Bob Woodward, Watergate, and Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat)

Not all that long ago, it would have been thought incredible that anyone would have to be told what the Watergate scandal was. But today you don't see much about it on Spike TV or hear about it on Howard Stern or by listening to WIP Sports radio, and it appears this most scandalous of Washington scandals is rapidly fading from the American consciousness. So before "Watergate" is remembered no more than "Teapot Dome", here's a brief reminder of one of the most interesting, amazing, and frightening episodes in American history.

On Saturday, July 17, 1972, Bob Woodward had been working as a reporter at the Washington Post for six months. That morning he got a call to come in and cover a burglary. Bob grumbled as he got up. The last thing he wanted to do was report on some piddly-ant burglary. Politics was the hot issue in town. President Richard Nixon was finishing up his first term, and he was running against the easiest candidate to beat, South Dakota Senator George McGovern. All polls showed Nixon was a shoo-in, but the campaign had become a show-down between the growing conservativism in America and the last influence of the even then fading "hippie" movement in American politics.

But when Bob got to the Post newsroom, he learned the break-in was not at the local Democratic Party headquarters as he had thought. Instead it was at the Democratic National Headquarters housed in the opulent Watergate Hotel. The men were also funny burglars. They had been caught with electronic monitoring and "bugging" equipment and thirteen brand new 100 dollar bills, all with serial numbers in sequence. Then after they were hauled to jail they had made no phone calls. But suddenly two lawyers showed up to represent them.

Bob went to the court where the men were being arraigned. As he listened to the judge's questions and the answers, he learned that one of the burglars, James McCord, was a former CIA agent ("Holy [Moses]," Bob thought). Then after he got back to the office and made some phone calls, he learned that the man was the security coordinator for Richard Nixon's re-election committee, officially the Committee to Re-Elect the President but prophetically acronymed as CREEP.

On the following Monday, Presidential Press Secretary and former Disneyland Tour Guide Ron Ziegler dismissed the break-in as a "third rate burglary", not worthy of further White House comment. But after two years everyone in the world finally learned although it may have been a third-rate burglary, 1) the Watergate break-in had been planned by men at White House, 2) Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, had approved the burglary himself, and 3) a week after the burglary, Nixon himself ordered the CIA to tell the FBI to not investigate the matter beyond the five men arrested. The first two points came out in testimony of the trial of Nixon's top assistants, and the third point was learned beyond doubt because Nixon had recorded himself giving the orders. Faced with certain impeachment and removal from office, Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 15, 1974.

The Watergate Scandal (as it was called) has been labeled the most divisive political event since the Civil War. Putting it somewhat simplistically but nonetheless reasonably accurately, the scandal divided the country into Nixon Haters and Nixon Supporters. The Supporters believed Nixon was innocent, and the Haters knew he was guilty. Few were impartial.

Despite claims that Nixon was hounded from office, he had surprisingly strong support in Congress among both parties. The Democratic controlled Congress even denied subpoena power to an early attempt to investigate the break-in chaired by Senator Wright Patman (D-Texas). The investigation lasted one day and had no witnesses. All the original burglars pleaded guilty and claimed they were the bad boys and no one else. Then the criminal investigation led to two White House employees, E. Howard Hunt (also a former CIA employee) and G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent and then lawyer for CREEP. Both men went before Judge John Sirica. Hunt eventually pled guilty and Liddy was convicted. The facts, said the White House, were now known. G. Gordon Liddy was a "bad" apple and stepped over the boundaries of proper behavior in an effort to gather political intelligence. John Mitchell, the attorney general, resigned (for reasons unrelated to the scandal, he said). It was time, Nixon said, to stop wallowing in Watergate.

But there was good news for the wallowers. James McCord, the burglar who was also the CREEP security man, had written Judge Sirica that hush money had been paid to the defendants and that higher ups were involved. Elliott Richardson, by this time Nixon's third attorney general, was directed by Nixon to investigate the allegations, even if it led to the President. Not realizing Nixon didn't mean it, Elliott, appointed Harvard law professor Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor. A new Senate investigation committee under eyebrow twitching and jowl shaking Sam Ervin (D-South Carolina) was granted subpoena power and quickly became the #1 daytime television show. Then during one of the Q & A sessions one of the investigators asked Nixon's appointment secretary, Alexander Butterfield, if there were listening devices in the Oval Office. Butterfield said, yes, all presidential conversations were recorded.

