Deep Throat Revealed!
By Karl-Thomas Musselman
It's W. Mark Felt. We think. Maybe. For now.
Update: It's him, WaPo and W&B confim it. Read.
Previously.... Most news outlets are putting it somewhere between top news story to something a couple notches down. The main reason being it is Mr. Felt that has said it is him, rather than the Washington Post or Woodward and Berstein. From the MSNBC story..
In 2003, Woodward and Bernstein reached an agreement to keep their Watergate papers at the University of Texas at Austin.
At the time, the pair said documents naming “Deep Throat” would be kept secure at an undisclosed location in Washington until the source’s death.
Bernstein issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt's claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies.
The Washington Post had no immediate comment on the report.
Who was the real Deep Throat was long a source of speculation and rumor.
Among those named over the years as Deep Throat were Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, and even ABC newswoman Diane Sawyer, who then worked in the White House press office. Ron Zeigler, Nixon’s press secretary, White House aide Steven Bull, speechwriters Ray Price and Pat Buchanan, and John Dean, the White House counsel who warned Nixon of “a cancer growing on the presidency,” also were considered candidates.
And some theorized Deep Throat wasn’t a single source at all but a composite figure.
The last time there was a flurry of focus on Felt was in 1999, when a high school senior in New York claimed that Bernstein's son let the secret slip at a summer camp.
At the time, Felt denied he was the man.
“I would have done better,” Felt told The Hartford Courant. “I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn’t exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?”
So is it him? Is this the finale, or do we have to wait a few more years once again? Your thoughts?
Posted by Karl-Thomas Musselman at May 31, 2005 03:44 PM
| TrackBack
It's him. I've been in the archives, I've read the books, I've listened to W&B, Krogh, Dean, and others talk about it. It being Felt makes sense for the following reasons:
1. Much of the information that DT gave was incorrect or misleading according to Dean. Felt was close enough to hear all of the rumors that were floating around without knowing for sure what was and waht wasn't.
2. It dismisses the Silent Coup theory which said it was a neo-con conspiracy to end moderate conservatism (had it been Buchanan or Bush perhaps).
3. It probably dismisses the "Reveal to save the presidency" theory that some have offered up saying that Deep Throat wanted to get Wateragate behind them.
4. The actor who played deep throat (Hal Holbrook) kind of looks like Felt.
5. Couldn't tie it directly to Nixon but rather by proxy through Haldeman. Had it been someone in the inner-circle or in the plumbers they could have said it was Nixon and not say that Haldeman or Erlichman were involved.
6. No one is denying it.
