William Mark Felt

From New World Encyclopedia

William Mark Felt Sr. (born August 17 1913) is a former agent of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, who retired in 1973 as the Bureau's number two official. After thirty years of denying his involvement with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Felt revealed himself on 31 May, 2005, to be the Watergate scandal whistleblower called "Deep Throat". Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the Bureau's Washington headquarters. During the early investigation of the Watergate scandal (1972–74), Felt was the Bureau's Associate Director, the second-ranking post in the FBI. While Associate Director, Felt provided Washington Post reporter Woodward with critical leads on the story that eventually saw the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. In 1980, Felt was convicted of violating the civil rights of people thought to be associated with the Weather Underground by ordering FBI agents to burglarize their homes. He was ordered to pay a fine but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal. Felt lives in Santa Rosa, California. In 2006, he published an update of his 1979 autobiography, The FBI Pyramid.

Early career

William Mark Felt was born in Twin Falls, Idaho, the son of carpenter and building contractor Mark Earl Felt and his wife, the former Rose Dygert. After graduating from high school in 1931, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Idaho in 1935.

He went to Washington, D.C. to work in the office of U.S. Senator James P. Pope, (Democratic–Idaho). In 1938, Felt married Audrey Robinson, his former classmate at the University of Idaho. She had come to Washington to work at the Internal Revenue Service, and they were wed by the chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Rev. Sheara Montgomery. [1]

Felt stayed on with Pope's successor in the Senate, David Worth Clark (D-Idaho). Felt attended The George Washington University Law School at night, earning his law degree in 1940, and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 1941.

Upon graduation, Felt took a position at the Federal Trade Commission but was unhapy with the lack of excitement in his assignments. He applied for a job with the FBI in November 1941 and began working there in January 1942. [2]

Early FBI years

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, photographed in 1961. Hoover appointed Felt the third ranking official in the Bureau in 1971.

After completing sixteen weeks of training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia and FBI Headquarters in Washington, Felt was first assigned to Texas, working in the field offices in Houston and San Antonio, spending three months in each city.

He then returned to the "Seat of Government", as Hoover called FBI headquarters, and was assigned to the Espionage Section of the Domestic Intelligence Division, tracking down spies and saboteurs during World War II, where he worked on the Major Case Desk. His most notable work there was on the "Peasant" case. Helmut Goldschmidt, operating under the codename "Peasant", was a German agent in custody in England. Under Felt's direction, his German masters were informed "Peasant" had made his way to the United States, and were fed disinformation on Allied plans.

The Espionage Section was abolished in May 1945. Felt was again in the field, sent first to Seattle, Washington. After two years of general work, he spent two years as a firearms instructor and was promoted from agent to supervisor. Upon passage of the Atomic Energy Act and the creation of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the Seattle office became responsible for completing background checks of workers at the Hanford plutonium plant near Richland, Washington. Felt oversaw these checks.

In 1954, Felt returned briefly to Washington as an inspector's aide. Two months later, he was sent to New Orleans, Louisiana, as assistant special agent in charge of the field office, transferring to Los Angeles fifteen months later, with the same rank.

In 1956, Felt was transferred to Salt Lake City, Utah, and promoted to special agent in charge. The Salt Lake office included Nevada within its purview, and while there, Felt oversaw some of the Bureau's earliest investigations into organized crime with the Mob's operations in the casinos of Reno and Las Vegas, even though the official position of the Bureau at the time was that there was no such thing as the Mob.

In February 1958, Felt was sent to Kansas City, Missouri, (which in his memoir was dubbed "the Siberia of Field Offices") where he oversaw additional investigations of organized crime.

He returned to Washington in September 1962, where as assistant to the Bureau's assistant director in charge of the Training Division, he helped oversee the FBI Academy. In November 1964, he became assistant director of the Bureau, as chief inspector of the Bureau and head of the Inspection Division. This division oversaw compliance with Bureau regulations and conducted internal investigations.

On July 1 1971, Felt was promoted by Hoover to Deputy Associate Director, assisting Associate Director Clyde Tolson. Hoover's right-hand man for decades, Tolson was in failing health and no longer able to attend to his duties. Richard Gid Powers wrote that Hoover installed Felt to rein in William Sullivan's domestic spying operations, as Sullivan had been engaged in secret unofficial work for the White House.

In his book, The Bureau, Ronald Kessler said, "Felt managed to please Hoover by being tactful with him and tough on agents." Curt Gentry called Felt "the director's latest fair-haired boy", but who had "no inherent power" in his new post, the real number three being John P. Mohr.

After Hoover's death

L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI from May 1972 to April 1973. He was indicted with Felt for illegal break-ins.

Hoover died in his sleep and was found on the morning of May 2 1972. Tolson was nominally in charge until the next day when Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray as acting FBI director. Tolson submitted his resignation, dictated by Felt, and Gray accepted it, the acceptance also being dictated by Felt. Felt took Tolson's post as Associate Director, the number-two job in the bureau. Felt served as an honorary pallbearer at Hoover's funeral.

