FBI Official Was 'Deep Throat' Post Confirms W Mark Felt Aided Its Reporting on Watergate By DAVID VON NUMB Washington Post Staff Writer Deep Throat, the secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post's ground- breaking coverage of the Watergate scandal, was a pillar of the FBI named W. Mark Felt, The Post con- firmed yesterday. As the number two man at the bu- reau during a period when the FBI was battling for its independence against the administration of Presi- dent Richard M. Nixon, Felt had the means and the motive to help un- cover the web of internal spies, se- cret surveillance, dirty tricks and coverups that led to Nixon's unprec- edented 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 has been an object of speculation for more than 30 years until yesterday, when his role was revealed in a Van- ity Fair magazine article. Even Nix- on was caught on tape speculating that Felt was an informer" as early as February 1973, at a time when Deep Throat was actively supplying confirmation and context for some of The Post's most explosive Wa- tergate stories. But Felt's repeated denials, and IT Bef MAR= — ASSOCIATED MESS W. Mark Felt, with daughter Joan, broke a three-decade silence about his involvement in bringing down the Nixon administration. See DEEP THROAT, A6, Cot 1 DEEP THROAT. From AI the stalwart silence of the reporters he aided — Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — kept the cloak of mys- tery drawn up around Deep Throat. In place of a name and a face, the source acquired a magic and a mys- tique. He was the romantic truth teller The secrecy held through some half hidden in the shadows of a amazing twists of fate. In 1980, Felt Washington parking garage. This and another senior FBI veteran were image was rendered indelibly by the convicted of conspiring a decade dramatic best-selling memoir Wood- earlier to violate the civil rights of ward and Bernstein published in domestic dissidents in the Weather 1974, "All the President's Men." Underground movement; President Two years later, in a blockbuster Ronald Reagan then issued a par- movie by the same name, actor Hal don. Holbrook breathed whispery urgen- Yesterday, however, Vanity Fair cy into the suspenseful late-night en- released an article by a California counters between Woodward and lawyer named John D. O'Connor, his source. who was enlisted by Felt's daughter, For many Americans under 40, Joan Felt, to help coax her father this is the most potent distillation of into admitting his role in history. the complicated brew that was Wa- O'Connor's article quoted a number tergate. Students who lack the time of Felt's friends and family members or interest to follow each element of saying that he had shared his secret the scandal's slow unraveling quick- with them, and went on to say that ly digest the vivid relationship of a Felt told the author — under the nervous insider guiding a relentless shield of attorney-client privilege - reporter. As dramatic as those por- "I'm the guy they used to call Deep trayals were, they hewed closely to Throat." the truth, Woodward said. O'Connor wrote that he was re- "Mark Felt at that time was a leased from his obligation of secrecy dashing gray-haired figure," Wood- by Mark and Joan Felt. He also re- ward said, and his experience as an ported that the Felt family was not anti-Nazi spy hunter early in his ca- paid for cooperating with the Vanity reer at the FBI had endowed him Fair article, though they do hope the with a whole bag of counterintelli- sive intervention of a umainum. revelation will "make at least enough gence tricks. Felt dreamed up the U.S. Supreme Court. money to pay some bills," as Joan signal by which Woodward would "Felt's role in all this can be over- Felt is quoted in the magazine. summon him to a meeting (a flower- stated," said Bernstein, who went Woodward and others at The Post pot innocuously displayed on the re- on after Watergate to a career of were caught by surprise. Woodward porter's balcony) and also hatched books, magazine articles and televi- had known that Felt's family was the countersign by which Felt could sion investigations. "When we considering going public; in fact, contact Woodward (a clock face ink- wrote the book, we didn't think his they had talked repeatedly with ed on Page 20 of Woodward's daily role would achieve such mythical di- Woodward about the possibility of New York Times). mensions. You see there that Felt/ jointly writing a book to reveal the "He knew he was taking a monu- Deep Throat largely confirmed in- news. An