Tom Shachtman & Len Colodny

June 3, 2005
The "unmasking" of Deep Throat as the FBI's former Assistant Director, Mark Felt, in Vanity Fair, and the confirmation of the story by The Washington Post, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein, raises more questions than it answers.

If, indeed, Felt was Deep Throat, was he a hero or a criminal?

A crucial example provides food for thought. Deep Throat supposedly revealed to Woodward that there were "deliberate erasures" on the Nixon tapes. The resulting story, in the Washington Post in November 1973, began a firestorm that helped push President Nixon toward his eventual removal from office. But Felt had by then resigned from the FBI, five months earlier. He had either made the tape erasures himself, or knew who had done so, and as a citizen and a former high law enforcement official had an obligation to report the crime to the Bureau or to Judge Sirica, who was hearing the case. In not reporting the crime, but telling reporter Bob Woodward about it, Felt was, at the very least, committing his own crime: obstruction of justice.

What is more likely is that Felt was not the source for this particular "Woodstein" story, since the tape erasures were a closely-held secret in the White House at that time. SILENT COUP, Chapter 22 (the definitive work on the 18 1/2 minute gap), has more information on the subject of who, precisely, could have made such a leak.

Second example. If Felt was Deep Throat, he did not tell Bob Woodward about the most important FBI-related Watergate story of the summer of 1972, which involved Alfred Baldwin's decision to come forward and tell the FBI (and the U.S. Attorney's office), that he had recorded 250 conversations in the DNC Watergate office prior to the June 1972 break-in. If Felt was Deep Throat, why would he have kept this very explosive Baldwin story from the ace reporter? (The Baldwin story was broken, late in the year, by the Los Angeles Times.)

Both Woodward and Felt have earlier categorically denied that Felt was Deep Throat. Now Woodward says he met Felt in 1970, in the white House, while Woodward was working for Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The greatest likelihood is that while Felt was, indeed, a source for Woodward, he was not the only Deep Throat. Other evidence suggests that Deep Throat was not a single individual, but a cover for a variety of sources, most of whom have not yet been identified by Woodward. SILENT COUP strongly implicates Alexander Haig as a major Woodward source, and tells why -- they had known each other since 1969, when Woodward was a Navy ensign and a briefer, and Haig was on the staff of the National Security Council in the White House. Jim Hougan, author of SECRET AGENDA, suggests that Woodward's most important source was Bob Bennett, currently a U.S. Senator and at that time the head of a front company for the CIA.

The crowning of Mark Felt as Deep Throat has the hallmarks of a classic deception ploy: it directs the public's attention to one person, in order to prevent people from looking at other individuals who may have even been more deeply involved.

The full story of Deep Throat has not yet been told.

CHAPTER 22 — AN INVESTIGATION OF
THE EIGHTEEN-AND-A-HALF MINUTE GAP

The infamous "eighteen-and-a-half-minute" gap in the presidential tape of June 20, 1972, of a conversation between President Richard M. Nixon and his chief aide H. R. "Bob" Haldeman is once again in the news. It has resurfaced because of the announcement that Woodward and Bernstein's source Deep Throat was former FBI Assistant Director Mark Felt.

Some commentators feel that this may not be the whole story of Deep Throat. They point to the fact that Felt resigned from the FBI in June of 1973, six months before that tape gap was discovered and publicized. This, they feel, is evidence that Felt could not be the only Deep Throat.

SILENT COUP's Chapter 22 has the first, and as far as we know, the only full-length discussion of that infamous tape gap and of the circumstances surrounding its public revelation.

Author Len Colodny comments:

For two decades prior to our book, whoever had written about that gap had focused only on the erasures. But in re-reading ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, I was intrigued by the fact that Deep Throat had played a major role in disclosing to Woodward and Bernstein that there were 'deliberate erasures' on the tape.

There were several problems with this explanation. Among them was that Woodward and Bernstein had always claimed that Deep Throat had only been a "confirming" source, not a primary source -- that they would get information elsewhere and Throat would confirm it or deny it, or 'steer' them in the right direction.

But in describing a meeting of Woodward and Deep Throat in an underground garage in the first week of November, 1973, the reporters write: "Throat's message was short and simple: one or more of the tapes contained deliberate erasures."

Not only was this leak from Deep Throat the most damaging to President Nixon of all the leaks, it was also information that came directly to the reporters from Throat. Contrary to their statements about Deep Throat, the source was not acting here as a confirming source but as a primary, direct source of new information.

With this understanding in hand, I began to investigate all the events surrounding the erasure itself in great detail. I interviewed those connected to the erasure, and relevant documents, to try stitch together all the facts.