Immediately upon his death, Hoover's secretary for five decades, Helen Gandy, began destroying his files with the approval of Felt and Gray. She turned over twelve boxes of the "Official/Confidential" files to Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information. Felt stored them in his office, and Gray told the press that afternoon that there are no dossiers or secret files.

In his memoir, Felt expressed mixed feelings about Gray. While noting Gray did work hard, he was critical at how often he was away from FBI Headquarters. Gray lived in Connecticut, and commuted to Washington. He also visited all of the Bureau's field offices except Honolulu. His frequent absences led to the nickname "Three-Day Gray". These absences, combined with Gray's hospitalization and recuperation from November 20, 1972 to January 2, 1973, meant that Felt was effectively in charge for much of his final year at the Bureau. Felt wrote in his memoir, "The record amply demonstrates that President Nixon made Pat Gray the Acting Director of the FBI because he wanted a politician in J. Edgar Hoover's position who would convert the Bureau into an adjunct of the White House machine."

Watergate

The term Watergate scandal refers to a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. by members of the Richard Nixon administration and the resulting cover-up which led to the resignation of the President. The burglars' aim was to plant listening devices, while disguised as common criminals to provide cover. They were informally called the "plumbers unit" to "plug leaks," and included former members of the CIA. Though then-President Nixon had endured two years of mounting political embarrassments, the court-ordered release in August, 1974, of a "smoking gun tape" about the burglaries brought with it the prospect of certain impeachment for Nixon; he resigned only four days later on August 9, making him the only U.S. President to have resigned from office.


The Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. Felt saw all the FBI's files on its investigation of the break-in there in 1972.

As associate director, Felt saw everything compiled on Watergate before it went to Gray. The agent in charge, Charles Nuzum, sent his findings to Investigative Division head Robert Gebhardt, who then passed the information on to Felt. From the day of the break-in, June 17 1972, until the FBI investigation was mostly completed in June 1973, Felt was the key control point for FBI information. He had been among the first to learn of the investigation, being informed at 7:00 on the morning of June 17. Ronald Kessler, who had spoken to former Bureau agents, reported that throughout the investigation they "were amazed to see material in Woodward and Bernstein's stories lifted almost verbatim from their reports of interviews a few days or weeks earlier." [3]

Contact with Woodward

Bob Woodward first describes Deep Throat in All the President's Men as "a source in the Executive Branch who had access to information at the Committee to Re-elect the President, Nixon's 1972 campaign organization, as well as at the White House." [4] The book also calls him "an incurable gossip" who was "in a unique position to observe the Executive Branch", a man "whose fight had been worn out in too many battles." Woodward had known the source before Watergate and had discussed politics and government with him.

Woodward in 2005 wrote that he met Felt at the White House in 1969 or 1970 when Woodward was an aide to Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivering papers to the White House Situation Room. They stayed in touch and spoke on the telephone several times. When Woodward started working at the Washington Post, he phoned Felt on several occasions to ask for information for articles. Felt's information, taken on a promise that Woodward would never reveal their origin, was a source for a number of stories, notably for an article on May 18, 1972, about Arthur H. Bremer, the man who shot George C. Wallace.

When the Watergate story broke, Woodward called on his friend. Felt advised Woodward on June 19th that E. Howard Hunt was involved; the telephone number of his White House office had been listed in the address book of one of the burglars. Initially, Woodward's source was known at the Post as "My Friend", but was tagged "Deep Throat" by Post editor Howard Simons. Woodward has written that idea for the nickname first came to Simons because Felt had been providing the information on a "deep background" basis, which is a journalistic term meaning information provided to a reporter on the condition that the source be neither identified nor quoted directly.

When Felt's name was revealed, it was noted that "My Friend" has the same initial letters as "Mark Felt". Woodward has said this was a coincidence, but in looking back at some of his notes, interviews with Felt during the earliest days of the story were marked with "M.F."

Suspected as Source

Days after the break-in, Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman talked about putting pressure on the FBI to slow down the investigation. The FBI had been called in by the District of Columbia police because the burglars had been found with wiretapping equipment, and wiretapping is a crime investigated by the FBI. Haldeman reportedly told President Nixon on June 23 1972, "Mark Felt wants to cooperate because he's ambitious."

In a taped conversation on October 19 1972, Haldeman told the president that he had sources, which he declined to name, confirming Felt was speaking to the press. "You can't say anything about this because it will screw up our source and there's a real concern. Mitchell is the only one who knows about this and he feels strongly that we better not do anything because . . . If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything." [5] Haldeman also reported that he had spoken to White House counsel John W. Dean about punishing Felt, but Dean said Felt had committed no crime and could not be prosecuted.

When Gray returned from his sick leave in January 1973, he confronted Felt about being the source for Woodward and Bernstein. Gray reportedly had defended Felt to Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst, who wanted Felt to be gotten rid of. Gray vouched for Felt's loyalty. [6]

Felt called "obvious" the reasons why he was suspected by the White House as the reporters' source; supposed jealousy of Gray, his high position, previous lack of cooperation with White House requests.

