Deep Throat revealed

By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]

"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."
--Adam Smith

Deep Throat has been revealed, putting to rest 31-year mystery. W. Mark Felt, the former deputy director of the FBI has revealed himself to be the "deep background" source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Watergate investigation. (Why does everyone connected with Watergate have a name like that? W. Mark Felt, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, L. Patrick Gray...was that in during the '70s?)

For those who might not know, here's the Watergate recap: Someone broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel. The thieves had ties to the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and the Nixon White House was linked to the cover-up, culminating in the jailing of several aides and cabinet members and President Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974.

Many words have been used to describe Felt. Altruist is not one of them.

His family said that they admitted his identity to try to make some money off of it. Woodward had said that he, Bernstein and Post editor Ben Bradlee were the only ones who knew the source's identity, and would not reveal it until Deep Throat's death.

The image cultivated (or at least inferred) was of a man fed up of the criminality of the Nixon White House who met with a reporter out of nobility with great personal risk.

That's no longer the case, at least not entirely.

Felt was passed over for the FBI director's position after J. Edgar Hoover (ANOTHER ONE!) died in 1972, before the break-in at Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.

He might have acted out of some sense of his own values, but his own personal interests must be considered. Additionally, Felt was convicted (but later pardoned) of illegal wiretaps and searches, which makes him a little bit of a hypocrite. The short-term results of Watergate were instantly noticed. In less than two years, Nixon had gone from being regarded as one of the greatest presidents of all time and the first man to win 49 of 50 states to resigning in disgrace.

The long-term results, though, are a little muddier, and a little less encouraging. Watergate was the high-water mark for newspaper journalism in the United States. While newspaper circulation had started dropping and more people were starting to get their news from television, it was two newspaper reporters (for a small, relatively unknown paper at the time) who found this story and wouldn't let it die.

After that, people found journalism a noble calling and enrollment in J-schools swelled. Today, there are more people engaged in public or media relations than there are journalists.

What the hell happened?

In short, wages suck. Newspapers continue to die. Advertising revenues continue to shrink. And idealism only goes so far.
Deep Throat was a deep background source, which meant that he couldn't be quoted, but many reporters started using anonymous sources, or started using them more.

The lesson lost from "All the President's Men" is that every fact was confirmed by at least three sources if it couldn't be attributed.

And that's where the problem started. Jayson Blair's anonymous sources turned out to be fabricated, and many other people have gotten caught using sources that couldn't be verified.

They say Watergate was the moment where America lost its innocence. The revelation of Deep Throat's identity makes us all a little older and a little more cynical.