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W. Mark Felt

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   William Mark Felt Sr. (born August 17, 1913) is a retired agent of the
   United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, who retired in 1973 as
   the Bureau's number two official. After thirty years of denying his
   involvement with reporters Woodward and Bernstein, Felt revealed
   himself on 31 May 2005, to be the Watergate scandal whistleblower
   called " Deep Throat".

   Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the
   Bureau's Washington headquarters. During the early investigation of the
   Watergate scandal (1972–74), Felt was the Bureau's Associate Director,
   the second-ranking post in the FBI. While Associate Director, Felt
   provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with critical leads on
   the story that eventually saw the resignation of President Richard M.
   Nixon in 1974. In 1980, Felt was convicted of violating the civil
   rights of people thought to be associated with the Weather Underground
   by ordering FBI agents to burgle their homes. He received a fine but
   was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal. Felt lives
   in Santa Rosa, California. In 2006, he published an update of his 1979
   autobiography, The FBI Pyramid.

Early career

   Felt was born in Twin Falls, Idaho^ , the son of carpenter and building
   contractor Mark Earl Felt and his wife, the former Rose Dygert.^ After
   graduating from Twin Falls High School in 1931, he received a BA from
   the University of Idaho in 1935, and was a member and president of the
   Gamma Gamma chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He went to
   Washington, D.C. to work in the office of U.S. Senator James P. Pope (
   D- Idaho). In 1938, Felt married Audrey Robinson of Gooding, Idaho,
   whom he had known when they were both students at the University of
   Idaho. She had come to Washington to work at the Bureau of Internal
   Revenue, and they were wed by the chaplain of the United States House
   of Representatives, the Rev. Sheara Montgomery.^ Felt stayed on with
   Pope's successor in the Senate, David Worth Clark (D-Idaho).^ Felt
   attended George Washington University Law School at night, earning his
   law degree in 1940, and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar in
   1941.^

   Upon graduation, Felt took a position at the Federal Trade Commission
   but did not like the work. For most of the time he had nothing to do,
   and when he was assigned a case, it was whether a toilet paper brand
   called "Red Cross" was misleading consumers into thinking it was
   endorsed by the American Red Cross. Felt wrote in his memoir:

          My research, which required days of travel and hundreds of
          interviews, produced two definite conclusions:
          1. Most people did use toilet paper.
          2. Most people did not appreciate being asked about it.
          That was when I started looking for other employment.^

   He applied for a job with the FBI in November 1941 and was accepted.
   His first day at the Bureau was January 26, 1942.

Early FBI years

   FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover liked to move Bureau agents around so they
   would have wide experience. Hoover, Felt observed, "wanted every agent
   to get into any Field office at anytime. Since he had never been
   transferred and did not have a family, he had no idea of the financial
   and personal hardship involved."^

   After completing sixteen weeks of training at the FBI Academy at
   Quantico, Virginia and FBI Headquarters in Washington, Felt was first
   assigned to Texas, working in the field offices in Houston and San
   Antonio, spending three months in each. He then returned to the "Seat
   of Government", as Hoover called FBI headquarters, and was assigned to
   the Espionage Section of the Domestic Intelligence Division, tracking
   down spies and saboteurs during World War II, where he worked on the
   Major Case Desk. His most notable work there was on the "Peasant" case.
   Helmut Goldschmidt, operating under the codename "Peasant", was a
   German agent in custody in England. Under Felt's direction, his German
   masters were informed "Peasant" had made his way to the United States,
   and were fed disinformation on Allied plans.^

   The Espionage Section was abolished in May 1945 after V-E Day. After
   the war, he was again in the field, sent first to Seattle, Washington.
   After two years of general work, he spent two years as a firearms
   instructor and was promoted from agent to supervisor. Upon passage of
   the Atomic Energy Act and the creation of the U.S. Atomic Energy
   Commission, the Seattle office became responsible for completing
   background checks of workers at the Hanford plutonium plant near
   Richland, Washington. Felt oversaw these checks.^

