# WHO WAS DEEP THROAT **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 1, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977 "2001-05-01T19:48:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/21 "2001-05-02T23:49:56Z")
imdb says it was Hal Holbrook. But seriously, what reasons do people have for their candidate? I’m half-way inclined to astorian’s way of thinking, but on the other hand, why would Woodward and Bernstein make up a fictional source? I don’t see how it helps the credibility of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/22 "2001-05-03T04:53:42Z")
there’s one little physical clue in \*All the President’s Men.\*One time when Woodward goes to the garage, Depp Throat doesn’t show. Woody starts fretting, and then remembers that they’d agreed that if either one couldn’t make it, they’d leave a note on a particular ledge. He tries to look for it, but can’t reach up to the ledge - finally knocks the note down with a stick, and finds out where to meet Depp Throat. How tall is Woodward? Provided this little anecdote isn’t planted misinformation (a possibility I acknowledge), it suggests that Deep Throat is a couple of inches taller than Woody. How tall was John Dean? The difficulty with Al Haig is that he wasn’t in the White House in the run up to the 1972 election, when most of the stuff started, or for about a year afterward, the key time for the creation of the cover-up, so how would he know all the details? He worked for Kissinger at NSC/State, and only came to the White House after the Dobermans (Haldeman and Ehrlichman) left in disgrace. Deep Throat was leaking to Woodward for about a year before Haig came to the White House. (Now, if you’re asking who was Woodstein’s source for \*The Final Days,\*I’d put money on Haig. Reading the book, so much of the info had to come from him. I’d say it was his way of getting good reviews in the “first draft” of history.) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/23 "2001-05-03T04:55:35Z")
Okay, now we know - it was Johnny Depp’s father!! (Man, how many times did I preview that sucker?) ---
**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/24 "2001-05-03T07:52:35Z")
How about the guy with the best motive: Jerry Ford. ---
**Author:** ![Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morrison_s_Lament)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/25 "2001-05-03T08:19:00Z")
God damnit, I came in here hoping against hope no one had made the Linda Lovelace comment… but of course it was always a slim chance ☹ We should ration these things people! — G. Raven ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2001, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/26 "2001-05-04T02:01:27Z")
“Ford as Deep Throat” runs into a similar problem as “Haig as Deep Throat” - the question of timing. The crucial period was the second half of 1972 and the first half of 1973 - that’s when Woodstein did most of their major work on Watergate. They published _All the President’s Men_in February of 1974. If Deep Throat really existed, he had to be in a position to know what was going on during that period, to feed stuff to Woodstein. That suggests he had a position in the White House, or somewhere close in the Executive, to get the information. Ford didn’t have the necessary access during the relevant time period, nor did he even have much of a motive. Up until October 1973, Ford was just the minority House leader. No-one would have picked him to become Veep, since no-one knew of Agnew’s criminal charges until late in 1973. Then Agnew resigned in October 1973, and Nixon picked Ford to be Veep. By that time, Deep Throat had been operating for about a year. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2001, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/27 "2001-05-04T05:34:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by El Mariachi Loco \* > \*\*I vote for Diane Sawyer. She says it’s “laughable”, which may be a roundabout way of saying “yes, ha ha, it’s me!” \*\* I just love the words **Deep Throat** and **Diane Sawyer** used together. It put a smile 😉 on my face. ---
**Author:** ![gorewonfla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/da6949/32.png) [@gorewonfla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gorewonfla)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/28 "2001-05-04T23:05:05Z")
Well, i’ll point out the problems with ALL the candidates Al Haig: He was out of country one of the times Deep Throat met with Woodward and Bernstein. Plus, he had no motive, being a loyal Nixon foot soldier. In All the President’s Men Woodward writes that Deep Throat was trying to change the White House’s conduct, which is why he didn’t reveal it all at once. It’s hard to see Haig do that. There is no Deep Throat: Why? Why would Woodward and Bernstein make up a source like this? They have proven to be of high journalistic integrity, and if it is revealed that Deep Throat didn’t exist they’d lose it all. And no, they would’ve gotten the same rep even if Deep Throat was a collage of sources. Keep in mind, Watergate was only 25 years ago. 50-year-olds in the administration would be in their 70s still, people who’d be alive Henry Kissinger: Kissinger was barely involved in CREEP at all, he never talked to any of the henchmen about it, he had no reason to destroy Nixon (he would’ve accomplished more if not for Watergate breaking). Stein, Sawyer, Buchanan et. al. All of these people were minor aides who wouldn’t have had the access Deep Throat had. Plus, what are the odds of Stein or Buchanan talking to the “socialist” Washington Post? The crux behind my arguement was that Dean knew enough (I’m sure you don’t want to read twenty pages about that) and that he was the ONLY person who knew enough. Deep Throat had access to sensitive information from the White House, CREEP, the FBI and the Justice Department. HR Haldeman said in his book (the one right after Watergate) that only the counsel’s office had info from all those sources, and Dean said he stopped giving Watergate briefings there early in 1973. Still, I loved some of the suggestions PS, Andros, that’s a whole other thread. Let’s keep this to politics that’s 25 years, not weeks, old. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2001, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/29 "2001-05-05T17:02:21Z")
