[Mb-civic] CBC News - WASHINGTON POST CONFIRMS FORMER FBI OFFICIAL WAS 'DEEP THROAT'

Tue May 31 17:22:36 PDT 2005

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WASHINGTON POST CONFIRMS FORMER FBI OFFICIAL WAS 'DEEP THROAT'
WebPosted Tue May 31 12:04:20 2005

---The Washington Post confirmed on Tuesday that W. Mark Felt, a former
deputy associate director of the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the source that
provided the newspaper with some of its biggest scoops during the
Watergate scandal.

Felt, who lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., had long been suspected of being
the anonymous source used by the Post. Watergate eventually led to the
resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Vanity Fair magazine unveiled his claim on Tuesday, promoting an upcoming
article. It was confirmed by his family shortly after.

"The family believes my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American
hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to
himself to save his country from a horrible injustice," said grandson
Nick Jones, reading from a statement. "We all sincerely hope the country
will see him this way as well."

"As he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think Deep Throat
was a criminal, but now they think he was a hero.'"

The Vanity Fair article, to appear in the magazine's July issue, says
the 91-year-old's two children persuaded their father to come forward.
Felt gave the article's author, John D. O'Connor, permission to reveal
his identity.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt told O'Connor, the
magazine said in a press release issued on Tuesday.

Felt told O'Connor he felt he was "doing his duty" and wasn't trying to
topple Nixon, says the article.

It has been reported that Nixon believed Felt was the source of
the leaks.

Carl Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward, broke many of the Watergate
stories in the Post, confirmed Felt's claims.

In a statement the two reporters 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."

Woodward and Bernstein had previously said they would only identify their
source when he died.

        Former Post editor Ben Bradlee, the third and final person to
        know the identity, also confirmed that Felt was the source.

Felt was first identified as Deep Throat in 1992 by author Ronald Kessler
in an Atlantic Monthly article.

Nicknamed after a porn movie popular at the time, Deep Throat's role in
Watergate was divulged in Woodward and Bernstein's book All the
President's Men . A 1976 film of the same name won an Academy Award for
its screenplay.