On March 5, 1989, Bob Gettlin and I interviewed Woodward for ninety minutes in the kitchen of his Georgetown home, and during the course of that interview I confronted him with the evidence that Throat was a direct, not a confirming source, for the tape gap disclosure. Woodward seemed surprised by our understanding of this. He was clearly not expecting it. Shortly, he conceded that his relationship with Throat had "evolved" over time -- meaning that he may have begun as a confirming source and eventually became an initiating source -- and how concerned Throat had been in November 1973 over recent events.

The timing of the revelation of the tape gap does raise important questions about the identity and possible motives of Deep Throat, now that Felt has been identified by Woodward as that source. As suggested above, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, for Mark Felt, who left the FBI in June, to have known about the tape erasures in November of 1973. Moreover, in early November the size and importance of the gap was not yet widely known within the White House. Those who first knew of it were the president, his secretary Rose Mary Woods (who had been transcribing the tapes), presidential chief of staff Alexander Haig, Haig's deputy John C. Bennett (retired army major general and custodian of the tapes), and legal counselor J. Fred Buzhardt (former counsel in the Pentagon).

As important, the gap was supposedly not understood to be on a subpoenaed tape until November 14, 1973, when attorney Sam Powers sat down with Buzhardt to catalog and listen to the seven conversations that were to be turned over to Judge Sirica. Both Buzhardt and Powers were reportedly surprised when the gap in the June 20 tape was not the five minutes that Rose Mary Woods told them she had inadvertently caused, but eighteen-and-a-half minutes.

All of this is reported in detail in Chapter 22, and is set in context. For instance, Chapter 22 points out that, based on notes taken by H. R. Haldeman on June 20, 1972, and our repeated interviews with Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, with whom President Nixon had spoken in separate conversations on June 20, there could have been nothing on that tape that would be either crucial to the president's defense or that would have incriminated him in any way.

Thus the tape erasure, and its disclosure to the public, served only to undermine President Nixon's failing credibility and to push him toward his eventual resignation.

At the end of the day, the most important question still needs to be answered. Just who added the extra 13 & 1/2 minutes of "deliberate erasures" to the accidental five minute erasure made by Rosemary Wood and reported by her on October 1, 1973?

For Chapter 22 in its entirely, the full story of the gap and its crucial role in the downfall of the Nixon presidency, click here.

With the publication of "Secret Man: The Story Of Watergate's Deep Throat," Woodward still leaves us with the mystery of why he has lied about key facts about his military service and especially his relationship with Al Haig. Since Felt is unable to speak for himself, Woodward will be speaking for him (and making more millions off him) based on the evidence contained in this story and others to come, the question is why should we believe him? When Felt could talk and write he strongly denied being Woodward's source.

Bob Woodward has a big credibility gap as it applies to his missions to the White House when he was in the Navy in 1969. He says he was a "courier," doing no more than carrying packages for Admiral Moorer. When asked when he first met Colonel Alexander Haig, he says it was in 1973.

But that is not the truth.

Unlike Woodward, SILENT COUP uses on-the-record sources to show that Woodward acted as a briefer for Admiral Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, going to the White House to brief then Colonel (later General) Alexander Haig of the National Security Council.

SILENT COUP has not one, but three on-the-record, named and taped sources who claim that briefing Haig is exactly what Woodward was doing on his details to the White House Situation room.

Haig was not a terribly important person in the national hierarchy in 1969 —70 he was the military's liaison to the NSC, and deputy to the National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

So why does Woodward claim not to have met Haig until 1973? What is the reason for the lie? If Haig was unimportant in 1969, why can't Woodward admit that he met Haig then? As you can read below, Woodward vehemently goes on record that he did not meet Haig until 1973. Why????

Interview with Bob Woodward 3/6/1989

WOODWARD:

Let me just go — go through one of your assertions which I want to, ah ... I'd like to go on record, I'm — where you allege that you learned that leaks to the Washington Post — Woodward, um, himself a former Navy officer, with ties to Haig and other military men were motivated motivated by this same vehement opposition to the Nixon/Kissinger alliance. Now what the hell are my connections to Haig?

GETTLIN:

Well, you mentioned to me that, and that's okay, when was the first time ...

WOODWARD:

As — as I said to you on the phone, Bob, and I, you know, I just — you — this is gonna be one of these things like, ah, the, ah, famous Hougan book or whatever it is that will disappear down the tubes unless you base it on a certain level of reality, I never met or talked to Haig until sometime in the spring of '73.

GETTLIN:

Do you remember the circumstances, that in which you ...

WOODWARD:

I don't, I don't.