   Hoover appointed Felt the third ranking official in the Bureau in 1951.
   In 1954, Felt returned briefly to Washington as an inspector's aide.
   Two months later, Felt was sent to New Orleans, Louisiana, as assistant
   special agent in charge of the field office. When he was transferred to
   Los Angeles, California fifteen months later, he held the same rank
   there.^ In 1956, Felt was transferred to Salt Lake City, Utah, and
   promoted to special agent in charge. The Salt Lake office included
   Nevada within its purview, and while there, Felt oversaw some of the
   Bureau's earliest investigations into organized crime with the Mob's
   operations in the casinos of Reno and Las Vegas.^ (It was Hoover's, and
   therefore the Bureau's official position at the time, that there was no
   such thing as the Mob). In February 1958, he went to Kansas City,
   Missouri, in his memoir dubbed "the Siberia of Field Offices",^ where
   he oversaw additional investigations of organized crime.^
   J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, photographed in 1961. Hoover
   appointed Felt the third ranking official in the Bureau in 1971.
   Enlarge
   J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, photographed in 1961. Hoover
   appointed Felt the third ranking official in the Bureau in 1971.

   He returned to Washington in September 1962. As assistant to the
   Bureau's assistant director in charge of the Training Division, Felt
   helped oversee the FBI Academy.^ In November 1964, he became assistant
   director of the Bureau, as chief inspector of the Bureau and head of
   the Inspection Division ^. This division oversaw compliance with Bureau
   regulations and conducted internal investigations.

   On July 1, 1971, Felt was promoted by Hoover to Deputy Associate
   Director, assisting Associate Director Clyde A. Tolson.^ Hoover's
   right-hand man for decades, Tolson was in failing health and no longer
   able to attend to his duties. Richard Gid Powers wrote that Hoover
   installed Felt to rein in William C. Sullivan's domestic spying
   operations, as Sullivan had been engaged in secret unofficial work for
   the White House. In his memoir, Felt quoted Hoover as having said, "I
   need someone who can control Sullivan. I think you know he has been
   getting out of hand."^ In his book, The Bureau, Ronald Kessler said,
   "Felt managed to please Hoover by being tactful with him and tough on
   agents."^ Curt Gentry called Felt "the director's latest fair-haired
   boy", but who had "no inherent power" in his new post, the real number
   three being John P. Mohr.^

After Hoover's death

   L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI from May 1972 to April
   1973. He was indicted with Felt for illegal break-ins.
   L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI from May 1972 to April
   1973. He was indicted with Felt for illegal break-ins.

   Hoover died in his sleep and was found on the morning of May 2, 1972.
   Tolson was nominally in charge until the next day when Nixon appointed
   loyalist L. Patrick Gray III as acting FBI director. Tolson submitted
   his resignation, dictated by Felt, and Gray accepted it, the acceptance
   also being dictated by Felt. Felt took Tolson's post as Associate
   Director, the number-two job in the bureau.^ Felt served as an honorary
   pallbearer at Hoover's funeral.^

   Immediately upon his death, Hoover's secretary for five decades, Helen
   Gandy, began destroying his files with the approval of Felt and Gray.
   She turned over twelve boxes of the "Official/Confidential" files to
   Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many
   of them containing derogatory information. Felt stored them in his
   office, and Gray told the press that afternoon that "there are no
   dossiers or secret files. There are just general files and I took steps
   to preserve their integrity." Felt earlier that day had told Gray, "Mr.
   Gray, the Bureau doesn't have any secret files", and to prove it had
   taken Gray to Hoover's office. They found Gandy boxing up papers. Felt
   said Gray "looked casually at an open file drawer and approved her
   work", though Gray would later deny he looked at anything. Gandy
   retained Hoover's "Personal File" and destroyed it.^ When Felt was
   called to testify in 1975 by the U.S. House about the destruction of
   Hoover's papers, he said, "There's no serious problems if we lose some
   papers. I don't see anything wrong and I still don't." ^

   In his memoir, Felt expressed mixed feelings about Gray. While noting
   Gray did work hard, he was critical at how often he was away from FBI
   Headquarters. Gray lived in Stonington, Connecticut, and commuted to
   Washington. He also visited all of the Bureau's field offices except
   Honolulu. His frequent absences led to the nickname "Three-Day Gray".
   ^These absences, combined with Gray's hospitalization and recuperation
   from November 20, 1972 to January 2, 1973,^ meant that Felt was
   effectively in charge for much of his final year at the Bureau. Bob
   Woodward wrote "Gray got to be director of the F.B.I. and Felt did the
   work."^ Felt wrote in his memoir:

          The record amply demonstrates that President Nixon made Pat Gray
          the Acting Director of the FBI because he wanted a politician in
          J. Edgar Hoover's position who would convert the Bureau into an
          adjunct of the White House machine.^

Watergate

   The Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. Felt saw all the FBI's files
   on its investigation of the break-in there in 1972.
   Enlarge
   The Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. Felt saw all the FBI's files
   on its investigation of the break-in there in 1972.