Archie subpoenaed tapes he thought would be relevant to the investigation and Nixon fired him (Elliott and his #2 man, William Ruckelshaus, also went). Sam asked for the tapes, went to court, and lost the case. But as a consolation prize he got some expletive-deleted transcripts. However, when Archie got the boot - during the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre" - Monday brought so many calls for Nixon's impeachment that Congress began formal hearings. If Nixon had let Archie go about his business, he might have squeaked by. So as a couple of the Watergate attorneys put it, the Saturday Night Massacre was more of a Saturday Night Suicide.

Because of the public and political reaction, Nixon was also obliged to continue with the special Justice Department investigation albeit sans Archie. It was soon back in business headed by Texas attorney Leon Jaworski. Like Archie, Leon subpoenaed the tapes and although Nixon wanted to fire him, no one would do it (for technical reasons, Nixon, although President, could not do so). So Leon went all the way to the Supreme Court who unanimously ruled the President could not withhold evidence in a criminal case. So Leon got the tapes and lo and behold, on one recorded June 23, 1972, less than a week after the break-in - there was Dick telling Bob Haldeman to have the CIA halt the Watergate investigation. The tape was made public and any remaining support for Nixon in Congress evaporated. With impeachment and removal from office a certainly, Nixon resigned.

Through all this brouhaha, there were the never ending stories (as far as the White House was concerned) in the Washington Post written by Bob and his colleague, Carl Bernstein. Whether their stories really were instrumental in bringing down the Nixon Adminustration is debated. There were, though, times when it seemed people did get tired of wallowing in Watergate, and if nothing else, Carl and Bob kept the story before the public. Watergate was a 24/7 job for both men. Carl was actually the more experienced reporter and the better writer, even though he was a year younger. Other co-workers remembered Carl as a chain smoker and always bumming other people's cigarettes.

In writing their first book about Watergate, All the President's Men (published before Nixon resigned), Bob and Carl incurred the ire of the conservatives (an outrage which continues to this day) and the adulation of the liberals (which is pretty much of historical interest). But the biggest mystery of the whole Watergate scandal began when the book (i. e., Bob and Carl) mentioned that Bob had a high placed and extremely sensitive source "in the Executive Branch". The source, we learned, had information directly from the investigation, and never told Bob information that was incorrect (which is actually being a wee bit too generous). With the "Executive Branch" label, many Watergate sleuths pegged the man as a denizen of the White House. That wasn't correct, but Bob was telling the truth, as a middle school civics course will make clear.

Anyway, Bob's source had mandated certain rules. Bob could only call him in dire need, and if they had to meet, they had to sneak into a parking garage at 2:00 in the morning. For a while, Woodward alone knew the name of his source, which was unusual as editors do expect their reporters to tell them their sources. Since in Washington Post jargon, the man's information was on "deep background" (never named, never quoted, mostly used for confirmation), the Metropolitan Editor Harry Rosenfeld dubbed the source Deep Throat after the famous Linda Lovelace pornographic movie.

Naturally, as soon as Bob and Carl's book came out it became almost a parlor game to guess who Deep Throat was. Bob was not particularly enthusiastic about the sport, though, and complained that people trying to ferret out a journalist's source was not very nice. But the source-seekers said it was Bob's own fault. By presenting the man as if he was a character in a who-done-it, Bob had for all practical purposes thrown down the gauntlet, challenging people to guess who it was.

As the years rolled on virtually everyone who was in the Nixon administration was identified as Deep Throat, including (laughingly) Richard Nixon. Aides, lawyers, army generals, press agents, speech writers, secret service men, you name it; they were Deep Throat.

One of the more credible suggestions came thirty years after Watergate. In 2003, a University of Illinois law class taught by law professor William Gaines pegged Deep Throat as a White House lawyer named Fred Fielding. Fred had been assistant counsel to John Dean. John, of course, had been up over his ears in the cover-up, but Fred had stayed clean.