GETTLIN:

Was he Chief of Staff by that point?

WOODWARD:

Don't know, don't know.

Woodward's story is incongruent with Admiral Moorer's version of the events. Listen for yourself to Moorer confirming that he sent Woodward to brief Haig in 1969-1970.

The matter is of some importance to the Washington Post, as well. At the time of the publication of SILENT COUP, the Post's media guru, Howard Kurtz, fibbed to readers that we had never interviewed Admiral Moorer — at a time when the Post had in its possession a transcript of the Moorer interview that we had provided to them.

A day later, when Moorer admitted to the rival Washington Times that the interview was correct about Haig and Woodward, the Post did not retract its accusation, nor has it to this day ever corrected the record.

Listen as Woodward defied us to find one person to say that he briefed anyone in the White House. In addition to Admiral Moorer, you may listen to two additional sources that confirm Woodward's role: Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and Pentagon spokesperson Jerry Friedheim.

At a moment when people are wondering why the major media are no longer trusted, and America has turned to the bloggers to get the truth, you will not see questions raised about Woodward's veracity in regard to his Navy background anywhere else but on the Internet. Yet it is key to understanding the entire Watergate story.

The Tape Erasures Leak

Finally unlike Mark Felt, Al Haig knew about Rosemary Woods accidentally erasing five minutes of the June 20th tape, in fact he is the last living member of the original group of five to learn of the erasure on October 1, 1973. The others were President Nixon, Rosemary Woods, Fred Buzhardt and General John Bennett, who was the keeper of the tapes. Haig also was one of those who had access to the tapes and may well know who added the extra 13 1/2 minutes of deliberate erasures to it.

Future stories in this series will feature more distortions by Woodward as he tries cover up his true role in the military and beyond.

Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat"
by Len Colodny

On April 17, 1990, as I was interviewing John Ehrlichman for my book SILENT COUP (1991, St Martin's Press), the former top White House aide to President Richard M. Nixon told me an incredible story -- which current headlines now verify. He said that he had dinner the previous night with a former Justice Department Official who had worked in the U.S. Attorney's office for Washington, D.C. in the mid-1970s. This friend told Ehrlichman of an event that he had witnessed, and of a relationship between Mark Felt, formerly of the FBI, and reporter Bob Woodward.

According to Ehrlichman's friend, in the aftermath of the Church hearings, a senatorial inquiry into earlier activities of the FBI and the CIA involving illegal entries -- black bag jobs -- Mark Felt had been called to testify on this subject to a Grand Jury. (Felt would later be convicted of a crime related to such illegal entries, and in April of 1981 was pardoned by President Reagan.)

As the transcript (see below) of my Ehrlichman interview relates, his friend told the former presidential counselor:

"They had, had Felt for, I guess, an hour and a half, two hours [before the Grand Jury] and he was testifying rather evasively but somewhat responsively; and they turned to his contacts in the White House and said, 'Did you have much contact with the White House?' Well, he had some, and he was a little bit sort of bobbing and weaving about who he had contacts with, and so forth; and they asked him a question and he said, well, he didn't have intimate contact, and then, and smiled rather grandly and said, 'Well, the next thing I know you're gonna be accusing me of being Deep Throat.' And at that point the Grand Juror raisedhis hand and said, 'Are you?'" My friend said "Felt's face just collapsed, and he was obviously struggling with the quandary of how to answer that question under oath." The U.S. Attorney -- stopped the proceedings, and advised Felt that he didn't need to answer that, that the question was not germane to their inquiry, and then they took a recess. And Felt made a bee-line for a telephone booth. Ehrlichman continued "Later on, my friend ran into Bob Woodward at aparty, and Woodward said, 'I understand you've been giving my friend Felt a hard time,' and the U.S. Attorney's guy said, 'Well, those are secret proceedings. How do you know about that?' 'Well," he (Woodward) said, 'there's nothing in the law that prevents a witness from telling what went on.' And they talked a little more and it came out that the one that Felt had telephoned from the booth was Woodward."

Ehrlichman related that in his friend's conversation with Woodward at that party, Woodward had confirmed that Felt had been "a source" for him.

My conversations with John Ehrlichman took place over many years, from the late 1980s until near the time of his death in 1999. John had long been involved in trying to figure out the identity of Deep Throat. He suspected it was Mark Felt, but could not reconcile that idea with the one, put forth in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, that Deep Throat had been Woodward's source for information about the infamous "Deliberate Tape Erasure" that Throat told Woodward about in early November of 1973, since Ehrlichman knew that Felt had resigned from the FBI in April of 1973.

