Deep Throat (Watergate)
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Deep Throat is the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
given to the secret informant who provided information in 1972 to
Bob Woodward Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for ''The Washington Post'' as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a young reporter for ''The Washingto ...
, who shared it with
Carl Bernstein Carl Milton Bernstein ( ; born February 14, 1944) is an American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for ''The Washington Post'' in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward, and the two did much of the original new ...
. Woodward and Bernstein were reporters for ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', and Deep Throat provided key details about the involvement of
U.S. president The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's administration in what came to be known as the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
. In 2005, 31 years after Nixon's resignation and 11 years after Nixon's death, a family attorney stated that former
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) Associate Director
Mark Felt William Mark Felt Sr. (August 17, 1913 â€“ December 18, 2008) was an American law enforcement officer who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1942 to 1973 and was known for his role in the Watergate scandal. Felt wa ...
was Deep Throat. By then, Felt was suffering from dementia and had previously denied being Deep Throat, but Woodward and Bernstein then confirmed the attorney's claim.


Background

Deep Throat was first introduced to the public in the February 1974 book ''
All the President's Men ''All the President's Men'' is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for ''The Washingto ...
'' by ''The Washington Post'' reporters
Bob Woodward Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for ''The Washington Post'' as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a young reporter for ''The Washingto ...
and
Carl Bernstein Carl Milton Bernstein ( ; born February 14, 1944) is an American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for ''The Washington Post'' in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward, and the two did much of the original new ...
. According to the authors, Deep Throat was a key source of information behind a series of articles that introduced the misdeeds of the Nixon administration to the general public. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon, as well as to prison terms for White House Chief of Staff
H. R. Haldeman Harry Robbins Haldeman (October 27, 1926 – November 12, 1993) was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon and his consequent involvement in the Watergate s ...
,
G. Gordon Liddy George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, actor, and convicted felon in the Watergate scandal as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit during the Nixon admi ...
,
Egil Krogh Egil "Bud" Krogh Jr. (August 3, 1939 – January 18, 2020) was an American lawyer who became infamous as an official of the Nixon Administration and who was imprisoned for his part in the Watergate Affair. He was Senior Fellow on Ethics and Lea ...
,
White House Counsel The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...
Charles Colson Charles Wendell Colson (October 16, 1931 â€“ April 21, 2012), generally referred to as Chuck Colson, was an American attorney and political advisor who served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970. Once known as Pr ...
, former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, former White House Counsel
John Dean John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal ...
, and presidential adviser
John Ehrlichman John Daniel Ehrlichman (; March 20, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was an American political aide who served as the White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman was an important ...
. The film based on the book was released two years later; nominated for eight
Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, it won four.
Howard Simons Howard Simons (June 3, 1929 – June 13, 1989) was the managing editor of ''The Washington Post'' at the time of the Watergate scandal, and later curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Early life and education Si ...
was the managing editor of the ''Post'' during Watergate. He dubbed the secret informant "Deep Throat", alluding to both the deep background status of his information and the widely publicized 1972 pornographic film '' Deep Throat''. For more than 30 years, Deep Throat's identity was one of the biggest mysteries of American politics and journalism and the source of much public curiosity and speculation. Woodward and Bernstein insisted that they would not reveal his identity until he died or consented to reveal it.
J. Anthony Lukas Jay Anthony Lukas (April 25, 1933 – June 5, 1997) was an American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book '' Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families''. ''Common Ground'' is a classic study ...
speculated that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt in his book ''Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years'' (1976), based on three ''New York Times Sunday Magazine'' articles, but he was widely criticized. According to an article in ''Slate'' on April 28, 2003, Woodward had denied that Deep Throat was part of the "intelligence community" in a 1989 ''
Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...
'' interview with Lukas. On May 31, 2005, '' Vanity Fair'' revealed that Felt was Deep Throat in an article on its website by John D. O'Connor, an attorney acting on Felt's behalf. Felt reportedly said, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." After the ''Vanity Fair'' story broke, Woodward, Bernstein, and Benjamin C. Bradlee, the ''Post''s executive editor during Watergate, confirmed Felt's identity as Deep Throat. L. Patrick Gray, former acting Director of the FBI and Felt's overseer, disputed Felt's claim in his book ''In Nixon's Web'', co-written with his son Ed. Gray and others have argued that Deep Throat was a compilation of sources characterized as one person to improve sales of the book and movie. Woodward and Bernstein, however, defended Felt's claims and detailed their relationship with him in Woodward's book ''The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat''.