“Why would Woodward make up Deep Throat?” “He’s a man of integrity?” We obviously have two different Bob Woodwards in mind. Look, I don’t dispute that Woodward and Bernstein got the essential facts of the Watergate case right. They deserve the awards and accolades they received. Nixon WAS a crook, he deserved far worse than he got, and my following atatcks on Woodward are NOT intended to suggest that they “framed” Nixon, or that they got any important facts wrong. I believe that Woodward and Bernstein had a host of sources who gave them bits and pieces of the puzzle. They put the pieces together, and figured out (correctly) what had happened. But they DIDN’T have one compelling source who could confirm the accuracy of what they’d pieced together. They had the story right, they KNEW they had the story right. They just didn’t have ONE highly placed, “reliable source” to whom they could ascribe it all. And THAT, I think, is why Woodward made up Deep Throat. We have SEEN since the Watergate days that Woodward is capable of shady operations and lies. Remember his bogus “deathbed confession” from William Casey, when he investigated the Iran-Contra scandal? Again, I am NOT denying that William Casey was up to his armpits in the Iran-Contra scandal. I merely find it absurd that Woodward could have sneaked into Casey’s hosital room unseen, and get a confirmation (“I believed”) from the dying Casey. I think that, once again, Woodward had enough evidence to conclude (reasonably) that William Casey was the key figure. And he WANTED that final confirmation, right from the horse’s mouth. And when he couldn’t get it… he lied. He made up a deathbed confession, and rationalized that the IMPORTANT parts of the story were already documented, and that his fib really wasn’t all that serious in the grand scheme of things. Woodward is a good reporter with good instincts- unfortunately, I think he has a tendency to trust his instincts, and to make up sources for what are (essentially) just good guesses. ---
**Author:** ![gorewonfla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/da6949/32.png) [@gorewonfla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gorewonfla)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2001, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/30 "2001-05-05T23:39:25Z")
Many otherwise intelligent people have asserted that there is no Deep Throat, and among those people was Ben Bradlee, who was editor for the WP. He essentially coerced the identity of Deep Throat from his two reporters, and now insists that there is a Deep Throat. Bradlee is a well-respected Washington insider, and considering that he already had a substantial reputaion himself when Watergate broke, it’d be unlikely he’d play along with a lie of that magnitude. As for the Casey affair, you’d have to admit that if any reporter could’ve gotten to that deathbed, it’d be Woodward. If the Nixon White House did anything well, it was hunting down its enemies, and Woodward managed to evade the Plumbers. I don’t think Casey’s wife and daughter wouild be any match for the shifty Woodward. Plus, Casey was a very odd character. He seemed to be a marble-mouthed, drooling imbecile but was actually a brilliant political operator who had occassional lapses in judgement (i.e. the re-defection of that KGB agent or the failed bombing of the Hezbollah leader). He was not exactly a loyal Reaganite, so a deathbed confession would not be out of the question. ---
**Author:** ![DaveRaver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daveraver/32/1078_2.png) [@DaveRaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveRaver)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/31 "2001-05-07T01:47:31Z")
It was Cecil! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2001, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/32 "2001-05-07T02:25:39Z")
Take with a large grain of salt, as I haven’t extensively researched the topic. Just opinions: I’m not all that sanguine about the idea that Woodward wouldn’t have faked it. If there was a deep throat, I tend to like the FBI players. The Washington Post investigations ran along very similar lines to the FBI investigations, and an FBI informant wouldn’t have to be an insider. He could just be spilling the beans to Woodward about what the FBI had turned up and was sitting on. A high ranking FBI official, frustrated at White House pressure, may very well have decided to leak to the press. My leading guess (after nobody) would be W. Mark Felt or L. Patrick Gray himself. BTW, did J. Edgar Hoover impose some kind of wierd “first initial” fetish on the organization in addition to his other personal kinks, or what? ---