Nixon passes over Felt again

President Richard Nixon departing the White House on August 9 1974, shortly before his resignation took effect. Felt's leaks to Woodward spurred the investigations that led to his resignation.

On February 17 1973, Nixon nominated Gray as Hoover's permanent replacement as director.[1] Until then, Gray had been in limbo as acting director. In another taped conversation on February 28, Nixon spoke to Dean about Felt acting as an informant, and mentioned that he had never met him. Gray was forced to resign on April 27, after it was revealed Gray had destroyed a file on the Kennedy family that had been in the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt.[2] Gray told his superiors that Felt should be named as his successor. The day Gray resigned, Kleindienst spoke to Nixon, who urged that Felt be appointed as Gray's replacement, but Nixon instead appointed William Ruckelshaus. Stanley Kutler reported that Nixon said, "I don't want him. I can't have him. I just talked to Bill Ruckelshaus and Bill is a Mr. Clean and I want a fellow in there that is not part of the old guard and that is not part of that infighting in there."[3] On another White House tape, from May 11 1973, Nixon and White House Chief of Staff Alexander M. Haig spoke of Felt leaking material to The New York Times. Nixon said, "he's a bad guy, you see", and that William Sullivan had told him Felt's ambition was to be director of the Bureau.[4] Felt called his relationship with Ruckelshaus "stormy".[5] He said in his memoir Ruckelshaus was a "security guard sent to see that the FBI did nothing which would displease Mr. Nixon".[6] Felt retired from the Bureau on June 22 1973, ending a thirty-one-year career.

Tried for illegal break-ins

In the early 1970s, Felt oversaw a turbulent period in the FBI's history. The FBI was pursuing radicals in the Weather Underground who had planted bombs at the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department. Felt, along with Edward S. Miller, authorized FBI agents to break into homes secretly in 1972 and 1973, without a search warrant, on nine separate occasions. These kinds of FBI burglaries were known as "black bag jobs". The break-ins occurred at five addresses in New York and New Jersey, at the homes of relatives and acquaintances of Weather Underground members, and did not lead to the capture of any fugitives. The use of "black bag jobs" by the FBI was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the Plamondon case, 407 U.S. 297 (1972). After revelation by the Church Committee of the FBI's illegal activities, many agents were investigated. Felt in 1976 publicly stated he had ordered break-ins and that individual agents were merely obeying orders and should not be punished for it. Felt also stated Gray also authorized the break-ins, but Gray denied this. Felt said on the CBS television program Face the Nation he would probably be a "scapegoat" for the Bureau's work.[7] "I think this is justified and I'd do it again tomorrow", he said on the program. While admitting the break-ins were "extralegal", he justified it as protecting the "greater good". Felt said:

To not take action against these people and know of a bombing in advance would simply be to stick your fingers in your ears and protect your eardrums when the explosion went off and then start the investigation.

The Attorney General in the new Carter administration, Griffin B. Bell, investigated, and on April 10 1978, a federal grand jury charged Felt, Miller and Gray with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by searching their homes without warrants, though Gray's case did not go to trial and was dropped by the government on December 11 1980. Felt told Ronald Kessler:

I was shocked that I was indicted. You would be too, if you did what you thought was in the best interests of the country and someone on technical grounds indicted you.[8]

The indictment charged violations of Title 18, Section 241 of the United States Code. The indictment charged Felt and the others

did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to injure and oppress citizens of the United States who were relatives and acquaintances of the Weatherman fugitives, in the free exercise and enjoyments of certain rights and privileges secured to them by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.[9]

Felt, Gray, and Miller were arraigned in Washington on April 20. Seven hundred current and former FBI agents were outside the courthouse applauding the "Washington Three", as Felt referred to himself and his colleagues in his memoir.[10] Felt and Miller attempted to plea bargain with the government, willing to agree to a misdemeanor guilty plea to conducting searches without warrants—a violation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 2236—but the government rejected the offer in 1979. After eight postponements, the case against Felt and Miller went to trial in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on September 18 1980.[11] On October 29, former President Richard M. Nixon appeared as a rebuttal witness for the defense, and testified that presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized the bureau to engage in break-ins while conducting foreign intelligence and counterespionage investigations.[12] It was Nixon's first courtroom appearance since his resignation in 1974. Nixon also contributed money to Felt's legal defense fund, Felt's expenses running over $600,000. Also testifying were former Attorneys General Herbert Brownell, Jr., Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Ramsey Clark, John N. Mitchell, and Richard G. Kleindienst, all of whom said warrantless searches in national security matters were commonplace and not understood to be illegal, but Mitchell and Kleindienst denied they had authorized any of the break-ins at issue in the trial. (The Bureau used a national security justification for the searches because it alleged the Weather Underground was in the employ of Cuba.[13]) The jury returned guilty verdicts on November 6 1980. Although the charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, Felt was fined $5,000. (Miller was fined $3,500).[14] Writing in The New York Times a week after the conviction, Roy Cohn claimed that Felt and Miller were being used as scapegoats by the Carter administration and it was an unfair prosecution. Cohn wrote it was the "final dirty trick" and that there had been no "personal motive" to their actions [15]. The Times saluted the convictions saying it showed "the case has established that zeal is no excuse for violating the Constitution".[16] Felt and Miller appealed the verdict.