Role in the Watergate scandal

On June 17, 1972, police arrested five men inside the offices of the
Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
in the
Watergate Complex The Watergate complex is a group of six buildings in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. Covering a total of 10 acres (4 ha) just north of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the buildings incl ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
In their possession were $2,300 (equivalent to $ today), plastic gloves to hide fingerprints, burglary tools, a walkie-talkie and radio scanner capable of listening to police frequencies, cameras with 40 rolls of film, tear gas guns, multiple electronic devices which they intended to plant in the Democratic Committee offices, and notebooks containing the telephone number of White House official E. Howard Hunt. One of the men was James W. McCord Jr.; a former
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
employee and a security man for Nixon's
Committee to Re-elect the President A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
, popularly known as "CREEP". ''Washington Post'' reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward pursued the story for two years. The scandal eventually implicated many members of Nixon's White House, culminating in Nixon becoming the first United States president to resign. Woodward and Bernstein wrote in ''All the President's Men'' that key information in their investigation had come from an anonymous informant whom they dubbed "Deep Throat".


Methods of communication

Woodward, in ''All the President's Men'', first mentions "Deep Throat" on page 71. Earlier in the book, he reports calling "an old friend and sometimes source who worked for the federal government and did not like to be called at his office". Later, he describes him as "a source in the Executive Branch who had access to information at CRP as well as at the White House". The book also calls him "an incurable gossip" and states "in a unique position to observe the Executive Branch", and as a man "whose fight had been worn out in too many battles". Woodward claimed that he would signal to "Deep Throat" that he desired a meeting by moving a flowerpot with a red flag on the balcony of his apartment. When "Deep Throat" wanted a meeting, he would make special marks on page 20 of Woodward's copy of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''; he would circle the page number and draw clock hands to indicate the hour. They often met "on the bottom level of an underground
garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...
just over the Key Bridge in Rosslyn", at 2:00 a.m. The garage is located at 1401 Wilson Boulevard and has a historical marker that was erected in 2011. In 2014, the garage was scheduled to be demolished, though the county decided to save the historical marker, and the landowner promised to design a memorial commemorating the Watergate scandal. , the garage had not been demolished. Many were skeptical of these
cloak and dagger "Cloak and dagger" was a fighting style common in the Renaissance involving a knife hidden beneath a cloak. The term later came into use as a metaphor, referring to situations involving intrigue, secrecy, espionage, or mystery. Overview In " Th ...
methods. Adrian Havill investigated these claims for his 1993
biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
of Woodward and Bernstein and found them to be factually impossible. He noted that Woodward's apartment 617 at 1718 P Street, Northwest, in Washington faced an interior courtyard and was not visible from the street. Havill said that anyone regularly checking the balcony, as "Deep Throat" was said to have done daily, would have been spotted. Havill also said that copies of ''The New York Times'' were not delivered to individual apartments but delivered in an unaddressed stack to the building's reception desk. There would have been no way to know which copy was intended for Woodward. Woodward, however, has stated that in the early 1970s the interior courtyard was an alleyway and had not yet been bricked off and that his balcony was visible from street level to passing pedestrians. It was also visible, Woodward conjectured, to anyone from the FBI in surveillance of nearby embassies. Also revealed was the fact that Woodward's copy of ''The New York Times'' had his apartment number indicated on it. Former neighbor Herman Knippenberg stated that Woodward would sometimes come to his door looking for his marked copy of the ''Times'', claiming, "I like to have it in mint condition and I like to have my own copy." Further, while Woodward stressed these precautions in his book, he also admits to having called "Deep Throat" on the telephone at his home. Felt's wife recalls answering Woodward's telephone calls for Felt.