Moreover, Ehrlichman knew that only a small handful of people within the White House had known about that tape gap at the time it was discovered. Ehrlichman later came to believe, therefore, that Deep Throat was a name used to cover several different sources tapped by Woodward, Felt among them.

CONFIDENTIAL
EHRLICHMAN/COLODNY INTERVIEW EXCERPT 4/17/90

ERHLICHMAN:

I've got a Bob Woodward anecdote for you.

COLODNY:

Yeah?

ERHLICHMAN:

Yes. I had dinner with a guy last night who used to work for the Justice Department. At some time, I guess in '74, maybe '75, they had Mark Felt from the FBI in the Grand Jury room and they were investigating as a result of Frank Church's hearings about the CIA and so forth. They were investigating illegal entries by the FBI and they had, had Felt for, I guess an hour and a half, two hours, and he was testifying rather evasively but, uh, somewhat responsively and, um, [papers being shuffled in the background] they turned to his contacts in the White House and said, "Did you have much contact in the White House?" Well, he had some and, uh, he was a little bit sort of bobbing and weaving a little bit about who he had contacts with and so forth and they asked him a question and he said, well, he didn't have, uh, intimate contact and then and smiled rather grandly and said, "After all, next thing I know you're gonna be accusing me of being Deep Throat." And a grand juror raised his hand and asked a question and said, "Are you?" My friend said Felt's face just collapsed and he was obviously struggling with the quandary of how to answer that question under oath. Uh, they -- the -- the U.S. Attorney stopped the proceedings and advised Felt that he didn't need to answer that, that the question was not germane to their inquiry and then they took a recess. And Felt made a B-line for a telephone booth. Later on, my friend ran into Bob Woodward at a party and Woodward said, "I understand you've been giving my friend Felt a hard time," and the U.S. Attorney's guy said, "Well, those are secret proceedings. How do you know about that?" Well, he says, "There's nothing in the law that prevents a witness from telling what went on." And they talked a little more and it came out that the one that Felt had phoned from the phone booth was Woodward.

COLODNY:

Great! Felt must have been worried, I guess.

ERHLICHMAN:

Evidently.

COLODNY:

I don't -- I can't imagine why except that he was feeding Woodward some information during that period.

ERHLICHMAN:

Yeah, Woodward said he was a source.

This article originally appeared in the June 9, 2005 edition of Counterpunch

General Haig: Deep Throat Not Lone Source

Over two years ago, Gen. Alexander Haig was speaking about "Deep Throat" with NewsMax editor Christopher Ruddy.

Gen. Haig told Ruddy bluntly who the likely suspect was: Mark Felt.

"It didn’t come as a surprise to me at all," Gen. Haig told NewsMax.com Tuesday evening.

"The only good news is that it was revealed by the individual himself so that it deprived the Washington Post of another profit windfall," he said with a chuckle.

As President Nixon’s chief of staff during the Watergate episode, few know the inside details of how the White House dealt with the scandal and a leaker identified later as "Deep Throat."

Gen. Haig doubts, however, that Felt alone was the sole, key source that helped hasten Nixon’s resignation.

"There were countless sources, some of which were totally inaccurate, some of which weren’t, some of which were totally politically motivated and some of which were an expression of moral outrage," he said.

Asked what he thought might have been Marl Felt’s motivations in cooperating with Woodward and Bernstein, General Haig said he didn’t know.

"Having resigned from three presidencies myself for reasons that involved my conscience," General Haig said. "I can understand how one who has been an enforcer of law and order all of his career would be outraged if he saw something that was not correct."

Despite the criticism of some that believe Felt had betrayed President Nixon or that he should have gone public with his information, Gen. Haig stood by Felt.

"I do know he was a very highly regarded professional FBI leader and for that he and his family can be very proud," Gen. Haig said.

He also noted that other sources provided Woodward and Bernstein with critical information.

"There were many sources, one of whom I knew to be the President’s lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt," Gen. Haig said.

"He informed me years later that he had been the main source and that’s what provided the accurate aspects of the Woodward and Bernstein books."

Gen. Haig doesn’t agree that Watergate refers to a political scandal.

"Watergate was a political saga," he said.

"It wasn’t a saga of good and evil . Some could call it a coup d’etat. It certainly involved the efforts to reverse a landslide election."

Deep Throat was just part of the effort to get President Nixon, Haig recalled. But Deep Throat didn’t play the key role.

"What overthrew President Nixon were the tapes which were just too tough for the American people to absorb," Gen. Haig said.

"Taping was very common to almost every White House I was in, one way or the other," he said.

"Nixon’s big mistake was that he didn’t destroy the tapes."

