Watergate source exposed
Photo from Vanity Fair / WVLT
That is right after 30+ years the legendary Deep Throat source for Woodward and Bernstein as come out. It turns out that it was W Mark Felt (a retired FBI agent that was at one point in the second highest FBI office). Felt comes out in the July Vaniety Fair article.
Felt is now 91, retired, and living in California. He says that he said silent because he feared being charged with a crime - a FBI revealing details of a current investigation is illegal be it to a reporter or a friend - and that he was not proud of what he did. There had been many theories on who Deep Throat was, and Felt was one of the suspects, but in 1999 Felt said he was not Deep Throat and that if he was he would have done a better job. He also claimed at the time that Deep Throat and his information did not bring down the Nixon Whitehouse. Felt kept his involvement in the story a secret from his own family until 2002. Felt’s admission will effectively kill all plans of a tell all expose’ from Woodward and Bernstein that has always been promised at the death of “deep throat”.
“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.”
Full stories here - MSNBC, Chi Tribune , WVLT, and NY Times
**** UPDATE ****
Bernstein has released a comment saying that he and Woodward agreed to not reveal the source of Deep Throat until Deep Throat dies so they will not confirm or deny Felt’s charges. This is obviously a attempt to keep some secrecy and a possible reveal / expose project of Deep Throat alive for the future.