Controversy over motives

In public statements following the disclosure of his identity, Felt's family called him an "American hero", stating that he leaked information about the Watergate scandal to ''The Washington Post'' for moral and patriotic reasons. Other commentators, however, have speculated that Felt may have had more personal reasons for leaking information to Woodward. In his book ''The Secret Man'', Woodward describes Felt as a loyalist to and admirer of
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 â€“ May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation â ...
. After Hoover's death, Felt became angry and disgusted when L. Patrick Gray, a career naval officer and lawyer from the Civil Division of the
Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
, had no law ''enforcement'' experience and was appointed as Director of the FBI over Felt, a 30-year veteran of the FBI. Felt was particularly unhappy with Gray's management style at the FBI, which was markedly different from Hoover's. Felt aided Woodward and Bernstein because he knew Woodward personally, having met him years before when Woodward was in the navy. Over the course of their acquaintance, Woodward would often call Felt for advice. Instead of seeking out prosecutors at the Justice Department, or the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing, Felt was methodically solicited by Woodward to guide their investigation while keeping his own identity and involvement safely concealed. Some conservatives who worked for Nixon, such as Pat Buchanan and
G. Gordon Liddy George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, actor, and convicted felon in the Watergate scandal as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit during the Nixon admi ...
, castigated Felt and asserted their belief that Nixon was unfairly hounded from office,Morgan, Dan (June 1, 2005)
"Contemporaries Have Mixed Views"
''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', May 31, 2005.
often claiming it a "witch hunt".


Speculation concerning Mark Felt


Speculation within the White House

Although Deep Throat's identity was unconfirmed for over 30 years, there were suspicions that Felt was indeed the reporters' mysterious source long before the public acknowledgment in 2005. In 2012's ''Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat'',
Max Holland __notoc__ Max Holland (born 1950, Providence, Rhode Island) is an American journalist, author, and the editor of '' Washington Decoded'', an internet newsletter on US history that began publishing March 11, 2007. He is currently a contributing edi ...
reports that Felt leaked information to ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''. While the ''Post'' reporters did not reveal their source, ''Time'' correspondent Sandy Smith told ''Time''s lawyer,
Roswell Gilpatric Roswell Leavitt Gilpatric (November 4, 1906 – March 15, 1996) was a New York City corporate attorney and government official who served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1961–64, when he played a pivotal role in the high-stake strategie ...
, a partner of
Cravath, Swaine & Moore Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (known as Cravath) is an American white-shoe law firm with its headquarters in New York City, and an additional office in London. The firm is known for its complex and high profile litigation and mergers & acquisiti ...
. Gilpatric then passed the information to
Henry E. Peterson Henry E. Petersen (January 1, 1921 – May 29, 1991) was an attorney and United States federal government official. He served as United States Assistant Attorney General, Assistant U.S. Attorney General during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford a ...
, the
Assistant Attorney General Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an assistant attorney general. The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the advice and ...
in the Department of Criminal Justice. In turn, Peterson revealed the information to
White House Counsel The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...
John W. Dean John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal ...
, who finally reported it to
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. Nixon did not publicly acknowledge learning Deep Throat's identity. Nixon claimed that if he had done so, Felt would have publicly revealed information that would damage the FBI, as well as other powerful people and institutions. In the "smoking gun" tape, Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, stated that Felt "knows everything there is to know in the FBI." Haldeman implied that Nixon's motives for not outing Felt were not entirely altruistic, especially because Nixon himself may have been damaged by Felt's revelations.