This story originally appeared in NewsMax on May 31, 2005

Here We Go Again: Deep Throat Revealed?

by Joan Hoff

Now we have another spectacular Deep Throat story that will have the mainstream press buzzing for days–enamored as it is of Woodward and Bernstein as investigative reporters. Even Ben Bradley agrees now that Mark Felt, former number two man at the FBI in the 1970s, was indeed Deep Throat. Before historians jump on the Watergate bandwagon again, please consider the following:

1) Read the Vanity Fair article online. Felt doesn't really ever say to John D. O'Connor that he is Deep Throat or anyway, the only Deep Throat. Felt's family and a close woman friend believe he is Deep Throat and they and some young people talk to O'Connor. They all think that Felt deserves to be honored for doing the right thing over thirty years ago. This is fine, but it does not prove the case. Right off the bat there is a problem not with anonymous sources, but the second-hand words of others about Felt being Deep Throat–most of whom claim not to have any detailed memory of Watergate even when they are old enough to have them–and whose motives, according to the Vanity Fair article range widely from family pride, to patriotism, to not letting "Woodward to get all the glory," to "pay[ing] some bills." Granted, Felt apparently can't physically speak for himself because of failing health, but let's be realistic about O'Connor's sources and their motivations.

2) Most importantly, in All the President's Men Woodward and Bernstein say that they only used Deep Throat "to confirm information that had been obtained elsewhere and to add some perspective." But, aside from the fact that some of the information Deep Throat conveyed wasn't true, the piece of information that has always intrigued me most was about the eighteen and a half minute gap on the June 20, 1972 tape. Deep Throat is not confirming anything Woodward and Bernstein have found out when he informs them on November 7 that "one or more of the tapes contained deliberate erasures." There is no indication in All the President's Men that Woodward and Bernstein knew about any erasures, but the very next day the Washington Post published an article saying that there were gaps of "a suspicious nature" which "could lead someone to conclude that the tapes have been tampered with." November 8 just happened to be the day that Judge Sirica was holding a hearing about the tapes that had been subpoenaed. It was also a full week before the president's lawyer Fred Buzhardt discovered the gap and told Nixon about it. It would seem that Deep Throat was not confirming anything on November 7, except that he had a hand in the erasures or knew who did and perhaps wanted to influence Sirica's decision.

Publishing that story seemed to contradict the type of confirming information that Woodward and Bernstein have repeatedly said they always received from Deep Throat. There has never been any evidence indicating that Felt had access to the tapes. Therefore, it is unlikely that he could have conveyed what is clearly the most important piece of information that the reporters received from any one source. But let us assume for the moment that he did somehow learn about the erasure. He was one of the most important FBI agents in the country and a crime has been committed. Why didn't he arrest the person who erased the tape? Or at the very least why didn't he go to Sirica with the information given the important decision that the judge was about to make? Could it be that Felt himself was involved in black bag jobs for the Bureau and not as much interested in the law as in getting even against Nixon without drawing attention to himself? At least Ronald Reagan hastened to pardon him for being convicted of such activities against the Weathermen underground group. Please let a little logic prevail at least with respect to who could have had access to Nixon's private presidential tapes in those crucial days when their public availability had become a major legal issue.

3) Woodward claims in All the President's Men to have had a long-standing, personal relationship with Deep Throat. Again, there is no evidence that this was the case with Felt. Woodward had a cozy relationship with other Deep Throat candidates such as Alexander Haig, but he has never claimed or indicated the same with Felt. Why would a top FBI official start to relay information to a rooky Washington Post reporter on the job less than ten months? This does not deny that at some point Felt may have confirmed parts of the Watergate story for Woodward, but it is unlikely that Felt personally sought out Woodward because the White House was obstructing the FBI investigation and violating the civil rights of innocent people, as O'Connor claims.

4) I challenged Woodward in Austin at a conference celebrating the opening of the Woodward and Bernstein papers to videotape Deep Throat(s). At one session of the symposium when I suggested that the search for the identity of Deep Throat(s) had for too long proved a diversion from rethinking the meaning of Watergate and the Nixon presidency, Woodward interrupted me, saying that Deep Throat was, indeed, only one person. I replied that then he should videotape that individual as soon as possible so the public could be sure of the authenticity of man Woodward would ultimately reveal as Deep Throat when the person could not deny it.

Privately Bernstein told me he thought this was a good idea, but Woodward said that he has "other evidence" that would prove the dead man was Deep Throat. However, in a media age only a posthumous videotape would stop speculation about the verity of this long-awaited identification. The subject could also tell us in his own words why he leaked the damaging information he did about the Nixon administration. I said then that common sense and history demanded no less. Unfortunately Felt cannot verbally tell us this, although presumably he could dictate some details to some objective person outside of family and friends.

