follow the money

At last, one of the greatest enduruing questions in American politics has been answered. Mark Felt has admitted to being Deep Throat, the engimatic Watergate source.

For over 30 years the identity of Deep Source has remained a secret. It has been a constant throughout changing and turbulent times.

I am a bit of a Watergate buff, and have followed the sleuthing with interest over the years. The revelation that Felt is DT is not a surprise to many. Felt has been a suspect almost from the beginning.

The information that DT had seemed to track with what the FBI knew. And the question of motive is a big one. There was no obvious reason why a White Source source would give the information DT did, information that proved very damaging. The White House people tended to be very loyal to Nixon.

(Last night on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan, a Nixon speechwriter, and at times named as a possible suspect, jokingly said "I've always known it wasn't me!")

However, this will not put an end to questions. It is certainly curious why such a high-ranking FBI agent would leak information from an ongoing criminal investigation to reporters. That in itself is almost certainly a crime.

Speculation has focused on whether Felt was upset at being passed over as director of the FBI when Nixon installed Gray, a pure political appointee. Perhaps. Felt rose in ranks under Hoover, and for all the usual talk from his family that Felt is such a sweet guy, it's hard to believe Felt got to such a high position in Hoover's FBI without getting a little dirt under his nails. The FBI rank and file were understandably upset that Nixon seemed to want to politicize the FBI, and indeed tried to prevent it from investigating Watergate.

Yet, if Felt had information that crimes were being committed, he should have taken it to the Justice Dept and the US Attorney, and if they sat on it, then he could go public, call a press conference and reveal all. This skullduggery with reporters doesn't make much sense. (And it is unfortunate that the public's enduring image of DT will always be Hal Holbrook in the shadows in the movie.)

I think the more interesting questions yet to be answered center around Woodward. Is DT indeed a composite, as many have wondered? Some of the information DT supposedly provided doesn't seem to comport with what Felt knew. Also, some of crazier aspects of the DT myth, such as red flags in potted plants and circled newspapers, don't seem to fit the behavior of such a high-ranking FBI agent. And some of the information DT have turned out to be wrong.

Regarding the meetings, the potted plant wasn't visible from the street, so Felt would've had to go down an alley, and the thought of Felt creeping into an apt lobby to circle newspapers seems odd.

A big question has to do with Woodward's claim that DT told him about the infamous 18.5 minute gap on one of the White House tapes. It is hard to see how Felt could've had knowledge of this gap at the time DT supposedly said this. This is another reason why some think DT is a composite of sources.

If Woodward did indeed make up things about DT, even to disguise his source, (Felt was supposedly not a heavy drinker, nor a smoker at that time) it does raise questions about what else is not entirely true. (And let's not forget Woodward's strange "conversation" with a comatose Bill Casey for his book "Veil", a book I have on my shelf.)

Watergate is one of the greatest stories in American politics. Perhaps made all the more so because no one was murdered, which makes the story safer. At long last, we finally know the answer to a secret, something that doesn't always happen.

(btw, here is a compelling argument that Woodward, Bernstein and the press were not the critical factor in breaking Watergate. To be sure, they were instrumental in keeping the public focused on the scandal, making the coverup much harder, and eventually mpossible. Note this was written all the way back in 1974!

And here is a page with some good DT links to read.)