Speculation in the press and the public

It had previously been revealed publicly that Deep Throat was definitely a man. Using this and other widespread clues, real or perceived, some members of the press and the public came to suspect Felt of being Deep Throat. For instance,
George V. Higgins George V. Higgins (November 13, 1939 – November 6, 1999) was an American author, lawyer, newspaper columnist, raconteur and college professor. He authored more than thirty books, including ''Bomber's Law,'' ''Trust,'' and ''Kennedy for the De ...
wrote in 1975: "Mark Felt knows more reporters than most reporters do, and there are some who think he had a ''Washington Post'' alias borrowed from a dirty movie." However, Woodward and Bernstein were tight-lipped concerning their informant's identity. Before Felt was revealed to be Deep Throat, only Woodward, Bernstein,
Elsa Walsh Elsa Walsh is an American journalist and author. In 1989 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and she released her book ''Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of 3 Accomplished Women'' in 1995. Walsh has worked for both ''The Was ...
and
Ben Bradlee Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (, 1921 – , 2014) was an American journalist who served as managing editor, then as executive editor of ''The Washington Post'', from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when the ''Post'' joined ''The New Y ...
knew of his identity. Ephron became obsessed with figuring out the secret of Deep Throat's identity and eventually correctly concluded that he was Mark Felt. In 1999, a 19-year-old college student, Chase Culeman-Beckman, claimed that Bernstein's son, Jacob, told her Mark 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 reportedly made this claim approximately 11 years prior, when he and Culeman-Beckman were classmates. Ephron explained that Jacob overheard her "speculations"; Carl Bernstein himself also immediately stepped forward to reject the claim, as he and Woodward did for many others. James Mann, who had worked at the ''Post'' at the time of
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
and was close to the investigation, brought a great deal of evidence together in a 1992 article in ''
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
''. Mann recalled that before the Watergate scandal, Woodward had made references to a high-placed source he had in the FBI. Mann argued that the information that Deep Throat gave Woodward could only have come from FBI files. Felt was also embittered at having been passed over for director of the FBI and believed that the FBI, in general, was hostile to the Nixon administration. In previous unrelated articles, Woodward made clear he had a highly placed source at the FBI, and there is some evidence he was friends with Felt. Woodward kept in close touch with Felt over the years, even showing up unexpectedly at the house where he was staying with his daughter, Joan, in
Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area ...
in 1999 after Felt's
dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
began. Some suspected at that time that Woodward might have asked Felt to reveal his identity, though Felt, when asked directly by others, had consistently denied being Deep Throat. In 2002,
Timothy Noah Timothy Robert Noah (born 1958), an American journalist and author, is a staff writer at ''The New Republic.'' Previously he was labor policy editor for ''Politico'', a contributing writer at MSNBC.com, a senior editor of ''The New Republic'' ass ...
called Felt "the best guess going about the identity of Deep Throat". In 1976, Assistant Attorney General John Stanley Pottinger had convened a
grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
to investigate a series of potentially illegal break-ins Felt authorized against various dissident groups. Felt was testifying before the jury when a juror asked him, out of the blue, "Were you Deep Throat?" Pottinger reports that Felt, "went white with fear". Pottinger explained to Felt that he was under oath and would have to answer truthfully. However, since Pottinger felt the question was outside the purview of the investigation, he offered to withdraw it if Felt wished. According to author
Ronald Kessler Ronald Borek Kessler (born Ronald Borek; December 31, 1943) is an American journalist and author of 21 non-fiction books about the White House, U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. Personal life Kessler was born in New York City to Dr. Ernest B ...
's book ''The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI'', Felt's daughter Joan, who was caring for her father, told Kessler in an interview for his book in August 2001 that back in the summer of 1999, Woodward showed up unexpectedly at their Santa Rosa home and took Felt to lunch. Joan told Kessler that she recalled her father greeting Woodward like an old friend. Their meeting appeared to be more of a celebration than an interview. "Woodward just showed up at the door and said he was in the area," Joan Felt was quoted as saying in Kessler's book, which was published in 2002. "He came in a white limousine, which parked at a schoolyard about ten blocks away. He walked to the house. He asked if it was okay to have a martini with my father at lunch, and I said it would be fine." Kessler said in his book that while Felt denied to him that he was Deep Throat, the measures Woodward took to conceal his meeting with Felt lent "credence" to the notion that Felt was Deep Throat. Woodward confirmed that Felt was Deep Throat in 2005. "There are plenty of people claiming they knew Deep Throat was actually former FBI man Mark Felt ..." the ''New York Post'' reported. "On May 3, 2002, PAGE SIX reported that Ronald Kessler, author of ''The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI'', says that all the evidence points to former top FBI official W. Mark Felt." In February 2005, Nixon's former
White House Counsel The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...
, news columnist
John Dean John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal ...
, reported that Woodward had recently informed Bradlee that "Deep Throat" was ailing and Bradlee had written Deep Throat's obituary. Both Woodward and the then-current editor of ''The Washington Post'',
Leonard Downie Leonard "Len" Downie Jr. (born May 1, 1942) is an American journalist who was executive editor of ''The Washington Post'' from 1991 to 2008. He worked in the ''Post'' newsroom for 44 years. His roles at the newspaper included executive editor, manag ...
, denied these claims. Felt was a suspect for Deep Throat, especially after the mysterious meeting that occurred between Woodward and Felt in the summer of 1999. But others had received more attention over the years, such as Pat Buchanan,
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, then-Associate Justice
William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...
, General
Alexander Haig Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. (; December 2, 1924February 20, 2010) was United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to and in between these c ...
, and, before "Deep Throat" was confirmed a man,
Diane Sawyer Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ''ABC World News Tonight'', ''Good Morning America'', ''20/20'', and ''Primetime'' newsmagaz ...
.