   As associate director, Felt saw everything compiled on Watergate before
   it went to Gray. The agent in charge, Charles Nuzum, sent his findings
   to Investigative Division head Robert Gebhardt, who then passed the
   information on to Felt. From the day of the break-in, June 17, 1972,
   until the FBI investigation was mostly completed in June 1973, Felt was
   the key control point for FBI information. He had been among the first
   to learn of the investigation, being informed at 7:00 on the morning of
   June 17.^ Ronald Kessler, who had spoken to former Bureau agents,
   reported that throughout the investigation they "were amazed to see
   material in Woodward and Bernstein's stories lifted almost verbatim
   from their reports of interviews a few days or weeks earlier."^

Contact with Woodward

   Bob Woodward first describes Deep Throat in All the President's Men as
   "a source in the Executive Branch who had access to information at CRP
   [the Committee to Re-elect the President, Nixon's 1972 campaign
   organization], as well as at the White House." ^The book also calls him
   "an incurable gossip" who was "in a unique position to observe the
   Executive Branch", a man "whose fight had been worn out in too many
   battles."^ Woodward had known the source before Watergate and had
   discussed politics and government with him.

   Woodward in 2005 wrote that he met Felt at the White House in 1969 or
   1970 when Woodward was an aide to Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of
   the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivering papers to the White House
   Situation Room. In his book The Secret Man, Woodward described Felt as
   "a tall man with perfectly combed gray hair . . . distinguished
   looking" with "a studied air of confidence, even what might be called a
   command presence".^ They stayed in touch and spoke on the telephone
   several times. When Woodward started working at the Washington Post, he
   phoned Felt on several occasions to ask for information for articles in
   the Post. Felt's information, taken on a promise that Woodward would
   never reveal their origin, was a source for a few stories, notably for
   an article on May 18, 1972, about Arthur H. Bremer, who shot George C.
   Wallace. When the Watergate story broke, Woodward called on his friend.
   Felt advised Woodward on June 19 that E. Howard Hunt was involved; the
   telephone number of his White House office had been listed in the
   address book of one of the burglars. Initially, Woodward's source was
   known at the Post as "My Friend", but was tagged "Deep Throat" by Post
   editor Howard Simons, after the pornographic movie. Woodward has
   written that idea for the nickname first came to Simons because Felt
   had been providing the information on a "deep background" basis. Deep
   background is a journalistic term meaning information provided to a
   reporter on the condition that the source be neither identified nor
   quoted directly.

   When Felt's name was revealed, it was noted that "My Friend" has the
   same initial letters as "Mark Felt". Woodward has said this was a
   coincidence, but in looking back at some of his notes, interviews with
   Felt during the earliest days of the story were marked with "M.F."

Code for contacting Woodward

   Woodward claimed that when he wanted to meet Deep Throat, he would move
   a flowerpot with a red flag on the balcony of his apartment, number
   617, at the Webster House at 1718 P Street, Northwest, and when Deep
   Throat wanted a meeting, he would circle the page number on page twenty
   of Woodward's copy of The New York Times and draw clock hands to signal
   the hour.^ Adrian Havill questioned these claims in his 1993 biography
   of Woodward and Bernstein, stating Woodward's balcony faced an interior
   courtyard and was not visible from the street, but Woodward responded
   that it has been bricked in since he lived there. Havill also claimed
   that copies of The Times were not delivered marked by apartment, but
   Woodward and a former neighbour disputed this claim.^ Woodward has
   stated

          How [Felt] could have made a daily observation of my balcony is
          still a mystery to me. At the time, the back of my building was
          not enclosed so anyone could have driven in the back alley to
          observe my balcony. In addition, my balcony and the back of the
          apartment complex faced onto a courtyard or back area that was
          shared with a number of other apartment or office buildings in
          the area. My balcony could have been seen from dozens of
          apartments or offices.