But what the class did was to follow the advice of Post Executive Editor, Benjamin Bradlee. Ben had only learned who Deep Throat was relatively late and gave Throat junkies some guidelines. Sift through the evidence, he said. Find out who was where and who knew what. Check out who was in town when Bob had his garage meetings and made his phone calls. Then you should be able to tell who Deep Throat was. Strange advice for someone who you'd think wanted to keep the source secret.

Laudable activity or not, that's what the kids did. During their weeding and pruning, the students learned that 1) Fred was widely regarded as an honest man, 2) he appeared to have had access to the information that was leaked to the Post, and 3) neither Fred nor Woodward ever issued a flat denial. So eight semesters spread out over four years, and 60 students later, they concluded, "There's only one person left, and it's Fred Fielding." Despite some dissenters, a lot of Washington pundits thought, by George, we think they (may) have got it.

Two years later the "Fred is Throat" theory was blown entirely out of the water. On May 31, 2005, Vanity Fair magazine published an article where Mark Felt, a man virtually unknown to the general public, admitted he was Deep throat. Although his name had appeared in passing in the news and in the multitude of Watergate books, for some reason Mark never stuck in people's mind. But Mark was no small potatoes, either. He was the de facto (if not de jure) #2 man under J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI.

Hanh? The #2 G-man was Woodward's source? He was the man who ultimately toppled the Nixon presidency? How the heck did that happen?

It's very simple really. In 1970 and in the course of visiting the White House on routine business, Mark had quite by accident bumped into a young navy lieutenant named Robert Upson Woodward. Bob was finishing up his years in the navy as a courier to the White House for the Pentagon. Frequently both men had to cool their heels in the same waiting room. Now they introduced themselves, and learning Mark was in the upper echelons of the FBI, Bob asked the older man about choosing a career. Mark was friendly, chatted about his own job, and finally gave Bob his office and home phone number. After he left the Navy, Bob kept in touch with Mark, and as we know, Bob decided on a career in journalism. After a short stint at one of the suburban papers, Bob was hired by the Washington Post.

Having the (eventual) #2 man at the FBI as a cordial if not intimtate personal acquaintance was a big plus for a reporter, and his colleagues were soon amazed at how fast Bob could get information. Instead of days or weeks to dig out sensitive facts, Bob was finding stuff in a couple of hours. His big coup came a couple of months before Watergate. As Alabama Governor George Wallace campaigned for President, he was shot by a nut in a Maryland shopping center. No one in the media could find out who the attempted assasin was or anything about him. But in a trice Woodward learned the man's name and other vital information that gave the Post quite the scoop.

As the Watergate investigation unfolded, Bob noted Mark was irritated about two things. First, he did not like the way the White House was trying to take over control - in fact, derail - the FBI investigation (the White House had its reasons, of course). Next he was disappointed, (but not really outraged) when Edgar died, he, Mark, was not named the FBI's director. Instead the President, ignored a number of qualified FBI executives and selected an assistant attorney general (who had also been a Nixon campaign worker from the old days), L. Patrick Gray.

Whether Mark was motivated by altruism or whether he was just ticked off because he didn't get the top spot has been debated endlessly. But none of the possible motives, we remind ourselves, are necessarily exclusive. It very well may be a little of all of the above.

Mark figured (correctly) that guilt in Watergate ran to the highest levels. But it's also hard to see what "through-channel" options were open for him. After all it's hard to inform the President about crimes of his associates when he had already ordered the CIA to stop the FBI's investigation. So the obvious guess is Mark simply decided to help Bob in his reporting as the best way to get the information out, protect his own rear end. and - we must admit it - perhaps as a statement for not getting Edgar's job. But whatever the reasons, for more than a year Mark helped Bob with his Watergate reporting, and for thirty years both men had kept mum.

The Vanity Fair article caught Bob and the Post off the hop. Their promise had been not to reveal Deep Throat's identity until he died or gave them the OK. He had done neither. But a day or so later they decided that since Mark had admitted he was Deep Throat in a national magazine, he was for all practical purposes giving them permission. Woodward wrote some articles in the Post and (for him) a short book about his dealings with Mark. Titled The Secret Man, unlike most of Bob's ouevre, it really didn't sell that well. After all, by then Watergate was ancient history, and there were young adults who knew virtually nothing about it. Mark himself resigned from the FBI about a year after the Watergate break-in and wrote a spectacularly unsuccessful memoir, The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside.

