May 31, 2005
Ex-FBIer Felt says he's Deep Throat; Woodward confirms
30 years of pools are out the window. 91 year-old W. Mark Felt, a former FBI official, came out of the proverbial woodwork to announce himself as "Deep Throat," the near-legendary anonymous Watergate source.
Felt spoke to writer John O'Connor for a Vanity Fair piece in their July issue.
"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post writers who originally broke the Watergate saga confirmed Felt's identity as "Deep Throat." Also coming clean on Felt's identity is former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee.Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif. reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity.
"The Felt family cooperated fully, providing old photographs for the story and agreeing to sit for portraits," Vanity Fair stated in a press release.
The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories.Hmph. I had my money on someone actually inside the White House, and certainly someone much closer to Nixon.In a statement today, Woodward and Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."
He's a hero, and Linda Tripp is a villain, go figure.
Posted by: Rodney Dill at June 1, 2005 09:23 PMI wonder if he "felt" any pangs of guilt to have Nixon testify on his behalf when he was on trial for ordering agents to break into the homes of some of the "Weathermen." I doubt it. Hero to some, hypocrite to others, I say.
Posted by: ccs178 (Chris) at June 2, 2005 10:03 AMA hero faces the enemy had on. A hero puts their life on the line to save others. A hero stands up to exposes wrong and fights for justice. A hero accepts the consequences of their actions.
A coward leaks information on the condition his identity remains secret. A coward lives in fear because he knows what he did was wrong.
Only in this day and age would a cowardly act be considered heroic.
Posted by: Bob at June 3, 2005 03:37 PM