Didn’t someone in Slate or Salon.com write an article last year that pegged Felt as Deep Throat, but the site dropped the specific identification when he threatened to sue? And I thought there was an analysis a few years back that pointed at someone unspecified in the FBI based on the fact that the big story Woodward wrote immediately prior to this one involved the FBI, so he would already have made contacts there.
Woodward, Bernstein, and Deep Throat didn’t bring down the Nixon White House. Judges and prosecutors did–in particular, Judge John T. Sirica and special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.
Most of Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting consisted of leaks of information that was being discovered as a result of the concurrent legal investigations, and would have been revealed in court anyway in due course.
The Post investigations did help to mobilize public opinion, and they make a dramatic and colorful story, well told in the book and the movie. Deep Throat’s involvement added an irresistible air of mystery. But the heavy lifting in Watergate was done the old-fashioned way, by prosecutors subpoenaing documents and tapes and hauling witness after witness for questioning under oath before a grand jury.
Chatterbox (Timothy Noah) at Slate has been writing deep throat speculation for a while, and Felt was definitely one of his top picks. Never heard anything about a possible lawsuit.
They put up an index page of past deep throat stories, mostly Tim’s, pretty quickly when the reveal broke yesterday: http://slate.msn.com/id/2119876/
Oh, I don’t think the Watergate investigation would have had near the juice it did without daily dispatches from the front. When you’re investigating the head of state, it’s tough to do without public opinion on your side. Moreover, I think the coverage of Watergate got under Nixon’s skin in a way that the investiagtion would not have in itself. Nixon clearly was not a guy who reacted well when he’d had his nose bloodied, and the Saturday Night Massacre was the result, which itself was a (the?) prime motivator for Congress to take impeachment seriously.
–Cliffy
Nitpick: Backspace is ^H, not H^. It’s the computer’s way of rendering “control H”. If you held down the control key and hit H, you’d get a backspace.
Correct! (Chronos, duly noted.) And I like the way it gives the impression of someone coughing or loudly clearing their throat, which is the purpose it serves nowadays.
FUC^H^H^HEep!
–Cliffy
No, but it WAS a case where he was #2 in the FBI, and I’m sure he was mightily anxious about ratting out a world leader in espionage, underhandedness and sneakery.
Very specific people know very specific things about very specific people. If you shot Woodward up with truth serum and interrogated him, and asked, “Did W. Mark Felt ever tell you that G. Gordon Liddy was dirty as hell?”, giving him the ability to truthfully say “No” is a big deal. It doesn’t sound like much, but in secrecy small differences like this matter. You just don’t go around tossing big federal secrets about, man! He was #2 at the FBI! This is not something you take lightly when you’re in that kind of job.
No it’s not. If two accused secret-sellers were brought to juries, and it were proven that one had sold specific weapon design plans and the other had said something vague like “there’s big dealings underfoot in the mountains of Wyoming”, and the jury had to acquit one, which would they choose?
Wrong again. Felt knew that Woodward and Bernstein were incredibly bright journalists and (1) could find the gritty details out themselves and (2) would probably like it better that way.
Jeff Lichtman has explained it well.
It also helped when that witness mentioned in passing that Nixon had recorded everything.