e-mail from Felt's family mental risk," said Woodward, now formation we had already gotten over the Memorial Day weekend an assistant managing editor of The from other sources." continued to hold out the idea that Post whose catalogue of prizewin- Felt, 91 and enfeebled by a stroke, Woodward and Felt would disclose ning and best-selling work has been lives in California, his memory the secret together. built on the sort of confidential rela- dimmed. For decades. Woodward, Throughout those contacts, tionships be maintained with Deep Bernstein and Benjamin C. Bradlee, Woodward was dogged by reserva- Throat. Felt also knew, by firsthand The Post's executive editor during tions about Felt's mental condition, experience, that Nixon's adminis- the Watergate coverage, maintained he said yesterday, wondering wheth- tration was willing to use wiretaps that they would not disclose his er the source was competent to undo and break-ins to hunt down leakers, identity until after his death. "We've the long-standing pledge of ano- so no amount of caution was too kept that secret because we keep our nymity that bound them. great. word." Woodward said. Caught flatfooted by Vanity Fair's Indeed, the mystery came to ob- scure the many other elements that went into the Watergate story - other sources, other investigators, high-impact Senate hearings, a shocking trove of secret White House tape recordings, and the deci- announcement, Woodward and ing class at the University of Illinois Bernstein initially issued a terse compiled what professor Bill Gaines statement reaffirming their promise believed to be a definitive case that to keep the secret until Deep Throat Deep Throat was the deputy White died. But the Vanity Fair article was House counsel, Fred F. Fielding. enough to bring the current exec- Those findings were publicized utive editor of. The Post, Leonard around the world. Perhaps the most Downie Jr., back to Washington insightful argument was mustered in from a corporate retreat in Mary- the Atlantic magazine by journalist land. After consulting with Wood- Jim Mann in 1992. "He could well ward. Bernstein and Bradlee, "the have been Mark Felt," Mann wrote newspaper decided that the newspa- cautiously in a piece that laid bare per had been released from its obli- the institutional reasons why FBI gation by Mark Felt's family and by loyalists came to fear and resent Nix- his lawyer, through the publication on's presidency. of this piece," Downie said. "They Felt fended off the searchlight revealed him as the source. We con- each time it swung in his direction. firmed it." "I never leaked information to Downie praised Woodward's will- Woodward and Bernstein or to any- ingness to abide by his pledge even one else!" he wrote in his 1979 mem- while the Felt family was exploring oir. "The FBI Pyramid." "what many people would view as a scoop." "This demonstrates clearly the In an article being prepared for lengths to which Bob and this news- Thursday's Washington Post, Wood- paper will go to protect sources and ward will detail the "accident of his- a confidential relationship," Downie tory" that connected a young report- said. er fresh from the suburbs to a man Bradlee said he was amazed that whom many FBI agents considered the mystery had lasted through the the best choice to succeed the leg- decades. "What would you think the endary J. Edgar Hoover as director odds were that this town could keep of the bureau. Woodward and Felt that secret for this long?" he said. met by chance, he said, but their It wasn't for lack of sleuths. "Who friendship quickly became a source was Deep Throat?" has been among of information for the reporter. On the most compelling questions of May 15, 1972, presidential candi- modern American history, dissected date George Wallace was shot by a in books, in films, on the Internet, would-be assassin, Arthur H. Brem- and in thousands of articles and hun- er, on a parking lot in Laurel. dreds of television programs. Virtu- Eager to break news on a local sto- ally every figure in the Nixon admin- ry of major national importance, istration, from Henry A. Kissinger Woodward contacted Felt for in- to Patrick J. Buchanan to Diane formation on the FBI's investiga- Sawyer, has been nominated for the tion. Unlike many in the bureau, Felt role — sometimes by other Nixon was known to talk with reporters, veterans. Former White House coun- and he provided Woodward with a sel John W. Dean III, who tried to series of front-page nuggets - cover up Watergate on Nixon's in- though not with his name attached.