Felt's confirmation of his identity

On May 31, 2005, ''Vanity Fair'' reported that 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. On June 2, 2005, ''The Washington Post'' ran a lengthy front-page column by Woodward in which he detailed his friendship with Felt in the years before Watergate. Woodward wrote that he first met Felt by chance in 1970 when Woodward was a Navy lieutenant in his mid-20s. Woodward was dispatched to deliver a package to the White House's West Wing. Felt arrived soon after for a separate appointment and sat next to Woodward in the waiting room. Woodward struck up a conversation and eventually learned of Felt's position in the upper echelon of the FBI. Woodward, who was about to exit the Navy at the time and was unsure about his future direction in life, became determined to use Felt as a
mentor Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...
and career advisor. Therefore, he asked for Felt's phone number and kept in touch with him. After deciding to try a career as a reporter, Woodward eventually joined ''The Washington Post'' in August 1971. Felt, who had long had a dim view of the Nixon administration, began passing pieces of information to Woodward, although he insisted that Woodward keep the FBI and Justice Department out of anything he wrote based on the information. The first time Woodward used information from Felt in a ''Washington Post'' story was in mid-May 1972, a month before the Watergate burglary, when Woodward was reporting on
Arthur Bremer Arthur Herman Bremer (; born August 21, 1950) is an American convicted criminal who attempted to assassinate U.S. Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace on May 15, 1972, in Laurel, Maryland, which left Wallace permanently paralyzed ...
, who had attempted to assassinate presidential candidate
George C. Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...
. Nixon had put Felt in charge of investigating the would-be assassin. A month later, just days after the Watergate break-in, Woodward called Felt at his office, which marked the first time Woodward spoke with Felt about Watergate. Commenting on Felt's motivations for serving as Deep Throat, Woodward wrote, "Felt believed he was protecting the bureau by finding a way, clandestine as it was, to push some of the information from the FBI interviews and files out to the public, to help build public and political pressure to make Nixon and his people answerable. He had nothing but contempt for the Nixon White House and their efforts to manipulate the Bureau for political reasons." In 1980, Felt himself was convicted of ordering illegal break-ins at the homes of Weathermen suspects and their families. Richard Nixon testified on his behalf. President
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
pardoned Felt and the conviction was subsequently expunged from the record.