Pardoned by Reagan

President Ronald Reagan, who pardoned Felt and Miller.

In a phone call on January 30 1981, Edwin Meese encouraged President Ronald Reagan to issue a pardon, and after further encouragement from law enforcement officials, and former bureau agents, he did so. The pardon was given on March 26, but was not announced to the public until April 15. (The delay was partly because Reagan was shot on March 30.) Reagan wrote:

Pursuant to the grant of authority in article II, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, I have granted full and unconditional pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller.
During their long careers, Mark Felt and Edward Miller served the Federal Bureau of Investigation and our nation with great distinction. To punish them further — after 3 years of criminal prosecution proceedings — would not serve the ends of justice.
Their convictions in the U.S. District Court, on appeal at the time I signed the pardons, grew out of their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country. The record demonstrates that they acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government.
America was at war in 1972, and Messrs. Felt and Miller followed procedures they believed essential to keep the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, and the President of the United States advised of the activities of hostile foreign powers and their collaborators in this country. They have never denied their actions, but, in fact, came forward to acknowledge them publicly in order to relieve their subordinate agents from criminal actions.
Four years ago, thousands of draft evaders and others who violated the Selective Service laws were unconditionally pardoned by my predecessor. America was generous to those who refused to serve their country in the Vietnam war. We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation.[17]

Nixon sent Felt and Miller bottles of champagne with the note "Justice ultimately prevails".[18] The New York Times disapproved, saying that America "deserved better than a gratuitous revision of the record by the President".[19] Felt and Miller said they would seek repayment of their legal fees from the government. The chief prosecutor on the trial, John W. Nields, Jr., said "I would warrant that whoever is responsible for the pardons did not read the record of the trial and did not know the facts of the case." Nields also complained that the White House did not consult with the prosecutors in the case, which was usual practice when a pardon was under consideration.[20] Felt reacted by saying, "I feel very excited and just so pleased that I can hardly contain myself. I am most grateful to the President. I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to thank him. It's just like having a heavy burden lifted off your back. This case has been dragging on for five years." Miller told a press conference the day of the announcement "I certainly owe the Gipper one." Their attorney, Thomas Kennelly, said "We thank God and we thank President Reagan that these two good men have been vindicated at last." Carter Attorney General Griffin Bell said he did not object to the pardons as the initial convictions showed that behavior such as Felt and Miller's was no longer tolerated. Despite their pardons, Felt and Miller won permission from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to appeal the conviction so as to remove it from their record and to prevent it being used in civil suits by the victims of the break-ins they ordered.[21] Ultimately, Felt's law license was returned by the court in 1982, which cited Reagan's pardon. In June 1982, Felt and Miller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's security and terrorism subcommittee that the restrictions placed on the FBI by Attorney General Edward H. Levi were threatening the country's safety.[22]

Later years

Felt published his memoir The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside in 1979. It was co-written with Hoover biographer Ralph de Toledano, though the latter's name appears only in the copyright notice. Toledano in 2005 wrote that the volume was "largely written by me since his original manuscript read like The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Toledano said:

Felt swore to me that he was not Deep Throat, that he had never leaked information to the Woodward-Bernstein team or anyone else. The book was published and bombed.[23]

Library Journal wrote in their review that "at one time Felt was assumed to be Watergate's 'Deep Throat'; in this interesting but hardly sensational memoir, he makes it clear that that honor, if honor it be, lies elsewhere."[24] The memoir was a strong defense of Hoover and his tenure as Director and condemned the reaction to criticisms of the Bureau made in the 1970s by the Church Committee and civil libertarians. He also denounced the treatment of Bureau agents as criminals and said the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act of 1974 only served to interfere with government work and helped criminals. (The flavor of his criticisms is apparent with the very first words of the book: "The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact", Justice Robert H. Jackson's comment in his dissent to Terminello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).[25]) The New York Times Book Review was highly critical of the book saying Felt "seeks to perpetuate a view of Hoover and the F.B.I. that is no longer seriously peddled even on the backs of cereal boxes" and contains "a disturbing number of factual errors"[26], sentiments echoed by Curt Gentry who said Felt was "the keeper of the Hoover flame".[27] In 1990, Felt moved to Santa Rosa, California, from Alexandria, Virginia, his home since the 1970s. In 1992, he bought his present home in Santa Rosa and since then lived with his daughter Joan Felt. He suffered a stroke before 1999, reported Ronald Kessler, and met with Bob Woodward in 1999. Kessler took this as evidence that Felt was "Deep Throat". However, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat said Felt's stroke was in 2001.[28]

Family

Felt and his wife, Audrey, who died in 1984, had two children, Joan and Mark. Joan earned two degrees from Stanford University and won a Fulbright Scholarship. According the Vanity Fair article by John D. O'Connor revealing Felt's secret, Joan joined a commune in the 1970s and gave birth to her first son on camera for a documentary called The Birth of Ludi. Joan teaches Spanish at Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College, and is a long time member of and local contact for Adi Da. Joan has three sons, Will Felt (a.k.a. Ludi, born 1974); Robbie Jones (born circa 1979); and Nick Jones (born circa 1981). Nick Jones was a schoolmate of O'Connor's daughter. Felt's son Mark Jr. is a pilot for American Airlines and a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel.[29] Felt's grandson, W. Mark Felt III, attended the University of Florida, graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 2005, and now practices emergency medicine in Orlando, Florida.

