Deep Throat
Deep Throat is the pseudonym given to a secret source who leaked information about the involvement of U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration in the events that came to be known as the Watergate scandal. Deep Throat was an important source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who together wrote a series of articles on the scandal that played a decisive role in exposing the misdeeds of the Nixon administration. The scandal would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nixon as well as prison terms for White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and presidential adviser John Ehrlichman. In 2005 W. Mark Felt, a former Associate Director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed his identity as Deep Throat.
Howard Simons, the managing editor of the Washington Post at the time, dubbed the secret informant "Deep Throat," an allusion to a pornographic movie of the same name that had become a cultural phenomenon during the period; it was also a play on the term "deep background", used in journalism to mean information provided by a secret source that may not be reported directly. Deep Throat came to public attention when Woodward and Bernstein wrote All The President's Men, a book also made into an Academy Award-winning movie. In the movie, Deep Throat was portrayed by Hal Holbrook.
The identity of Deep Throat was one of the biggest mysteries of American politics and journalism in recent times, and the source of more than 30 years of much public curiosity. Woodward and Bernstein insisted they would not reveal his identity until he died. However, after Felt himself revealed his identity in a Vanity Fair magazine article, Woodward, Bernstein, and former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee confirmed that Felt was the Watergate source known as Deep Throat on May 31, 2005.
Deep Throat
The Woodward/Deep Throat Connection
Woodward met Felt almost by accident. On May 15, 1972, Woodward called Felt for information relating to an FBI investigation in the shooting of presidential candidate George Wallace. Felt was known as the type of person who talked to reporters, something that was generally frowned upon in the FBI and he provided a few juicy quotes, none with his name attached.
A few months later, Woodward called him again, seeking information about a burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex.
According to Woodward, Felt was nervous that his role in the Washington Post investigation would be discovered. He demanded that the two stop conversing by phone, thinking that the line might be tapped and they began meeting late at night in a Washington parking garage. If Woodward wanted a meeting with Felt, the reporter would rearrange a potted plant in his apartment window. If Felt wanted a meeting with Woodward, the source would somehow ensure that page number 20 of Woodward's daily New York Times delivery was circled. Woodward claims that Felt never gave him specific information but only confirmed information given by others and suggested avenues to explore.
Deep Throat Motives
In public statements, Felt's family has called him an "American hero," suggesting that he leaked information about the Watergate scandal to the Post for moral or patriotic reasons. A number of media commentators, however, have suggested that Felt bore Nixon a personal animus for having passed him over when appointing a successor to J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the FBI. Others have claimed that Felt acted mainly out of institutional loyalty to the FBI, whose independence many believed had been constrained by the Nixon administration
Hints to his identity
For almost 30 years after the Watergate scandal, Deep Throat's identity was known only to four people: Woodward, Bernstein, their editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, and Felt himself. Woodward said in repeated interviews that the identity of Deep Throat would be kept confidential until Deep Throat died or agreed to let his name be made public.
Over the years, there was much speculation and many hints and guesses as to the identity of Deep Throat.
Prior to the final disclosure of his identity, Woodward would only confirm that Deep Throat:
- Was male
- Was a specific man in Nixon's administration and not a composite
- Was a smoker, and
- Liked to drink scotch
Woodward gave specific denials to only six other possibilities, at the request of those people:
Deep Throat revealed
Woodward and Bernstein kept the identity of Deep Throat a closely-guarded secret for more than 30 years. However, there were suspicions that Felt was indeed the reporters' elusive source long before his public acknowledgement in 2005.
- Richard Nixon himself believed that Felt was Deep Throat, but did not try to oust him, fearing that if he did, Felt would publicly reveal details about the Watergate coverup.
- In 1999, a 19-year-old college freshman, Chase Culeman-Beckman, claimed to have been told by Bernstein's son that Felt was Deep Throat. According to Culeman-Beckman, Jacob Bernstein had said that he was "100 percent sure that Deep Throat was Mark Felt. He's someone in the FBI." Jacob had reportedly said this approximately 11 years prior, when he and Culeman-Beckman were classmates. Bernstein's wife at that time, Nora Ephron, tried to explain it away, saying that their son overheard her "speculations." Carl Bernstein himself also immediately stepped forward to refute the claim.
- James Mann, who had worked at the Post at the time of Watergate and was close to the investigation, brought a great deal of evidence together in a 1992 article (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199205/mann) in The Atlantic Monthly that fingered Felt and convinced many. He argued that the information Deep Throat gave Woodward could only have come from FBI files. Felt was also embittered at having been passed over for the Director General position and believed that the FBI in general was hostile to the Nixon administration. In previous unrelated articles, Woodward had made clear he had a highly placed source at the FBI, and there is some evidence he was friends with Felt.
- Woodward has kept in close touch with Felt over the years, even showing up unexpectedly at his house in 1999, after Felt's dementia began. Woodward showed up unexpectedly at the home of Felt's daughter, Joan, in Santa Rosa, California, as well. Some suspected at that time that Woodward might be asking Felt if he could reveal him to be Deep Throat, though Felt, when asked directly by others, had consistently denied being Deep Throat.
- In 2002, Timothy Noah, a Slate writer with a long-standing interest in the mystery, called Felt "the best guess going about the identity of Deep Throat."
- In February 2005, Nixon's former White House Counsel (and current columnist) John Dean reported that Woodward had recently informed Bradlee that Deep Throat was ailing and close to death, and that Bradlee had written Deep Throat's obituary. Both Woodward and the current editor of the Post, Leonard Downie, denied these claims. Felt was a primary suspect, especially after the mysterious meeting that occured between Woodward and Felt in the summer of 1999.
On May 31, 2005, Vanity Fair magazine reported that Mark Felt, then aged 91, claimed to be the man once known as Deep Throat. Later that day, Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee released a statement through the Washington Post confirming that the story was true, finally bringing to rest an enduring mystery in modern American politics. There have been criticisms of this revelation; some believe that, due to failing physical and mental health, Mr. Felt might not have been capable of giving his consent and that it was, instead, given by his children.
In 2002, he had revealed the secret to his family when confronted by his daughter, who had been tipped off to her father's identity by one of his associates.
Deep Throat