`Deep Throat' Unmasks Himself: Ex-No. 2 at F.B.I

`Deep Throat' Unmasks Himself: Ex-No. 2 at F.B.I. By TODD S. PURDIJM WASHINGTON, May 31 — Deep Throat, the mystery man who reigned as Washington's best-kept secret source for more than 30 years, was not just any shadowy, cigarette- smoking tipster in a raincoat. He was the No. 2 official of the F.B.I., W. Mark Felt, who helped The Washing- ton Post unravel the Watergate scan- dal and the presidency of Richatd M. Nixon, a feat that he lived to see disclosed on Tuesday, frail but smiling at 91. In a final plot twist worthy of the saga that Mr. Felt helped to spawn, Vanity Fair magazine released an article from its July issue reporting that Mr. Felt, long a prime suspect to Nixon himself, had in recent years confided to his family and friends, "I'm the guy they used to call 'Deep Throat.' " Within hours — after Mr. Felt himself, in failing health since suffering a stroke in 2001, appeared in the doorway of his daughter's home in Santa Rosa, Calif. — The Post confirmed his role in encouraging its re- Asaaclated Press porters Bob Woodward and Carl W. Mark Felt, above, as he appeared in 1976, on the CBS News pro- Bernstein to follow the trail from the gram "Face the Nation," and yesterday at his home in California. break-in at Democratic National. Committee headquarters in the Wa- tergate complex in Washington to THE SECRET THAT GOT AWAY Indeed, some old Nixon hands like the highest levels of the Nixon ad- After keeping Deep Throat's secret Patrick J. Buchanan, the former ministration. for 30 years, The Washington Post president's onetime speechwriter, Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein was beaten on the story. Page A15. and G. Gordon Liddy, a convicted initially declined to confirm the Van- Watergate conspirator, reacted to ity Fair article, believing they had the disclosure of his identity with de- promised Mr. Fell unconditional con- Mr. Felt spent more than 30 years rision that a top government official fidentiality till his death. Meantime, at the Federal Bureau of Investiga- would pass word of possible crimes The Post, which had guarded the se- tion, a protege of its legendary di- to Mr. Woodward rather than to a cret as closely as the formula for rector, J. Edgar Hoover, and was bit- prosecutor. Coca-Cola, suddenly found itself terly disappointed after Hoover's The Post's articles eventually led scrambling to deal with a monthly death in May 1972 — a month before to Congressional investigations. a magazine's scoop of the final foot- the Watergate break-in — that Nixon special criminal prosecutor, an im- note to the biggest story in its histo- went outside the agency for a new peachment Inquiry in the House of ry. chief. In the past, he repeatedly de- Representatives and Nixon's resig- "It's been The Post's story for- nied being Deep Throat, and his fam- nation in the face of probable convic- ever," said Tom Wilkinson, an assist- ily said he had been torn about tion by the Senate. ant managing editor of the paper, whether to reveal his role and about Mr. Felt's grandson Nick Jones, a "and you never like to see those whether his actions were appropri- things go to somebody else." ate for a law enforcement officer. Continued on Page Al5 Jahn Burgess, Ihe Press Democrat A MYSTERY SOLVED: The Anonymous Watergate Source and the Press Lou Dematte!s/ Reuters W. Mark Felt, who had been confiding "I'm the guy they used to call 'Deep Throat: " yesterday with his daughter, Joan, and grandson Nick Jones. THE OVERVIEW `Deep Throat' Unmasks Himself as Ex-No. 2 Continued From Page Al rte•.. "MO 23 year-old law student, read a state- ment on his family's behalf on Tues- day, explaining, "As he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal, but now they think he's a hero.' " Mr. Jones added that his grandfather be- lieved that "the men and women of the F.B.I. who have put their lives at risk for more than 50 years to keep this country safe deserve more rec- ognition than he." Mr. Felt later appeared and spoke briefly to reporters, saying: "Hey, look at that. We appreciate you com- ing out like this." Deep Throat began life as someone Mr. Woodward described only as "my friend," but he was re-chris- tened by a Post editor in honor of the gs■Ic lated Prr s, pornographic film of that name that was then a national sensation. Over Bob Woodward, right, and Carl Bernstein in 1973. Their articles on Wa- the years, the list of possible real-life tergate in The Washington Post helped bring down a president. counterparts for the shadowy figure Hal Holbrook played in the film of source's identity, despite his con- derstand what he was doing. Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein's cerns that Mr. Felt might not be Told by Mr. Felt's daughter that best-selling book, "All The Presi- competent enough to release him her father seemed to have unusually dent's Men," has ranged widely - from his 33-year-old pledge of confi- clear memories of him, the Vanity and often improbably — including dentiality. Fair article says that Mr. Woodward Henry Kissinger and the first Presi- "There's a principle involved," Mr. simply responded: "He has good rea- dent Bush, who was then ambassa- Bernstein said in a telephone inter- son to remember me." dor to the United Nations. view from New York, before The The Watergate tapes disclosed But much of the most serious and Post's confirmation. "Reporters that Nixon himself had singled out informed speculation has long cen- may be going to jail today for up- Mr. Felt for special suspicion, once tered on the F.B.I., and on Mr. Felt, holding that principle, and we don't asking his chief of staff, H. R. Halde- who was convicted in 1980 on unrelat- and won't belittle it now." man, "Is he a Catholic?" Mr. Halde- ed charges of authorizing govern- The reality may be a bit more man replied that Mr. Felt, who is of ment agents to break into homes se- complex. The Vanity Fair article, Irish descent, was Jewish, and Nix- cretly, without search warrants, in a on, who often liked to see Jews at the search for anti-Vietnam-War bomb- root of his troubles, replied: "It could ing suspects from the radical Weath- be the Jewish thing. I don't know. It's er Underground in 1972 and 1973. always a possibility." Five months later, President Ronald Informed speculation William D. Ruckelshaus, who re- Reagan pardoned him on the had centered on the signed as Nixon's deputy attorney grounds that he had "acted on high general rather than fire the Water- principle to bring an end to the ter- F.B.I. and Mr. Felt. gate special prosecutor, Archibald rorism that was threatening our na- Cox, in 1973, said Tuesday that he tion." had often wondered whether Deep In 1992, on the 20th anniversary of Throat was a composite, simply be- the Watergate break-in, the journal- written by a Felt family friend and cause of the sheer amount of in- ist James Mann cited Mr. Felt as a lawyer, John D. O'Connor, portrays a formation he seemed to know about suspect in an article for The Atlantic the extent of the Watergate conspir- Monthly, in which he theorized that polite but persistent dialogue be- tween the Felt family and Mr. Wood- acy. Deep Throat's motive was to defend But Mr. Ruckelshaus noted that the nation from another kind of ward in recent years over who threat: to the institutional power, should control the rights (and bene- Mr. Felt had access to the volumi- prerogatives and integrity of the fits) to such a sensational story. nous F,B.1. interview files, some F.B.I., which under Hoover had spent In encouraging her father to tell 1,500 in all, in the agency's burgeon- decades telling presidents what to his own story, Mr. Felt's daughter, ing investigation into the Watergate do. Suddenly, veterans like Mr. Felt Joan, spoke of the money it might affair. "He would see all the agent in- were being told what to do by the make to help pay tuition bills for her terviews — they would come through Nixon White House, and did not like children. For his part, the article his office — so he would have been it. says, Mr. Woodward, who has built a privy to an awful lot of information," Mr. Woodward, who did not return lucrative career as a best-selling au- he said. telephone calls seeking comment, thor, had expressed repeated con- Indeed, more than 30 years ago, confirmed as much in comments to cerns about whether Mr. Felt, his well before he and Mr. Bernstein had The Post's Web site on Tuesday. He memory fading and faculties dimin- become household names and Deep said he had decided to confirm his ished, was really in a position to un- Throat a legend, Mr. Woodward tan- Official at FBI talizingly told the writer Timothy Crouse, in his 1972 campaign book, "The Boys on the Bus," that they had "got somebody at the Justice De- partment to say, 'Yeah, this whole damn thing is a Haldeman opera- tion,' " directed from the White House, but that the source had said, "We'll never get him and you'll never get him." In "All The President's Men," Mr.

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