Today nobody knows quite how to peg Mark. Conservative opinion shakes him out as a turncoat and a traitor. Even some of the men criminally involved in Watergate and who were doing their best to hinder the FBI say Mark should have taken his complaints through appropriate channels. So who could Mark have complained to? The attorney general who had approved the break-in? The President who, as we'll see below, saw burglary as a perfectly acceptable political tool and told the CIA to stop the investigation? As Eliza Doolittle said, "Not bloody likely!"

On the other hand, the liberals aren't too keen on Mark either. He was no stranger, then or later, to Watergate type practices and would later be convicted (and pardoned) for ordering break-ins, and warrantless searches and wiretaps. Mark, after all, did hold the #2 slot in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. But whatever his motives, Mark soon lapsed into nearly thirty years of comfortable obscurity, unknown except by a few hard-nosed Watergate wallowers and political junkies. He died in 2008, age 95.

Bob, though, (and to a lesser extent, Carl) quickly rose to fame and fortune. Bob's other books on American politics are inevitably best sellers, praised and decried depending on which political side of the fence you are on. But perhaps the biggest legacy of Bob and Carl is soon celebrity journalism became the multimillion dollar industry it is today. So if it wasn't for their accomplishments, we wouldn't have the commercials showing the local anchormen striking their heroic poses and their lady counterparts swinging their stylish coiffures as they turn and gaze omnisciently into the camera while the voiceover says to tune in at 10 o'clock to hear the shocking revelation how Governor Billy Bob Boldinger was caught on camera drinking a beer at the local tiddy bar. Certainly the media's ad nauseum seeking out scandal is directly from the House That Bob Built. So America entered the era of "gotcha" journalism, a news genre that been decried by many, including Bob himself.

At this point, we have to say some people don't believe much of what Bob writes. Once Bob started writing his many best sellers, a new parlor game industry was born, Gotcha, Bob! That certainly happened with The Secret Man. Mark, some people said, could not have been Deep Throat. Throat smoked. Felt had given it up long ago. Bob's said his signal for a meeting was to move a red flag on his back porch. But there was a wall blocking the view to the porch. Stories from his other books seem even more incredible, the Bob-Gotcher's say. After all, could Bob really, as he said, have snuck into CIA director William Casey's hospital room for an interview after doctors had chopped out part of Casey's brain?

Discrediting Bob, though, is pretty tough, mostly because (and it seems obvious) someone in his position would not jeopardize his reputation by fabricating stories. Besides and as we've found out, Bob does have amazing access to the most powerful men in Washington, and people will consent to talk with him who would shudder at the thought of talking to someone from the - ugh - "liberal press". So Bob simply pointed out that Mark sure as heck smoked when they were together and that the wall that blocked the view of his porch was put in after he moved out of the apartment. The wall bit can be proven, and the idea that Mark snuck ciggies when under stress isn't that far fetched to anyone who knows the behavior of friends who have - quote "quit smoking" - unquote.

Nonetheless there are still people who believe there was not just one Deep Throat. Yes, Mark was Deep Throat but so were others. That is, the most famous of journalistic sources was a composite. After all, other sources for Bob have stated it was their information that was attribued to Deep Throat. So they were at least part of Deep Throat.

Much of this debate, though, boils down to semantics and epistomology. Deep Throat, Bob said, was used mainly for confirmation. That means there would indeed be other sources who handed out "Deep Throat" information. Other gotchas can simply be the recurring problem of non-malicious errors creeping into newspaper stories and historical accounts. In any case after a bit of fluff, it seems most people have finally (although some a bit grudgingly) accepted that Mark Felt was the mysterious source named Deep Throat and that there was only one Deep Throat.

Bob last met Mark in 1999 when Bob showed up at the home of Mark's daughter where he was then living. By then, though, Mark was failing mentally and could not remember much. He did seem to recognize Bob but couldn't remember much about his time in Washington or that he had been Bob's famous source. Which does raise the question of how much Mark could contribute to the Vanity Fair article six years later.