**Author:** ![Folkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@Folkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folkie)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2001, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/33 "2001-05-07T02:51:56Z")
Why would Woodward have made up Deep Throat? For a very simple reason. Because of the importance of the story the editors insisted that every fact be confirmed by three sources (it might have been two, but my memory says three). So Woodward has this fantastic story ready to go and his boss says “whose your third source?” He is sure the story is right but he only has two sources. “Well, gosh boss, there’s this guy who doesn’t want his identity revealed…” If you read All the President’s Men you will discover that Deep Throat says he won’t give them new information; only confirm info they have found from other sources. Convenient? Later he starts giving them new stuff, but that is after W and B are the recognized leaders of the story and lots of people were slipping info to them. It would be easy to tell the boss “I got this from DT.” But personally I think it was Martin Sheen. ---
**Author:** ![gorewonfla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/da6949/32.png) [@gorewonfla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gorewonfla)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/34 "2001-05-08T00:31:41Z")
Remember, Bill Bradlee, the supervising editor, knows who DT is, so your theory doesn’t hold up to well because Bradlee wouldn’t lie about DT. I’d disagree with your assertion that DT merely checked info (i.e. he told Woodward two weeks in advance of Dean, Haldeman and Ehrlichman’s firing but they didn’t run it because they thought that if, for once, DT was wrong they’d be in deep you-know-what), but even if he did that he’d still be invaluable. Remember, when they advanced against Haldeman they nearly were destroyed because they didn’t check with DT. ---
**Author:** ![gorewonfla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/da6949/32.png) [@gorewonfla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gorewonfla)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/35 "2001-05-08T00:34:02Z")
Remember, Bill Bradlee, the supervising editor, knows who DT is, so your theory doesn’t hold up to well because Bradlee wouldn’t lie about DT. I’d disagree with your assertion that DT merely checked info (i.e. he told Woodward two weeks in advance of Dean, Haldeman and Ehrlichman’s firing but they didn’t run it because they thought that if, for once, DT was wrong they’d be in deep you-know-what), but even if he did that he’d still be invaluable. Remember, when they advanced against Haldeman they nearly were destroyed because they didn’t check with DT. Also, Felt or Gray wouldn’t have had enough access to the White House or CREEP. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/36 "2001-05-08T11:35:19Z")
Wasn’t that a porno movie??? 😉 My guess? It was Kaiser Soze ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/37 "2001-05-08T17:38:27Z")
It’s unfortunate that an earlier GQ thread on this now appears to be lost; I don’t want to go into meticulous detail again, so I’ll be brief. In the wonderful book _After The Fact_ James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle do a small but very impressive analysis of _The Final Days_, Woodward and Bernstein’s follow-up to _All The President’s Men_. Unlike the autobiographical approach of the first book, _The Final Days_ is written as history. Davidson and Lytle realized that, assuming reasonable veracity on the part of W&B, the narrative structure of the book could be deconstructed to reveal who was contributing the information. The conclusions they draw are these: - _Kissinger did not contribute any firsthand information_. Outside of identifiable tape transcripts, no events are described to which only Kissinger was privy. - _Pat Buchanan and David Eisenhower were very helpful_. But only in supplying Nixon family material. Neither appears to have supplied truly earth-shaking information. - _Alexander Haig did not talk_. This is most suprising. _The Final Days_ centers largely on Haig and his actions. Davidson and Lytle conclude that this is because Haig was surrounded by others who _did_ talk, most notably… - _ **J. Fred Buzhardt** _. This White House attorney was unquestionably the greatest contributor to W&B’s second book. He is probably the person noted by W&B to have been interviewed seventeen times. He admitted to supplying them information, and among all of the likely candidates for Deep Throat, Buzhardt is one of the few who was at the epicenter of the controversy and yet was considered not criminally liable for the cover-up (he did, however, strongly advocate deleting the rash of expletives from the White House tapes). There are several problems with Buzhardt, however. First, we have to believe Deep Throat actually existed as a single person. Next, we have to assume that the most helpful contributor to _The Final Days_ was also the mysterious source who carefully led Woodward and Bernstein along in their original reporting–not necessarily the same thing. Finally, you have to accept the fact that Buzhardt is long dead and therefore Woodward has some other motivation for keeping Deep Throat’s identity secret. ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/38 "2001-05-08T18:50:48Z")
Would someone recommend a good book about this subject? ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/39 "2001-05-08T21:55:26Z")
What, didn’t any of you see _Dick_? It was all explained in there! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wartime\_Consigliori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9d8465/32.png) [@Wartime\_Consigliori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wartime_Consigliori)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977/40 "2001-05-09T20:16:09Z")
Harry Reems might know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-deep-throat/63977.md?page=3)