Deep Throat speculation

For a detailed overview of speculation prior to May 31 2005, see Deep Throat. The identity of Deep Throat was debated for over three decades. Jack Limpert had published evidence as early as 1974 that Felt was the informant.[30] On June 25 of that year, a few weeks after All the President's Men was published, The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial, "If You Drink Scotch, Smoke, Read, Maybe You're Deep Throat". It began "W. Mark Felt says he isn't now, nor has he ever been Deep Throat." The Journal quoted Felt saying the character was a "composite" and "I'm just not that kind of person." [31] During a grand jury investigation in 1976, Felt was called to testify and the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Stanley Pottinger, stumbled upon the fact Felt was "Deep Throat", but the secrecy of the proceedings preserved the secrecy of Felt's alter ego from the public. [32] In 1992, James Mann, who had been a reporter at The Washington Post in 1972 and worked with Woodward, wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly saying the source had to have been within the FBI. While he mentioned Felt as a possibility, he said he could not be certain it was him.[33] Alexander P. Butterfield, the White House aide best known for revealing the existence of Nixon's taping system, told The Hartford Courant in 1995, "I think it was a guy named Mark Felt." [34] In July 1999, Felt was identified as Deep Throat by The Hartford Courant, citing Chase Culeman-Beckman, a nineteen-year-old from Port Chester, New York. Culeman-Beckman said Jacob Bernstein, the son of Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron, had told him the name at summer camp in 1988, and that Jacob claimed he had been told by his father. Felt denied the identification to the Courant saying "No, it's not me. I would have done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?" Bernstein said his son didn't know. "Bob and I have been wise enough never to tell our wives, and we've certainly never told our children."[35] (Bernstein reiterated on June 2 2005, on the Today Show that his wife had never known.) Leonard Garment, President Nixon's former law partner who became White House counsel after John W. Dean's resignation, ruled Felt out as Deep Throat in his 2000 book In Search of Deep Throat. Garment wrote:

The Felt theory was a strong one . . . Felt had a personal motive for acting. After the death of J. Edgar Hoover . . . Felt thought he was a leading candidate to succeed Hoover . . . The characteristics were a good fit. The trouble with Felt's candidacy was that Deep Throat in All the President's Men simply did not sound to me like a career FBI man.[36]

Garment said the information leaked to Woodward was inside White House information Felt would not have had access to. "Felt did not fit."[37] (Once the secret was revealed, it was noted Felt did have access to such information because the Bureau's agents were interviewing high White House officials.) In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle profiled Felt. Noting his denial in The FBI Pyramid, the paper wrote

Curiously, his son — American Airlines pilot Mark Felt — now says that shouldn't be read as a definitive denial, and that he plans to answer the question once-and-for-all in a second memoir. The excerpt of the working draft obtained by the Chronicle has Felt still denying he's Throat but providing a rationale for why Throat did the right thing.[38]

In February 2005, reports surfaced that Woodward had prepared Deep Throat's obituary, because he was near death. This led to some speculation that Deep Throat might have been William H. Rehnquist, who was a Justice Department official early in the Nixon administration, but was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court when he putatively revealed the incident.

Deep Throat revealed

Vanity Fair magazine revealed Felt was Deep Throat on May 31 2005 when it published an article (eventually appearing in the July issue of the magazine) on its website by John D. O'Connor, an attorney acting on Felt's behalf, in which Felt said, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." After the Vanity Fair story broke, Benjamin C. Bradlee, the key editor of the Washington Post during Watergate, confirmed that Felt was Deep Throat. According to the Vanity Fair article, Felt was persuaded to come out by his family, who wanted to capitalize on the book deals and other lucrative opportunities that Felt would inevitably be offered in order, at least in part, to pay off his grandchildren's education. They also did not want Bob Woodward to receive all the attention by revealing Deep Throat's identity after Felt's death.[39] Public response varied widely. Felt's family called him an "American hero", suggesting that he leaked information for moral or patriotic reasons. G. Gordon Liddy, who was convicted of burglary in the Watergate scandal, said Felt should have gone to the grand jury rather than leak.[40] Some have contrasted Felt's media treatment with that of other whistleblowers. Nixon chief counsel Charles Colson, who served prison time for his actions in the Nixon White House, said Felt had violated "his oath to keep this nation's secrets"[41], but a Los Angeles Times editorial argued that this argument was specious, "as if there's no difference between nuclear strategy and rounding up hush money to silence your hired burglars."[42] Ralph de Toledano, who co-wrote Felt's 1979 memoir, said Mark Felt Jr. had approached him in 2004 to buy Toledano's half of the copyright. Toledano agreed to sell but was never paid and attempted to rescind the deal, threatening legal action. A few days before the Vanity Fair article was released, Toledano finally received a check.