All right. Did anyone really figure out that Mark Felt was Deep Throat? Once more the answer depends more on a definition of what you mean by "know" (such as when an American president quibbled over the definition of "is"). James Mann, a reporter on the Post with Bob, knew this mysterious high placed source was in the FBI (Bob told him so). So in 1992 Jim mentioned Mark's name as a possibility. Other people had similar knowledge and guessed that Mark was the man. But whether this is really "knowing" Mark was Throat is, as we said, more of a matter of definition.

There was, though, at least one person (a group of people actually) who did know in the more or less correct sense of the word. That is, they found out and were not just making a good guess. That was assistant attorney general Stanley Pottinger and a grand jury under his direction. In 1976 Stanley had called Mark as a witness before the jury. In the course of his testimony, somehow Deep Throat got mentioned, and Mark wryly mentioned some people actually thought he was Deep Throat.

"Were you?" one of the jurors unexpectedly asked.

At that point Mark froze, and he could barely croak out a "No." Stanley, being a skilled interrogator, noted that Mark's demeanor almost certainly meant that he was lying - and under the circumstances committing perjury. Stanley then reminded Mark that he had to answer truthfully, but since the question was not germane to the investigation, if Mark wished, he would withdraw the question and Mark could withdraw the answer. Mark said yes, do that. So Mark was off the hook, and Stanley - and the grand jury - knew the identity of Deep Throat. Stanley and the others, as they were supposed to do, sat on the secret.

But the most singular peculiarity of the whole "Who was Deep Throat?" enterprise is that four months after the Watergate break-in, Nixon and Bob Haldeman knew who Deep Throat was. But yet they didn't know! How, you ask, is this possible?

On October 19, 1972, Bob (Haldeman) and Dick sat down to discuss leaks of information to the press and the stories from the Washington Post. Dick wanted to know how the Post was getting their information. Why, he asked, couldn't acting FBI director Pat Gray find out who and what was leaking? Bob said that they did know what was leaked and who was leaking it.

"Someone next to Gray?" Nixon queried.

"Mark Felt," Bob replied.

"Now why the hell would he do that?" Nixon asked, forgetting that he had once publicly criticized Harry Truman for cussing. Bob didn't know.

Bob went on to say they couldn't do anything because Mark had committed no crime, and if they got rid of him, Mark would spill the whole can of beans of what had gone over at the FBI and the White House (which involved other illegal activities). Besides, Bob added, it would screw up their source.

Their source? Yep, Nixon and his buddies evidently had their own source in the Washington Post, and who would turn over the identity of the Post's sources. The gentleman (or lady) in question has never been identified.

Incredibly, though, Haldeman never equated Mark Felt with Bob Woodward's Deep Throat. In his own memoirs, Haldeman pegged Fred Fielding, like the kids at Illinois. It was a good guess, we know, but wrong.

So how important was Mark's information to the Post's Watergate investigation? Some knowledgable people think not that much. Barry Sussman, the city editor at the Post and Bob and Carl's boss at the time, said Mark's actual information was minimal. Deep Throat mostly provided confirmation, not primary information (which is also what Bob said). Throat told the Post some interesting things, yes, and that their reporting was important. But they knew it anyway. In short, Barry said, Deep Throat was really a minor character, nice to have around, certainly, but not that critical.

But as far as Watergate itself, and as Sentator Howard Baker put it, what did the President know, and when did he know it? For decades, the Watergate gurus - whether crook or cop - have said that Nixon did not have explicit prior knowledge of the Watergate burglary. That he was quickly and deeply involved in the cover-up, hindered the investigation, and ordered hush money payments is not in doubt, as the Oval Office recordings prove. But involved in the break-in? The accepted wisdom has been no.

Then in 2003, Jeb Magruder, Nixon's aide who had been Assistant Director of CREEP under John Mitchell, stated that at a meeting with John Mitchell, John talked with Nixon on the phone, and Nixon said to go ahead with the Watergate burglary. This was disputed by another participant, but as more of the Presidential tapes were released, we've learned Nixon - the "Law and Order" President - had no hesitation in ordering illegal activities which included break-ins.