Composite character theory

Prior to Felt's revelation and Woodward's confirmation, part of the reason historians and other scholars had so much difficulty in identifying the real Deep Throat is that no single person seemed to truly fit the character described in ''All the President's Men''. This had caused some scholars and commentators to come to the conclusion that Deep Throat could not possibly be a single person, and must be a composite of several sources. Woodward and Bernstein consistently denied the theory. From a literary business perspective, this theory was further supported by David Obst, the agent who originally marketed the draft for ''All the President's Men'', who stated that the initial typescript of the book contained absolutely no reference to Deep Throat. Obst believed that Deep Throat was invented by Woodward and Bernstein for dramatic purposes. It also led to speculation that the authors played at condensing history in the same way Hollywood scriptwriters do. Ed Gray, the son of L. Patrick Gray III, stated in ''In Nixon's Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate'' that his examination of Woodward's interview notes pertaining to Deep Throat at the
Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
provided "convincing evidence that 'Deep Throat' was indeed a fabrication". According to Gray, the file contained notes regarding four interviews that were attributed to either Felt, "X", or "my friend", and a fifth interview dated March 24, 1973, that was unattributed. He said he discovered that he had already seen the paper in 2006 after Woodward released interview files with people who were not Deep Throat. Gray wrote that he contacted Stephen Mielke, the archivist who oversees the Woodward-Bernstein collection at the University of Texas, who said that a carbon copy of the paper contained a note in Woodward's handwriting attributing the interview to Donald Santarelli, an official with the Department of Justice during the Watergate era. Gray wrote that he contacted Santarelli who confirmed that the March 24 meeting was with him. Other interview notes attributed to "X" were interpreted by Gray as containing content that could not have been known by Felt. Regarding Gray's allegations, Woodward wrote that the March 24 notes were obviously not from an interview with Felt because Felt is referred to by name twice in quotes from the source and that he never stated or wrote that he met with Deep Throat on that date. According to Woodward, Mielke said the page was likely misfiled under Felt due to a lack of source.


Other suspected candidates


Fred Fielding

Another leading candidate was White House Associate Counsel Fred F. Fielding. In April 2003 Fielding was presented as a potential candidate as a result of a detailed review of source material by
William Gaines William Maxwell Gaines (; March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992), was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics. Following a shift in EC's direction in 1950, Gaines presided over what became an artistically influential and historically import ...
and his journalism students, as part of a class at the
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
journalism school. Fielding was the assistant to John Dean and as such had access to the files relating to the affair. Gaines believed that statements by Woodward ruled out Deep Throat's being in the FBI and that Deep Throat often had information before the FBI did. H. R. Haldeman himself suspected Fielding as being Deep Throat. Dean had been one of the most dedicated hunters of Deep Throat. Both he and
Leonard Garment Leonard Garment (May 11, 1924 – July 13, 2013) was an American attorney, public servant, and arts advocate. He served U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the White House in various positions from 1969 to 1976, including Counselor ...
dismissed Fielding as a possibility, reporting that he had been cleared by Woodward in 1980 when Fielding was applying for an important position in the Reagan administration. However, this assertion, which comes from Fielding, has not been corroborated. One reason that many experts believed that Deep Throat was Fielding and not Felt was due to Woodward's apparent denial in an interview that "Deep Throat" worked in the intelligence community: : LUKAS: Do you resent the implication by some critics that your sources on Watergateamong them the fabled Deep Throatmay have been people in the intelligence community? : WOODWARD: I resent it because it's untrue.


