Talk:Deep Throat (Watergate)/May 23, 2005 revision

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"Deep Throat" was the name given to Bob Woodward's secret informant who leaked information about United States President Richard Nixon's involvement in Watergate. He was an important source for Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who together wrote a series of articles about Watergate in the Washington Post. The scandal would eventually lead to the resignation of the president, and prison terms for White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and presidential adviser John Ehrlichman.

Deep Throat came to public attention when Woodward and Bernstein wrote All the President's Men, a book also made into an Academy Award-winning movie. In the movie, Deep Throat was portrayed by Hal Holbrook.

According to Woodward, Deep Throat was nervous that his role in the Post investigation would be discovered. He demanded that the two stop conversing by phone, thinking that the line may be tapped, and they began meeting late at night in a Washington parking garage. If Woodward wanted a meeting with Deep Throat, the reporter would rearrange a potted plant in his apartment window. If Deep Throat wanted a meeting with Woodward, the source would somehow ensure that page number 20 of Woodward's daily New York Times delivery was circled. Woodward claims that Deep Throat never gave him specific information but only confirmed information given by others and suggested avenues to explore.

The name Deep Throat came from the X-rated movie "Deep Throat", which was popular during the period; it is also a play on the phrase deep background.

Identity

Deep Throat's identity is known only to four people: Woodward; Bernstein; their editor at the time, Benjamin C. Bradlee; and, of course, Deep Throat himself.

Woodward has said in repeated interviews that the identity of Deep Throat will be kept confidential until Deep Throat dies, or until Deep Throat agrees to let his name be made public. In February 2005, Nixon White House counsel (now columnist) John Dean reported [1] that Woodward had recently informed Bradlee that Deep Throat was ill, and that Bradlee had written Deep Throat's obituary. Both Woodward and the current editor of the Post, Leonard Downie, have denied these claims.

Over the years, there have been a number of hints and guesses as to the identity of Deep Throat, and much speculation.

Woodward has confirmed that Deep Throat:

is male;
was a specific man in Nixon's administration, and not a composite; and

Woodward has given specific denials to only six possibilities:

Leading candidates

Generally acknowledged to be the two leading candidates are W. Mark Felt and Fred Fielding.

W. Mark Felt

W. Mark Felt was the third highest official in the FBI at the time of Watergate. James Mann, who had worked at the Post at the time of Watergate and was close to the investigation, brought a great deal of evidence together in a 1992 article in Atlantic Monthly that fingered Felt and convinced many. He argued that the information Deep Throat gave Woodward could only have come from FBI files. Felt was also embittered at having been passed over for the Director General position and the FBI in general was hostile to the Nixon administration. In previous unrelated articles Woodward had made clear he had a highly placed source at the FBI and there is some evidence he was friends with Felt. Felt was Richard Nixon's personal candidate as Deep Throat. Bernstein's son blurted to others that Felt was Deep Throat many years ago. Bernstein's wife at that time, Nora Ephron, tried to explain it away, saying that their son overheard her "speculations." Woodward has kept in close touch with Felt over the years, even showing up unexpected at his house in 1999, after Felt's dementia began. Some suspected at that time that Woodward might be asking Felt if he could reveal him to be Deep Throat, though Felt, when asked directly by others, has consistently denied being Deep Throat.

Fred Fielding

In April 2003 Fred F. Fielding was presented as a potential candidate as a result of a detailed review of source material by William Gaines and his journalism students. [2] [3]. Fielding was assistant to White House Counsel John Dean and as such had access to the files relating to the affair. Gaines feels that statements by Woodward rule out Deep Throat being in the FBI and the Deep Throat often had information before the FBI did. H.R. Haldeman suspected Fielding as being Deep Throat. Ironically John Dean has been one of the most dedicated hunters of Deep Throat. Both he and Leonard Garment 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 White House. However this assertion, which comes from Fielding, has not been backed up by anyone else.

Famous candidates

It has been common to accuse people who are unlikely to be Deep Throat, but who were famous at the time or have become so in later years. It is deeply unlikely that the highest profile members of the Nixon administration could have snuck around Washington and hid in parking garages.

Henry Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, was out of the country on some of the dates Woodward reports to have met with Deep Throat.
Melvin R. Laird served as Nixon's Secretary of Defense. Like Kissinger, he was outside of the country when he was meant to have been meeting with Woodward.
Ben Stein, a Nixon speechwriter and later entertainer.
Pat Buchanan, who served as special assistant to the President, was nominated as a potential candidate by Dean in his June 2002 book "Unmasking Deep Throat". [4].
George H. W. Bush was nominated in February 2005 by Adrian Havill — author of a 1993 biography of Woodward and Bernstein, Deep Truth (ISBN 1559721723) — following the unveiling of Woodward's notes at the University of Texas. Havill had argued in his biography that Deep Throat was a composite figure, but stated in a letter to Poynter Online that based on more recent events and research, he now believed Deep Throat was George H. W. Bush.
William H. Rehnquist, currently Chief Justice of the United States, had a position in the Department of Justice early in the Nixon administration. In 2004 Dean reported that Deep Throat was ailing, leading many to point to Rehnquist. However Woodward later stated that the notion that Deep Throat was ailing was a misunderstanding. In February 2005, a poll conducted by Editor and Publisher Magazine amongst journalists reported that 15 percent thought that Rehnquist was Deep Throat. Rehnquist worked for Attorney General John Mitchell early in the Nixon administration. More than five months before the Watergate break-in he was appointed to the Supreme Court and it would have been almost impossible for him to have had access to much of the information Deep Throat is meant to have provided.

Other candidates

Charles W. Bates, FBI executive that Mann mentioned but considered less likely than Felt
L. Patrick Gray, The FBI director, who lived only four blocks away from Woodward, was fingered by a CBS documentary.
Robert Kunkel, FBI Washington Bureau Chief that Mann mentioned but considered less likely than Felt as he moved to St. Louis partway through the investigation
Cord Meyer, CIA agent fingered in Mark Riebling's Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and the CIA, however in an interview Woodward stated that Deep Throat was not part of the intelligence community.
Raymond Price, Nixon speechwriter
Stephen Bull, administrative assistant
Lowell Weicker, is Pat Buchanan's candidate for Deep Throat
Secret Service technicians, Richard Cohen argued it was whoever in the secret service maintained Nixon's secret taping devices

Deceased candidates

Since Dean's February 2005 article indicates that Deep Throat is still alive, we can logically also rule out the now deceased:

John Ehrlichman, Nixon advisor
Ron Ziegler, press secretary
William E. Colby, head of the CIA