I had been gloriously and illegally deceived, and Deep Throat was, in characteristic style, back in business — which given his history of betrayal, was par for the course.[43]

Speculation about Felt's motives at the time of the scandal has varied widely as well. Some suggested it was revenge for Nixon choosing Gray over Felt to replace Hoover as FBI Director. Others suggest Felt acted out of institutional loyalty to the FBI. Felt may have simply acted out of patriotism. Publishers were interested in signing Felt to a book deal after the revelation. Weeks after the Vanity Fair article was released, PublicAffairs Books, whose CEO was a Washington Post reporter and editor during the Watergate era, announced that it signed a deal with Felt. The new book was to include material from his 1979 memoir with an update. The new volume was scheduled for publication in the spring of 2006. Felt sold the movie rights to his story to Universal Pictures for development by Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone. The book and movie deals were valued at US $1 million.[44] In the summer of 2005, Woodward's longtime publisher, Simon and Schuster, issued Woodward's swiftly written account of his contacts with Felt, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat (ISBN 0-7432-8715-0). The book received poor reviews and, despite the media attention that surrounded the Vanity Fair story, sold poorly.

Notes

  1. W. Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside New York: Putnam, 1979
  2. Ronald Kessler, The F.B.I.: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, New York: Pocket Books, 1994
  3. Ronald Kessler, The F.B.I.: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, New York: Pocket Books, 1994
  4. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men, 2nd ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994
  5. W. Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside New York: Putnam, 1979
  6. W. Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside New York: Putnam, 1979
  1. ^  W. Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside (New York: Putnam, 1979) p. 11; & Ronald Kessler, The F.B.I.: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency (New York: Pocket Books, 1994), p. 163.
  2. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 11.
  3. ^  Ibid, p. 18.
  4. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 18; & Anthony Theoharis, Tony G. Poveda, Susan Rosenfeld, and Richard Powers eds., The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000), pp. 324–325.
  5. ^  Theoharis et al., FBI: Reference Guide, pp. 324–325.
  6. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 19.
  7. ^  Ibid., p. 25.
  8. ^ . Thaddeus Holt. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. New York: Scribner, 2004. 452-456
  9. ^  Felt, p. 29ff.
  10. ^  Ibid., p. 45.
  11. ^  Ibid.
  12. ^  Ibid.
  13. ^  John O'Connor, "'I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat'", Vanity Fair PDF
  14. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 59.
  15. ^  Ibid., p. 67.
  16. ^  Theoharis et al., FBI: Reference Guide, p. 315, p. 470; & Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 624.
  17. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, page number not given
  18. ^  Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 163.
  19. ^  Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, p. 24.
  20. ^  Ibid., p. 43.
  21. ^  Ibid., p. 49.
  22. ^  Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, p. 50; & United States Congress, House of Representatives, "Inquiry Into the Destruction of Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's Files and FBI Recordkeeping: Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations".
  23. ^  United States Congress, House of Representatives, "Inquiry Into the Destruction of Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's Files and FBI Recordkeeping: Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations".
  24. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 216.
  25. ^  Ibid., p. 225.
  26. ^  Ibid., p. 186.
  27. ^  Ibid., p. 245.
  28. ^  Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 269.
  29. ^  Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men, 2nd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 71.
  30. ^  Ibid., p. 131.
  31. ^  Bob Woodward, "How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'", The Washington Post; Woodward Secret Man, p. 16
  32. ^  Bernstein and Woodward, All the President's Men, p. 71.