Now that Felt (or rather his family) have come forward, I challenge all other aging anonymous sources who spoke to Woodward and Bernstein to also come forward, so that the other real Deep Throats could now be identified before they die. It is even conceivable that they all thought they were the single source of information. But the one who indicated there had been a tape erasure is key to the Watergate story and belies the confirming nature of the reporters' sources that they have clung to over the years. In the wake of the Newsweek story about the desecration of the Koran, the major news organizations on May 23 expressed concern the they "may have become too free in granting anonymity to sources" given readers' distrust of the practice. This is the perfect time for the most famous of all anonymous source(s) to be identified. We have had enough of contestable direct quotes which are the hallmark of all Woodward's books. Mostly famously the interview he claimed to have conducted with the CIA Director Bill Casey when Casey lay dying and comatose. Curiously, the Washington Post did not "break" this sensational Felt story. The Post came in to claim it as truth only after the fact in a terse two-line statement. The Casey interview also did not make the Post's headlines until after Woodward published a book saying it took place. Curious to say the least.

5) Finally, remember that David Obst, the literary agent for All the President's Men, has categorically stated that Deep Throat was not in the original book proposal and only appeared in an early draft of the manuscript after Woodward had discussed movie possibilities for the book with Robert Redford. It would be an interesting research topic now that the Woodward and Bernstein papers are open to find both the original proposal and early drafts of the book . However, since these papers have been opened since February and Obst made the claim back in 1998 in his book, Too Good To Be Forgotten, I strongly suspect that any such proof of Deep Throat as purely a literary conceit has long since disappeared from these reporters' papers. After all, they have garnered too much fame from perpetuating their investigative skills, especially as portrayed in the dangerous, detective story movie version of their relationship with Deep Throat that purportedly threatened his and their lives.

So myth lives on–unless we really want to take the Mark Felt story seriously to get to the bottom of the role that Deep Throat(s) played in Watergate. I for one want to know who was responsible for the eighteen and a half minute tape gap. We know it wasn't Rosemary Woods (she claimed at most responsibility for at most four or five minutes in a gymnastic stretching feat) or Richard Nixon (who was too technologically challenged). But we do know of at least three other people who had access to the tapes: Nixon attorney Fred Buzhardt, Alexander Butterfield (the keeper of the tapes before he told Senate staffers about the taping system), and Alexander Haig, then chief of staff. Let's stop letting Deep Throat play with the true history and meaning of Watergate and let's stop falling for the latest identity story that comes down the pike. With identity theft such a prominent issue these days, it is time to put an end to the most publicized identity theft of all and find the person who erased the presidential tape.

Contrary to the PBS Lehrer NewsHour for May 31, 2005, and other network and cable station proclamations, the Felt story did not "bring to a close one of the great mysteries of history." It only perpetuates the myth that the Watergate break-ins and Woodward and Bernstein brought down the Nixon presidency. There were many nascent neo-conservatives within the Republican party who wanted the president weakened and ultimately supported his resignation who couldn't have cared less about the break-ins. Nixon obstructed justice with an inept cover-up, while they successfully covered up their desire to discredit his "soft-on-Communism foreign policy"--with or with out Deep Throat(s).

This article orginally appeared on the History News Network.
Ms. Hoff, Research Professor of History, Montana State University, Bozeman, is the author of: Nixon Reconsidered (Basic Books).

Was Mark Felt Really Deep Throat?

by Cliff Kincaid | June 3, 2005

Hoff believes the identification of Deep Throat is part of "an orchestrated publicity stunt on the part of the Post and Woodward" because Woodward plans to publish his own book on Felt.

History professor Joan Hoff of Montana State University, an expert on the Watergate scandal, finds it interesting that Bob Woodward is claiming that he had a close relationship with former FBI official Mark Felt, now identified as Deep Throat, when Felt suffers from serious health problems, including dementia, and can't deny it. "It's just like when he said he interviewed [former CIA director Bill] Casey when Casey was comatose," she says.

Len Colodny, co-author of Silent Coup, about the "removal" of President Nixon, finds the identification of Mark Felt as Deep Throat to be rather remarkable: "A Deep Throat who can't talk."

The fact is, as AIM founder Reed Irvine documented, Woodward has been known to make things up. Woodward's Casey "interview" is a case in point. As Reed noted, "In his 1987 book, Veil, Woodward claimed he had interviewed William J. Casey, the CIA director, after Casey had brain surgery and could not speak intelligibly. Woodward didn't know that, and he made up an interview in which Casey is supposed to have spoken 19 intelligible words. It was clear that this was a falsification not only because of Casey's condition, but because his hospital room was guarded and Woodward was never admitted to it."

