Report: Ex- FBI official says he was 'Deep Throat'

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Vernal45

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Report: Ex- FBI official says he was 'Deep Throat'


NEW YORK (AP) -- A former FBI official says he was the source called "Deep Throat" who leaked secrets about President Nixon's Watergate coverup to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.

W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's source, the magazine said.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told lawyer John D. O'Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a press release.

Felt was initially adamant about remaining silent on the subject, thinking disclosures about his past somehow dishonorable.

"I don't think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of," Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. "You (should) not leak information to anyone."

Felt is a retiree living in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his daughter, Joan, the magazine said. He could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press.

The Washington Post had no immediate comment.

Felt is one of a number of people who have been named over the years as the source whose disclosures helped bring down the Nixon presidency. Others include 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.

In 1999, 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?"

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/31/deep.throat.ap/index.html
 
Who cares? I mean really, it might be an interesting historical footnote, but the news is reacting like it's something that's really important. And it's not.
 
I am glad Felt came out, with his I.D. he made a very honorable choice, and helped to bring down, a very corrupt self serving clown.... this settles a piece of the puzzle of the past. importance, as interests, and honorable actions.... are a personal choice.
 
That wasn't the whole article...
Felt was convicted in 1980 on charges he ordered FBI agents to break into homes without search warrants...
Does anyone else find this terribly ironic?
 
I'm confused. . . I see the name of the thread starter, and yet the story inside doesn't bash cops. Am I missing something?

:neener:


on topic: It's neat, but I don't see what the big deal is. Given that he didn't get a promotion he was expecting and his 1980 conviction, it sounds like sour grapes were probably a bigger motive than doing the right thing. Not to mention the payment he probably received from Vanity Fair.
 
I will respect the man's age, but imho he is no more than a TB, i.e., traitorous b------. YMMV
 
rock jock....I was not addressing Nixon's abilities....but his poor circus choices.
 
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Ah, that's the question. I he a traitor, or is he a hero? My opinion is somewhere inbetween. Calling him a hero is too much, given that his motives were less than honorable (revenge). BUt, calling him a traitor is too much. He swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of teh United States, not to any individual in the Nixon administration
 
Here, here...
Oath of office:

I (name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

No member of the US government swears allegience to any person in the government.
We do not swear allegiance to the president.
 
Mark Felt..was surely not a traitor, and my call of a hero exceeds his actions...he did what was right, and did it, in a fashion, that when the truth did come out, it came out with data and the story. For Nixon to be so self centered,and so involved with his personal self image that he stooped to such dis-honable actions...for himself, and our country....this speaks for itself. He did right, for the sake of doing the right thing....
 
How about we just call him a person who was willing to do slimy things when it served his purpose, but was also willing to blow the whistle when frustrated by his failure to advance to the levels he thought he deserved to be at, when he was passed over as head of the FBI?
 
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