  33. ^  Adrian Havill, Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (New York: Carol Publishing, 1993), pp. 78–82.
  34. ^  "Voice from the shadows", The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 35.
  35. ^  Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Touchstone, 1998), p. 67.
  36. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 227.
  37. ^  Ibid., p. 225.
  38. ^  Ibid.
  39. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 226.
  40. ^  Ibid., p. 278.
  41. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 293; Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 181; & Kutler, Abuse of Power, p. 347.
  42. ^  Kutler, Abuse of Power, p. 347.
  43. ^  Ibid., p. 454.
  44. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 300.
  45. ^  Ibid., p. 293.
  46. ^  John Crewdson (August 30, 1976), "Ex-F.B.I. Aide Sees 'Scapegoat' Role", The New York Times, p. 21.
  47. ^  Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 194.
  48. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 333.
  49. ^  Ibid., p. 337.
  50. ^  Robert Pear: "Conspiracy Trial for 2 Ex-F.B.I. Officials Accused in Break-ins", The New York Times, September 19, 1980; & "Long Delayed Trial Over F.B.I. Break-ins to Start in Capital Tomorrow", The New York Times, September 14, 1980, p. 30.
  51. ^  Robert Pear, "Testimony by Nixon Heard in F.B.I. Trial", The New York Times, October 30, 1980.
  52. ^  Ibid.
  53. ^  Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 194.
  54. ^  Roy Cohn, "Stabbing the F.B.I.", The New York Times, November 15, 1980, p. 20.
  55. ^  "The Right Punishment for F.B.I. Crimes." (Editorial), The New York Times, December 18, 1980.
  56. ^  Statement on Granting Pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, Ronald Reagan. April 15, 1981.
  57. ^  Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, p. 595; Robert Sam Anson, Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon, p. 233; Laurie Johnston and Robert McG. Thomas, "Congratulations and Champagne from Nixon."
  58. ^  "Pardoning the F.B.I's Past". (Editorial), The New York Times, April 16, 1980.
  59. ^  Robert Pear, "President Pardons 2 Ex-F.B.I. Officials in 1970's Break-ins.", The New York Times; & Lou Cannon and Laura A. Kiernan, "President Pardons 2 Ex-FBI Officials Guilty in Break-Ins", The Washington Post.
  60. ^  Joe Pichirallo, "Judge Allows Appeals by Ex-Officials Of FBI Despite Pardons by Reagan", The Washington Post.
  61. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 349.
  62. ^  Ralph de Toledano, "Deep Throat's Ghost". The American Conservative. July 4 2005.
  63. ^  Henry Steck, "Review of The FBI Pyramid", Library Journal.
  64. ^  Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 11.
  65. ^  David Wise, "Apologia by No. 2", The New York Times Book Review.
  66. ^  Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, p. 728.
  67. ^  Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 179.
  68. ^  Carol Benfell, "A Family Secret: Joan Felt Explains Why Family Members Urged Her Father, Watergate's 'Deep Throat' to Reveal His Identity", The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California).
  69. ^  Jack Limpert, "Deeper Into Deep Throat", Washingtonian.
  70. ^  James Mann, "Deep Throat: An Institutional Analysis", The Atlantic Monthly.
  71. ^  Woodward, Secret Man, p. 116.
  72. ^  ibid., p. 131.
  73. ^  Frank Rizzo, "Nixon one role will remain nameless", The Hartford Courant.
  74. ^  David Daley, "Deep Throat: 2 boys talking politics at summer camp may have revealed a Watergate secret", The Hartford Courant.
  75. ^  Leonard Garment, In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time, pp. 146–47.
  76. ^  Ibid., pp. 170–71.
  77. ^  Vicki Haddock, "The Bay Area's 'Deep Throat' candidate", San Francisco Chronicle.
  78. ^  John O'Connor, "'I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat'", Vanity Fair PDF
  79. ^  Martin Schram. "Nixon's henchmen lecture us on ethics". Newsday. June 6 2005. A32.
  80. ^  James Lakely. "Tripp, Felt treatment a contrast". The Washington Times. June 2 2005. [45]
  81. ^  Tom Raum. "Turncoat or U.S. hero? Deep Throat casts divide". Journal - Gazette (Ft. Wayne, Indiana). June 2 2005. 1A.
  82. ^  "Deep Thoughts" (editorial). Los Angeles Times. June 2 2005. B10.
  83. ^  Ralph de Toledano, "Deep Throat's Ghost". The American Conservative. July 4 2005.
  84. ^ . Bob Thompson. "Deep Throat Family Cuts Publishing, Film Pacts; Tom Hanks to Develop Movie About Secret Watergate Source." The Washington Post. June 16 2005. C1.