Other credible candidates

Any candidate who died before the Felt admission ceased to fit Woodward's criteria at that time since Woodward had stated that he was free to reveal Deep Throat's identity once the person had died. *
John Ehrlichman John Daniel Ehrlichman (; March 20, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was an American political aide who served as the White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman was an important ...
: Nixon advisor. Died in 1999. *
Ron Ziegler Ronald Louis Ziegler (May 12, 1939 – February 10, 2003) was the 13th White House Press Secretary and Assistant to the President, serving during United States President Richard Nixon's administration. Early life Ziegler was born to Louis Daniel ...
: press secretary. Died in 2003. * William E. Colby: head of the CIA. Died in 1996. * Charles W. Bates: FBI executive whom Mann mentioned but considered less likely than Felt. * William C. Sullivan: former head of the FBI intelligence operations, fired by J. Edgar Hoover in 1971. Died in 1977. * L. Patrick Gray: acting FBI director who lived only four blocks away from Woodward, accused by a
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
documentary. Died in 2005. * Robert Kunkel: FBI Washington Bureau Chief whom Mann considered less likely than Felt, as he moved to
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
partway through the investigation. *
Cord Meyer Cord Meyer Jr. (; November 10, 1920 – March 13, 2001) was a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official. After serving in World War II as a Marine officer in the Pacific War, where he was both injured and decorated, he led the United World Fe ...
: CIA agent suggested in Mark Riebling's '' Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA''. However, Woodward stated that "Deep Throat" was not part of the intelligence community. Died in 2001. * Raymond Price: Nixon speechwriter. *
Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
technicians: Richard Cohen argued it was whoever in the Secret Service maintained Nixon's secret taping devices. * Richard Ober, the chief of the CIA's domestic spying program called
Operation CHAOS Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was a Central Intelligence Agency domestic espionage project targeting the American people from 1967 to 1974, established by President Lyndon B. Johnson and expanded under President Richard Nixon, whose mission ...
.


Less credible candidates

*
William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...
: Late Chief Justice of the United States, had a position in the Department of Justice early in the Nixon administration, working for
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
John N. Mitchell. More than five months before the Watergate break-in, he was appointed to the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
and it would have been almost impossible for him to have had access to much of the information attributed to "Deep Throat". In February 2005, Dean reported that "Deep Throat" was ailing, and Rehnquist was known to be suffering from cancer, which caused his death later that year. The report caused a resurgence of speculation that Rehnquist was "Deep Throat". However, Woodward later stated that the notion that "Deep Throat" was ailing had been a misunderstanding. *
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
: Nixon's
National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...
and Secretary of State, was out of the country on some of the dates Woodward reported to have met with "Deep Throat". *
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
: Was nominated in February 2005 by Adrian Havillauthor of a 1993 biography of Woodward and Bernstein, ''Deep Truth'' () – following the unveiling of Woodward's notes at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. Havill had argued in his biography that "Deep Throat" was a composite figure, but stated in a letter to ''
Poynter Online The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Netw ...
'' that based on more recent events and research, he now believed "Deep Throat" was George H. W. Bush. * General
Alexander Haig Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. (; December 2, 1924February 20, 2010) was United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to and in between these c ...
: Authors Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin speculated in their 1991 book ''Silent Coup: The Removal of a President'' that Haig may have been "Deep Throat". Died in 2010. *
Diane Sawyer Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ''ABC World News Tonight'', ''Good Morning America'', ''20/20'', and ''Primetime'' newsmagaz ...
: Was hired by White House press secretary Ron Ziegler to serve in the Richard Nixon Administration. On his deathbed, Nixon supporter
Baruch Korff Baruch Korff (July 4, 1914 – July 26, 1995) was an American Orthodox rabbi. He was a longtime Jewish community activist who was associated with the Irgun and Lehi groups. Korff was a close political confidant of Richard Nixon, and was known as ...
wrongly claimed that Sawyer was Deep Throat. * Ben Stein: A Nixon speechwriter and the son of Nixon economic advisor
Herbert Stein Herbert Stein (August 27, 1916 – September 8, 1999) was an American economist, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a member of the board of contributors of ''The Wall Street Journal''. He was the chairman of the Council ...
; later an actor, political commentator, and
game show host A game show host is an individual who manages a game show, introduces contestants, and asks quiz questions to test the knowledge of said contestants. They may also have other duties pertinent to production. History In 1938, Freddie Grisewood w ...
. *
Gerald R. Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
: Suggestion that Ford may have been Deep Throat as he was next in line for the presidency. * Pat Buchanan: Served as special assistant to the President, was nominated as a potential candidate by Dean in his June 2002 book ''Unmasking Deep Throat''. Buchanan repeatedly denied the claim, stating in a ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine article on the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in that "The last time I cooperated with ''The Washington Post''...was in 1952, when I was a paperboy delivering the damn thing in Northwest Washington." Buchanan was very interested in the mystery, however, and had a number of theories. He was most sympathetic to the idea of a composite Deep Throat. *
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
himself: There was some suggestion that Nixon had used back-channels to communicate with Woodward in a bizarre attempt to showcase his persecution by the media which backfired horrifically. This theory was largely discredited. *
J. Fred Buzhardt Joseph Fred Buzhardt Jr (February 21, 1924 – December 16, 1978) was an American attorney and public servant. He is best known for serving as special White House Counsel to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Previously he had served as Ge ...
: White House counsel to President Nixon. *
G. Gordon Liddy George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, actor, and convicted felon in the Watergate scandal as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit during the Nixon admi ...
: Member of the
White House Plumbers The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, the Room 16 Project, or more officially, the White House Special Investigations Unit, was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established within a week after the public ...
. Largely dismissed.