Hoff believes the identification of Deep Throat is part of "an orchestrated publicity stunt on the part of the Post and Woodward" because Woodward plans to publish his own book on Felt. "Lo and behold," says Hoff, "Felt's family decides he's Deep Throat and Felt can't say whether he is or not, and we get the big story."

In fact, despite his serious health problems, Felt can still utter a few words. He was captured on film outside his home yesterday saying that he enjoyed the publicity and that, "I'll arrange to write a book or something, and collect all the money I can." A New York Times account indicates that members of the Felt family have been envious of the money that will be made from the Deep Throat disclosures and that they were trying to pursue their own book deal independent of Woodward after he rebuffed their pleas for a collaborative effort.

Felt seems to have been a source of some kind for Woodward. But was he the source known as Deep Throat? Hoff isn't the only one who has some doubts.

Colodny says that what is known about Felt "doesn't match what Woodward wrote in his book. He describes Deep Throat as someone he had known for a long time and had many discussions about power in Washington and so on. There's not a shred of evidence that Felt is that person."

In the June 2 Post, Woodward describes for the first time the details of his "friendship" with Felt. They are said to have met accidentally when Woodward, then a young Navy Lieutenant, was delivering Navy documents to the White House in 1970. Hoff points out that Felt, because of his severe memory problems, can't deny any of this and the account "is based only and exclusively on Woodward's word."

But there are other reasons to doubt that Felt is Deep Throat.

Colodny and Hoff point to the claim in the Woodward/Bernstein book, All the President's Men, that Deep Throat provided the Post reporters exclusive information about the "deliberate erasures," as "Throat" told Woodward in November of 1973, on the White House tapes. "There's no reason to believe that Felt had access to that information because it was closely held in the White House," says Colodny, "and Felt had left the FBI in April?six months earlier."

Hoff agrees. "It's conceivable that as the second in command at the FBI, the deputy director, he could have gotten information from somebody about this," she said. "But I don't think he gave them this information. I think it was somebody in the White House. At that point, the White House was so embattled over the tapes and the possible subpoena [of them], there were only 3 or 4 people who had access to those tapes."

That means, apparently, that either Felt is not Deep Throat or that he had his own Deep Throat.

But if Felt did somehow have access to that information and provided it to Woodward, important questions are raised.

"The guy is deputy director of the FBI," Colodny says. "Why is he not protecting the tapes? Why is he not arresting the people who are doing this? Why doesn't he go to [Watergate Judge John] Sirica's court, which is hearing this? He's a sworn law enforcement officer. He knows there's a crime being committed. But instead of doing something about it, he goes in a garage and talks to Woodward."

Hoff makes the same basic point. "He is the top law enforcement officer in the country because there's only an acting director [of the FBI] at that point," says Hoff. "Why didn't he go to Sirica or a grand jury and blow the story open?"

If Felt was concerned about the hostility between the FBI and President Nixon, Hoff counters, "This is the very story that he could have killed the Nixon Administration with. Why in God's name would a top law enforcement officer meet in a garage with a rookie reporter and give him this information? It makes no sense."

Hoff predicts that the story will rebound to the discredit of Woodward. It's another flashy story, she concedes, "but I think they made a mistake in choosing Felt.

Last February 4, when the University of Texas in Austin opened the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Watergate papers (for which it had paid them $5 million), Hoff participated in a symposium with Woodward and suggested that he put Deep Throat on videotape. Hoff wrote that she told Woodward that "he should video tape that individual as soon as possible so the public could be sure of the authenticity of the man Woodward would ultimately reveal as Deep Throat when the person could not deny it."

Of course, this should have been done years ago. The Felt family has affirmed the Deep Throat designation but it's now clear that they had a financial interest in doing so as well. And the questions about the conspiracy behind the Watergate conspiracy will be shunted aside and will remain unanswered.

This article originally appeared in the AIM Report

"Trust Me" Journalism in Newsweek and Watergate;
AIM Says There Is No Proof that Mark Felt is Deep Throat

June 6, 2005

The Washington Post's media reporter, Howard Kurtz, says that a lesson of Watergate is the "burning need for original reporting" on major issues of public importance. But where is the original reporting on whether former FBI official Mark Felt is really Deep Throat? "The 'trust me' journalism that caused Muslim riots in the Newsweek Koran case is being accepted by the major media with regard to the naming of Deep Throat," noted Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid. "Yet there is no independent evidence that Felt, who repeatedly denied being Deep Throat and now suffers from severe memory problems, was really this key Watergate source."

