Deep Throat's identity revealed

This is not original reporting. All information has been compiled from The Washington Post article "FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat'" and the Vanity Fair article "I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat." Silver Chips Online posts these news summaries to provide readers with a forum for discussion.

FBI official W. Mark Felt was revealed yesterday as Deep Throat, the secret informant to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal. The Washington Post confirmed Felt's role in the Watergate scandal shortly after the story was released by Vanity Fair.

Felt's pivotal role in the Watergate scandal was revealed in a Vanity Fair magazine article by San Francisco attorney John D. O'Connor and then confirmed by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. During the time of the Watergate investigations, Felt was second-in-command at the FBI.

Americans, conspiracy theorists among them, have speculated as to the identity of Deep Throat for the past 33 years since Watergate and President Richard Nixon's subsequent resignation. The media's investigation of the scandal, spearheaded by Woodward and Bernstein, relied on Deep Throat for fact confirmation and occasional leads. Before the official release of Deep Throat's identity, Patrick Buchanan, Henry Kissinger and Diane Sawyer, among other top political figures of the time, were suspected of being the famed informant, according to The Washington Post.

The Watergate scandal began on June 17, 1972, when five men, later verified as working for the Republican Party, were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex by the Potomac River. Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of the Republicans' connections to the White House led them to the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) and eventually to Nixon himself.

Although the investigation's success was due in large part to the reporters' "investigative" journalism, according to Vanity Fair, Deep Throat's guidance steered the reporters in the right direction by providing leads and information conformation. While Felt refrained from providing direct information to the reporters, he either confirmed or denied their "confidential information."

As the Post's investigation advanced, Deep Throat "began providing leads and outlining an administration-sanctioned conspiracy," according to O'Connor in Vanity Fair. He set up intricate procedures for meeting with Woodward: if Woodward wanted to initiate contact, he would place a flowerpot with a red flag in it on his balcony; if Deep Throat wanted to initiate contact, he would draw a clock on page 20 of Woodward's New York Times. To ensure his meetings with Deep Throat were private, Woodward would take two cabs and walk a short distance to an underground parking garage.

Deep Throat, or Felt, was motivated by his patriotism and belief in the "soul of the bureau," O'Connor wrote. When Nixon nominated outsider L. Patrick Gray to take over as interim head of the FBI following former head J. Edgar Hoover's death, Felt saw the move as a threat to the bureau's independence. His misgivings were furthered when he was told off by Nixon and Gray for attempting to further federal investigation of the Watergate scandal, O'Connor wrote.

Officially, Woodward, Bernstein and former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee were the only ones aware of Deep Throat's true identity – according to the reporters, Felt provided guidance only on the condition of anonymity. Due to his failing health and failing memory, Felt's children convinced him to reveal his secret to the public. In doing so, he finally banished the mystery long surrounding the scandal.