In popular culture

*
Hal Holbrook Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director, and screenwriter. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show that he developed called ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' ...
portrayed Deep Throat in the film adaptation of ''
All the President's Men ''All the President's Men'' is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for ''The Washingto ...
'' (1976), in which he uttered the catchphrase, " Follow the money". * In the video game ''
Metal Gear Solid is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces opera ...
'' (1998) the character Grey Fox uses the codename "Deepthroat" in reference to Watergate to provide advice to the main character Solid Snake. * In the comedy film ''
Dick Dick, Dicks, or Dick's may refer to: Media * ''Dicks'' (album), a 2004 album by Fila Brazillia * Dicks (band), a musical group * ''Dick'' (film), a 1999 American comedy film * "Dick" (song), a 2019 song by Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat Names ...
'' (1999), Deep Throat is revealed as being two teenage Washingtonian girls who worked as Nixon's dog walkers. * In the
spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
'' Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House'' (2017),
Liam Neeson William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed 7th on ''The I ...
portrays Mark Felt. * In the coming-of-age supernatural comedy horror television series ''
Wednesday Wednesday is the day of the week between Tuesday and Thursday. According to international standard ISO 8601, it is the third day of the week. In countries which have Friday as their holiday, Wednesday is the fifth day of the week. In countrie ...
'' (2022), Episode 6,
Jenna Ortega Jenna Marie Ortega (born September 27, 2002) is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress, receiving recognition for her role as young Jane in The CW comedy-drama series ''Jane the Virgin'' (2014–2019). Her breakthrough ro ...
portrays the character
Wednesday Addams Wednesday Addams is a fictional character from the Addams Family multimedia franchise created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. She is typically portrayed as a morbid and emotionally reserved child that is fascinated by the macabre, often ...
and makes the remark "Seems like our wannabe Deep Throat is already here."


References


External links

*
Ann Coulter Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
(June 8, 2005),
Woodward does Washington
.

a June 2, 2005 article from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
Special Reports page on Deep Throat
from ''The Washington Post''
Former FBI agent says 3 FBI officials helped W. Mark Felt leak information about Watergate probe to the press
a June 5, 2005 article from the Albany '' Times-Union'' {{FBI American whistleblowers Sources (journalism) Watergate scandal Secrecy