Shortly before Watergate, a memo - called the "Huston Plan" - had been brought to Nixon. The Huston Plan included wiretappings, mail openings, and yes, break-ins. "This is clearly illegal", the document stated. But Nixon approved the plan - and in writing. But even after Nixon officially rescinded his authorization (when J. Edgar Hoover, of all people, objected), he later - and it was recorded on tape - flat out told Bob Haldeman to go ahead and implement the Huston Plan. So yes, Virginia, Richard Nixon did authorize break-ins. So his directly approving Watergate burglary itself, if not actually proven, is quite likely.

Were things really different before Watergate? Nixon and his buddies said, no. JFK and LBJ did that sort of stuff, too (but documentation has been relatively scant). Have they been different later? Well, in addition to having have Presidents and their flunkies burglarizing political opponents, they've told Americans that bee manure were really enemy chemcial weapons, sold weapons to terrorists countries that have vowed to destroy us, started wars because of non-existant weapons, and have costed the American taxpayers millions of dollars because they couldn't leave the skirt alone. And now we've been told .....

Oh, well, not really much point on droning on. So that leaves just one last question.

Parliamentry system, anyone?

References

All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster (1974), The first book about Watergate, released before Nixon resigned. It's interesting that when Woodward or Bernstein are talking, they didn't put the words in quotes. But when others are, quotation marks are added.

The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Simon and Schuster (1976). This book really invoked the ire of a lot of people. Nixon is shown as a man teetering on the edge, falling on his knees, holding hand with Henry Kissinger, and asking they pray together. On the other hand many of the people who denied certain events weren't at the particular scene, and over the years, much of the controversial material has been confirmed by others.

What raised the hackles (and still does) and had people wondering if Bob might be fudging a bit is he gives verbatim quotes of the participants and even tells us their thoughts were. How could he do that? But you have to remember a person who was there could give what he remembered as his exact words or repeat the words of someone he was talking to. It would be perfectly legitimate - historically and journalistically - to put the words in quotes even though we know it might not be absolutely verbatim. After all in his book on the Peloponnesian Wars, when Thucydides gives the verbatim speeches of the various orators, he flat out said that he's not quoting the actual words. But everyone knew that anyway.

This is also the book that got people saying you could tell who Bob's sources were from internal evidence. In fact, two historians (see below) even wrote a "how-to" book for researching history and had a chapter on how to deduce sources from The Final Days. It's a good book, too.

Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution, Richard Ben-Veniste and George Frampton, Jr., Simon and Schuster, (1977). In CooperToons modest opinion, this is the best book about Watergate, particularly the dealings of the Special Prosecutor's Office, and so it's not surprising most people never have read it. At the time of this writing you can find hard cover books in good condition selling for a dollar. Richard and George were assistants to Archie Cox and later to Leon Jaworski. Certainly their tales of the rather convoluted manner in which the legal decisions were made rings true. There is a particularly good telling of the Saturday Night Massacre, which as they said, was for the Nixon Presidency was really a Saturday Night Suicide.

The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate, Leon Jaworski, Readers Digest Press (1976). The second watergate prosecutor's version. All in all this supports Richard and George's version, but Leon gives us an appearance of orderliness which most likely belies the actual way lawyers work.

Blind Ambition: The White House Years, John Dean (Simon and Schuster (1976). The book by counsel to Nixon John Dean, it mentions John's dealings with Mark Felt about the "Dita Beard memo". This was a memo that offered a huge campaign contribution for dropping an antitrust suit. The memo was published by "liberal" columnist Jack Anderson, and the White House wanted the FBI to prove the memo was bogus. It wasn't, and later attempts by the White House to get Mark and Edgar to reverse their findings on the memo's authenticity was Mark's first introduction to the White House trying to derail an FBI investigation.

