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WASHINGTON, June 1: Two Washington Post newsmen who first reported the Watergate scandal, confirmed on Wednesday the identity of ‘Deep Throat’, the shadowy source instrumental in the downfall of US president Richard Nixon. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had earlier promised to tell their secret only upon Deep Throat’s death, but they broke their silence after FBI’s former chief investigator Mark Felt identified himself as the Deep Throat. Mr Felt, now 91, said in an interview with Vanity Fair that he was the source that led to the president’s resignation in 1974.
Mr Felt’s admission provoked angry reaction in the US, with one former Nixon aide branding him a ‘traitor’ while another declared himself ‘personally shocked’. When first asked to confirm that Mr Felt was Deep Throat - the nickname the reporters gave their source – Mr Bernstein, caught by surprise, told a New York radio station: “We’re not going to say anything. When the person is deceased we will identify him.”
But after discussions between the two men, the then executive editor of the Washington Post, Benjamin Bradlee, the paper decided to confirm Mr Felt’s confession, made after discussion with his family and his lawyer. The Post’s editor Leonard Downie Jr said: “The newspaper has been released from its obligation by Mark Felt’s family and his lawyer through the publication of this piece. They revealed him as the source. We confirmed it.”
With the words - “I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat” - Mr Felt on Tuesday ended speculation that has lasted more than 30 years.
NIXON’S DOWNFALL: His role in the downfall of Mr Nixon was immortalized first in the book, All The President’s Men, written by Woodward and Bernstein, and then in the movie of the same title, released in 1976.
In the film, Deep Throat, seen lurking in the shadows, is played by Hal Holbrook, whose exhortation to Mr Woodward of ‘follow the money’ became a mantra all its own. Mr Woodward said on Wednesday that as dramatic as those portrayals were, they stuck close to the truth. He said: “Mark Felt at that time was a dashing grey-haired figure. He knew he was taking a monumental risk.” Mr Bernstein said: “Mr Felt’s role in all this can be overstated. When we wrote the book, we didn’t think his role would achieve such mythical dimensions. You see there that Felt/ Deep Throat largely confirmed information we had already gotten from other sources.” The reporters had some reservations about confirming Mr Felt as their source. According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, he is ‘enfeebled by a stroke ... his memory dimmed’.
But Republicans from the Watergate era vented their anger at Mr Felt’s part in Mr Nixon’s downfall. Pat Buchanan, Mr Nixon’s former speechwriter and once a presidential candidate, branded him ‘a traitor’.