In fact, as Kincaid noted in a column on the case, Felt was not in a position to supply information about Watergate that is attributed to Deep Throat in the Woodward/Bernstein book about the scandal.

In a recent interview, history professor and Watergate expert Joan Hoff told Kincaid that the alleged "close and fuzzy relationship" between Woodward and Felt is questionable because "Felt can't deny it and it will be based only and exclusively on Woodward's word." Hoff complained, "There is no proof for it. When is the press going to hold his feet to the fire and say, 'where is the documentation?'"

This article originally appeared in the AIM Report

Deep Throat Story Hard to Swallow

For nearly thirty years, many have speculated as to the identity of "Deep Throat" — the mythical source that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward says he met in a darkened garage. It is our contention that "Deep Throat" was a dramatic device used by Woodward to throw everyone off the trail of the relationship that he had with Alexander Haig. The Woodward-Haig relationship was formed in 1969-70 when Woodward briefed Haig at the National Security Council in the White House's basement. The evidence suggests that Haig was Woodward's secret source at the White House.

In the research leading to the publication of Silent Coup, authors Colodny and Gettlin undercovered evidence that Naval Lieutenant Bob Woodward had briefed Alexander Haig as early as 1969. When confronted with the question of if he had ever briefed anyone, he responded in the negative and added " I defy you to produce somebody who says I did the briefing, it's just — it's not true" Hear and read Woodward's denial.

In response to Mr. Woodward's defiance in this regard, the Nixon Era Center releases interviews by Bob Gettlin of three substantial sources that confirm that relationship existed between Woodward and Haig. Hear the excerpts and read the transcripts.

1. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Thomas H. Moorer
2. Pentagon Spokesperson Jerry Friedheim
3. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird

The Post-Kurtz Cover-up Continues

According to Media Watch of May 1991: "The Washington Times skewered The Washington Post for its May 21 treatment of the new Watergate expose, Silent Coup. The book presents evidence that Watergate wunderkind Bob Woodward briefed Alexander Haig when he served in the Navy, and later used him as a source for his Watergate stories. Times reporters Michael Hedges and Jerry Seper noted that "the Post story doesn't mention Mr. Woodward until paragraph 12, although his role was a prominent part of stories done by the Associated Press, Reuters, and TV's Good Morning America." Hedges and Seper reported that Post media reporter Howard Kurtz "did not quote from transcripts of tape-recorded interviews the authors released Monday in which...witnesses [former Joint Chiefs head Thomas Moorer and former Pentagon spokesman Jerry Friedheim] back the authors' allegations about Mr. Woodward. Mr. Kurtz now says he wasn't aware of the transcripts when he wrote his story, even though a Post reporter attended the news conference at which they were released." The Times duo also noted that "Mr. Kurtz's story in the Post quoted no one in support of the book." Kurtz told the Times: "I personally interviewed [Nixon historian] Roger Morris, and had several quotes from him in the story. As it went through the editing process, for space reasons...they were cut." How ironic. Now who's covering up?" To date, the Washington Post has neither retracted or corrected these claims.

Our Conclusion

It is the philosophy of the Nixon Era Center in this virtual primer on the subject of Woodward's "secret" source is not to chase "Deep Throat" through the dramatizations in "All The President's Men." These include the flower pot and marked up newspapers that Woodward and "Deep Throat" supposedly used to signal one another the so called dates as to when they would meet in the darkened parking garage. Rather, we will trace the activities of Bob Woodward and Alexander Haig, and see if there is any relevance to the removal of Richard Nixon from the presidency of the United States.

Included also on this page, our exclusive ninety-minute, in-person interview on this subject with Bob Woodward on March 6th, 1989. During the next ninety days which lead up to the 30th Anniversary of the first big leak from Woodward's "secret" White House source, we will highlight key portions of that interview and other key pieces of evidence contained in the collection at "The Nixon Era Center."

To clarify this point, we are making available to you the following relevant chapters from "Silent Coup: The Removal of a President." These chapters support the contention in great detail that Alexander Haig was Bob Woodward's source.

• First and most important the relationship "The Woodward-Haig Connection."
• Second the information availability,"The Return of Alexander Haig."
• Finally the deadly "leak" — "The Eighteen-and-a-Half-Minute Gap."

Finally, it is most important for you to know it is not the name of the source that Woodward is hiding; the big secret is his source's MOTIVE for leaking to Woodward. A two-hour video on this very important subject is also being made available to you on this site.

All the above makes "The Nixon Era Times" the most comprehensive location for information concerning the subject of "Deep Throat."

Len Colodny

For more Nixon Era Stories see Page 2