Lost Honor, John Dean, Stratford Press (1982). Takes up where Blind Ambition ended. John doesn't keep his lack of enthusiasm for the press under wraps. In one story, he told how he was double crossed on-screen by Walter Cronkite about the subject of an interview. The other was how the National Enquirer dealt with him honestly and refused to publish a sensational story about Nixon because the evidence wasn't strong enough. Although John's attitude seems like sour grapes, we need to remember that right after Watergate the media was quite full of itself. It was only later that major media outlets (including the Washington Post and the New York Times) suffered major embarrassment when they reported bogus stories and had to retract high profile investigative reports.

After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection James Davidson and Mark Lytle, Knopf (1982). Great book! For anyone who wants an introduction for digging facts out of the historical record this is the book to read. Extremely well balanced looks at the Salem Witch Trials, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, the life and times of Huey Long, the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb, - and the sources of The Final Days.

There's two volumes and a CD.

"Watergate, 25 Years Later: Myths and Collusion", Barry Sussman, Watergate Info, Barry was the Post's city editor and this article gives his opinion on the importance of Deep Throat. He flat out states Deep Throat was a minor player and not important to the Post's reporting.

"Deep Throat: An Institutional Analysis", James Mann, The Atlantic Monthly, May 1992. Jim was a Post Reporter who knew Woodward and remembered Woodward mentioning the high placed source for the various Deep Throat sourced articles was from the FBI. The article mentions Mark Felt as a possibility and adds the enlightening comment that Mark was often willing to talk to the press.

If you think the craziness of Watergate subsided after Nixon resigned, read Jim's article from the Monthly from March 2004. Here you learn how a Vice President and a Secretary of Defense developed a plan to by-pass the normal (and legal) presidential succession in case the President was killed during a nuclear attack. More recently it has been revealed that there were high level executive branch plans for the US army to invade Buffalo, New York to more or less push (and presumably break) the limits of protection of the Constitution.

Is everyone in the government nuts?

"Deep Throat Materials from Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate Papers Open for Research at Ransom Center", University of Texas. Some actual notes from Woodward about his Watergate reporting including memos from interviews from Mark Felt. It's not clear when the name "Deep Throat" was started as Mark is never called "Deep Throat" in the notes. In fact, in one note he's mentioned by name and includes a quote. Sometimes the notes seem sketchy, but they do agree with what actually got published.

In All the President's Men Bob said he referred to Deep Throat as "My Friend" and kept his notes in an envelope labeled "MF". However, given the actual initials of Bob's "friend", is this passage one more teasing hint for the reader?

"Watergate and the Two Lives of Mark Felt", Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, Monday, June 20, Page A01 (2005). Probably one of the best "Deep Throat" articles. A lot of very interesting information, particularly if you've read All the President's Men.

Although the Post received much criticism for it's Watergate reporting, most of it was unjustified. If you do want to trash the Post do it for their website formatting. At the time of this research, they had horrible animated ads, pop-ups, and - the most henious of web site sins - animated ads that move across the flippin' page as you try to resize the page so you can read the flippin' text without having the horrible flippin' animated ad flashing in front of your face so bad that you can't read the flippin' text! At least that's what happened when the second URL given above was clicked.

Obnoxious, alientating, and downright self-defeating advertsing, though, is typical of the rich fat-cat corporate websites that can charge the most for web ads. Naturally their rich fat-cat corporate advertisers - who can afford putting ads on the rich fat-cat corporate sites - are those who can and do pay the rich fat-cat corporate ad companies for the most expensive ads - which just happens to be those using the worst, most alientating, and obnoxious advertising gimmicks.

CooperToons can honestly state as far as he can remember, he's never bought anything that was advertised on a web ad - and particularly on a page with animated, pop-up, flashing, or nowadays, flippin' audio ads (see below). In fact, in order to read the text he covers up any animated ads so fast that he virtually never even sees who the company or the product was, But if he does remember the company or product that has the obnoxious ads, he has vowed never to use or even try that flippin' product,. Above all he never intentionally clicks on animated ads or sponsored links, and he has completely ceased or drastically reduced visiting many websites because of their obtrusive, obnoxious, and annoying ads, and will deliberately avoid them if they come up an internet search.

That said, It had been with some satisfaction that CooperToons has noted that some of the sites with the most obnoxious, annoying, and downright alienating ads (including the "Ha! Ha! You can't get rid of me by resizing the window!" ads) seem to have recognized the error of their ways and have modified the type, locations, and philosophy of their advertising. In those cases, CooperToons has returned to using those sites, although by no means with the same frequency as when they had non-animated, non-obtrusive, and non-obnoxious ads.

