down in his- tory as just a shadow in a trench coat. As the Washington Post itself put it, “It’s nice to be able to honor him by his real name while he still lives.” π

Questions 1. What motivated W. Mark Felt to come forward now to reveal that he was the anonymous source known as Deep Throat? 2. What reasons have been suggested to explain why Felt provided inside information to journalists?

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