Sources and Further Reading

  • Anson, Robert Sam. Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984, ISBN 0671440217 - ISBN 9780671440213 OCLC 10726661
  • Bernstein, Carl; Woodward, Bob, All the President's Men New York, Simon and Schuster, 1974, ISBN 067121781X - ISBN 9780671217815 - ISBN 0446797324 - ISBN 9780446797320 OCLC 892340
  • Cannon, Lou; Kiernan, Laura A., "President Pardons 2 Ex-FBI Officials Guilty in Break-Ins", The Washington Post, April 16,1981
  • Cohn, Roy, "Stabbing the F.B.I.", The New York Times, November 15, 1980
  • Crewdson, John, "Ex-Aide Approved F.B.I. Burglaries", The New York Times, August 18, 1976
  • Crewdson, John, "Ex-F.B.I. Aide Sees 'Scapegoat' Role". The New York Times, August 30, 1976, pg. 21
  • Daley, David, "Deep Throat: 2 boys talking politics at summer camp may have revealed a Watergate secret", The Hartford Courant, July 28, 1999
  • "Deep Thoughts" ,Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2005, pg. B10
  • Duke, Lynne, "Deep Throat's Daughter, The Kindred Free Spirit", The Washington Post, June 12, 2005, pg. A1
  • Felt, W. Mark, "The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1979, ISBN 0399119043
  • Garment, Leonard, In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time, New York, Basic Books, 2000, ISBN 0465026133
  • Gentry, Curt, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, New York, W.W. Norton, 1991, ISBN 0393024040
  • Haddock, Vicki, "The Bay Area's 'Deep Throat' candidate", The San Francisco Chronicle, June 16 2002, pg. D1
  • Havill, Adrian. Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, New York, Birch Lane Press, 1993, ISBN 1559721723
  • Holt, Thaddeus, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War, New York, Scribner, 2004, ISBN 0743250427
  • Horrock, Nicholas M, "Gray and 2 Ex-F.B.I Aides Indicted on Conspiracy in Search for Radicals", The New York Times, April 11, 1978, pg. A1
  • Johnston, David, "Behind Deep Throat's Clandestine Ways, a Cloak-and-Dagger Past", The New York Times, June 4, 2005
  • Johnston, Laurie; Thomas, Robert McG, "Congratulations and Champagne from Nixon", The New York Times, April 30, 1981, pg. C18
  • Kamen, Al; Kiernan,Laura A., "Lawyers", The Washington Post, June 28, 1982, pg. B3
  • Kessler, Ronald, The F.B.I.: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, New York, Pocket Books, 1993, ISBN 0671786571
  • Kutler, Stanley I., Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, New York, The Free Press, 1997, ISBN 0684841274
  • Lardner, George, "Attorney General Backs FBI Pardons but Ex-Prosecutor Disagrees", The Washington Post, April 17, 1981, pg. A9
  • Limpert, Jack, "Deeper Into Deep Throat", Washingtonia, August 1974
  • Mann, James, "Deep Throat: An Institutional Analysis", The Atlantic Monthly, May 1992
  • Marro, Anthony, "Gray and 2 Ex-F.B.I. Aides Deny Guilt as 700 at Court Applaud Them", The New York Times, April 21, 1978, pg. A13
  • O'Connor, John D., "'I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat'", Vanity Fair magazine, July 2005, pg. 86-89. pg. 129-133

  • "Pardoning the F.B.I's Past", Editorial, The New York Times, April 16, 1980, pg. A30
  • Pear, Robert, "Conspiracy Trial for 2 Ex-F.B.I. Officials Accused in Break-ins", The New York Times, September 19, 1980, pg. A14
  • Pear, Robert, "Long Delayed Trial Over F.B.I. Break-ins to Start in Capital Tomorrow", The New York Times, September 14, 1980, pg. 30
  • Pear, Robert, "President Pardons 2 Ex-F.B.I. Officials in 1970's Break-ins", The New York Times, April 16, 1981, pg. A1
  • Pear, Robert, "Prosecutors Rejected Offer of Plea to F.B.I. Break-ins", The New York Times, January 11, 1981 pg. 24
  • Pear, Robert, "Testimony by Nixon Heard in F.B.I. Trial", The New York Times, October 10, 1980, pg. A17
  • Pear, Robert, "2 Ex-F.B.I. Agents Get Light Fines for Authorizing Break-ins in 70's", The New York Times, December 16, 1980, pg. A1
  • Pear, Robert, "2 Pardoned Ex-F.B.I. Officials to Seek U.S. Payment of Some Legal Fees", The New York Times, May 1, 1981, pg. A14
  • Pichirallo, Joe, "Judge Allows Appeals by Ex-Officials Of FBI Despite Pardons by Reagan", The Washington Post, July 24, 1981, pg. C5
  • Raum, Tom, "Turncoat or U.S. hero? Deep Throat casts divide", The Journal - Gazette, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, June 2, 2005, pg. 1A
  • "The Right Punishment for F.B.I. Crimes", Editorial, The New York Times, December 18, 1980, pg. A30
  • Rizzo, Frank, "Nixon one role will remain nameless", The Hartford Courant, December 17, 1995, pg. G1
  • Schram, Martin, "Nixon's henchmen lecture us on ethics", Newsday, June 6, 2005, pg. A32
  • Steck, Henry, "Review of The FBI Pyramid", Library Journal, April 1, 1980, pg. 850
  • Summers, Anthony, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993, ISBN 0399138005
  • Theoharis, Athan G.; Poveda, Tony G.; Rosefeld, Susan; Powers, Richard Gid, The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, New York, Checkmark€ Books, 2000, ISBN 0816042284
  • Thompson, Bob, "Deep Throat Family Cuts Publishing, Film Pacts; Tom Hanks to Develop Movie About Secret Watergate Source", The Washington Post, June 16, 2005, pg. C1
  • Toledano, Ralph de., "Deep Throat's Ghost", The American Conservative, July 4, 2005
  • United Press International, "2 Ex-FBI Aides Urge Relation of Spying Rules", The Miami Herald, June 27, 1982, pg. 24A
  • United States Congress, United States House of Representatives, Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, Inquiry Into the Destruction of Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's Files and FBI Recordkeeping: Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth United States Congress, December 1, 1975, Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 1975
  • United States, "National Archives and Records Administration, Office of the Federal Register", Public Papers of the President: Ronald Reagan, 1981, Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 1982
  • Wise, David, "Apologia by No. 2", The New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1980, pg. 12
  • Woodward, Bob, "How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'", The Washington Post, June 2, 2005, pg. A1
  • Woodward, Bob, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat, New York, Simon; Schuster; 2005, ISBN 0743287150

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