But recently some sites have come up with what may be the ultimate in alientating, infuriating, and entirely self-defeating ad techniquies - the audio ads. CooperToons completely avoids any site where these ads - ah - pop up. After all when a potential buyer is surfing the net, it's not likely he'll be a paying client if he gets an audio ad saying he's won some piece of dreck he doesn't want anyway when he was trying to listen to the Andrews Sisters.

Rant, rave, snort.

For what it's worth CooperToons has turned down offers to put ads on his website. It is his dedication to truth, justice, and the spread of accurate information that prompts him to maintain an ad-free, easily used, and legible website. That and possibly financial imbecility.

"Deep Throat, the Source of Countless Guesses", Bob Thompson, Washington Post, July 1, 2005, PC01. A lead in story to Woodward's articles about the Post accounts of Bob's dealings with Mark Felt. He mentions that when Bob met Mark in 1999, Mark recognized Woodward, but didn't remember being the enimatic Deep Throat.

"How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'", Bob Woodward, Washington Post, Thursday, June 2, Page A01 (2005) Bob's articles, an abbreviation of "The Secret Man".

"Journalism Professor, Students Identify 'Deep Throat'", Illinois News Bureau. This is a story about the journalism class of William Gaines (no relation to the Mad Magazine publisher of the same name). By incredible patience, logic, and just hard work they worked out the identity of the one person Deep Throat could have been. It took William and 60 students four years of work spread out over eight semesters and they decided "There's only one person left, and it's Fred Fielding." They were, of course, totally wrong.

Fred Fielding was (for those who don't know it) an assistant lawyer to John Dean and was later counsel to Ronald Regan. Despite skepticism of the first investigators, Fred was completely uninvolved in Watergate - Dean made sure Fred was kept at arms length from the illegal stuff. In the end Fred became one of the most highly regarded men in Washington legal circles, and is looked on as one of the most honest and honorable of the Washington crowd (as was Nixon's counsel and former jazz musician Leonard Garment).

Seriously, what this episode does is illustrate how often the "let's piece together the information to uncover a mystery" schtick often falls flat. The sad truth is many possible and reasonable scenarios can be deduced from the same information and no matter how convincing a deductive argument, nothing beats hard documentary primary evidence.

One thing that threw the kids off is they never got a definitive denial from Woodward or Fielding. This shows another key feature of historical investigation. Failure to prove the contrary is not proof of the assertion.

 

Primary Source Material

National Security Archvies, George Washington Unviersity. Lots of goodies for the Watergate wallower. For the Mark Felt transcripts and recordings, see The Deep Throat File at the same website.

Presidental Recordings Program, Miller Center of Public Affiars, University of Virginia. This has transcripts and recordings of the presidents who bugged themselves. Kennedy, Nixon, and Johnson. After Dick's experience, Presidents after Nixon decided not to record their conversations - -- or at least not tell anyone if they do.

"L. Patrick Gray", Richard Serrano, Los Angeles Times, p. B-10 (July 07, 2005). Pat Gray is one of the characters in the drama that is hard to characterize. Pictured on one hand as doing the White House's bidding, he was also called a man of basic integrity by the "liberal" Watergate Prosecutors Richard Ben Veniste and George Framptom. The tapes do show that Pat did try to pursue a legitimate investigations and warned Nixon personally that there were people around him that were going to ruin him ("Pat," you just keep on with your vigorous investigation," Dick said). But what really did Pat in was he destroyed documents given to him by John Dean. John found the documents in the safe of E. Howard Hunt. Not about Watergate, the documents (and some were bogus) were to be used in the "dirty-tricks" against Nixon's opponents. So they were germane to the various investigations and should not have been destroyed. Pat was investigated and indicted along with Mark Felt, but the charges against Pat were dropped. Who knows? Pat may indeed have become a good FBI director had he been given the chance. In his later years he became increasingly bitter about Richard Nixon, who not only destroyed himself, but the careers and reputations of those around him.