          There were several embassies in the area. The Iraqi embassy was
          down the street, and I thought it possible that the FBI had
          surveillance or listening posts nearby. Could Felt have had the
          counterintelligence agents regularly report on the status of my
          flag and flowerpot? That seems unlikely, but not impossible.^

   Days after the break-in, Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R.
   Haldeman talked about putting pressure on the FBI to slow down the
   investigation. The FBI had been called in by the District of Columbia
   police because the burglars had been found with wiretapping equipment,
   and wiretapping is a crime investigated by the FBI. Haldeman told
   President Nixon on June 23, 1972, "Mark Felt wants to cooperate because
   he's ambitious."^

Haldeman informed Nixon that Felt was leaking information

   In a taped conversation on October 19, 1972, Haldeman told the
   president that he had sources, which he declined to name, confirming
   Felt was speaking to the press. "You can't say anything about this
   because it will screw up our source and there's a real concern.
   Mitchell is the only one who knows about this and he feels strongly
   that we better not do anything because . . . If we move on him, he'll
   go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in
   the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything." ^Haldeman also
   reported that he had spoken to White House counsel John W. Dean about
   punishing Felt, but Dean said Felt had committed no crime and could not
   be prosecuted.

   When Gray returned from his sick leave in January 1973, he confronted
   Felt about being the source for Woodward and Bernstein. Gray said he
   had defended Felt to Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst: "You
   know, Mark, Dick Kleindienst told me I ought to get rid of you. He says
   White House staff members are concerned that you are the FBI source of
   leaks to Woodward and Bernstein"^ , to which Felt replied, "Pat, I
   haven't leaked anything to anybody."^ Gray told Felt, "I told
   Kleindienst that you've worked with me on a very competent manner and
   I'm convinced that you are completely loyal. I told him I was not going
   to move you out. Kleindienst told me, 'Pat, I love you for that.'"

Nixon passes over Felt again

   President Richard Nixon departing the White House on August 9, 1974,
   shortly before his resignation took effect. Felt's leaks to Woodward
   spurred the investigations that led to his resignation.
   Enlarge
   President Richard Nixon departing the White House on August 9, 1974,
   shortly before his resignation took effect. Felt's leaks to Woodward
   spurred the investigations that led to his resignation.

   On February 17, 1973, Nixon nominated Gray as Hoover's permanent
   replacement as director.^ Until then, Gray had been in limbo as acting
   director. In another taped conversation on February 28, Nixon spoke to
   Dean about Felt acting as an informant, and mentioned that he had never
   met him. Gray was forced to resign on April 27, after it was revealed
   Gray had destroyed a file on the Kennedy family that had been in the
   White House safe of E. Howard Hunt.^ Gray told his superiors that Felt
   should be named as his successor.

   The day Gray resigned, Kleindienst spoke to Nixon, who urged that Felt
   be appointed as Gray's replacement, but Nixon instead appointed William
   Ruckelshaus. Stanley Kutler reported that Nixon said, "I don't want
   him. I can't have him. I just talked to Bill Ruckelshaus and Bill is a
   Mr. Clean and I want a fellow in there that is not part of the old
   guard and that is not part of that infighting in there."^ On another
   White House tape, from May 11, 1973, Nixon and White House Chief of
   Staff Alexander M. Haig spoke of Felt leaking material to The New York
   Times. Nixon said, "he's a bad guy, you see", and that William Sullivan
   had told him Felt's ambition was to be director of the Bureau.^

   Felt called his relationship with Ruckelshaus "stormy".^ He said in his
   memoir Ruckelshaus was a "security guard sent to see that the FBI did
   nothing which would displease Mr. Nixon".^ Felt retired from the Bureau
   on June 22, 1973, ending a thirty-one-year career.

Tried for illegal break-ins

   In the early 1970s, Felt oversaw a turbulent period in the FBI's
   history. The FBI was pursuing radicals in the Weather Underground who
   had planted bombs at the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State
   Department. Felt, along with Edward S. Miller, authorized FBI agents to
   break into homes secretly in 1972 and 1973, without a search warrant,
   on nine separate occasions. These kinds of FBI burglaries were known as
   " black bag jobs". The break-ins occurred at five addresses in New York
   and New Jersey, at the homes of relatives and acquaintances of Weather
   Underground members, and did not lead to the capture of any fugitives.
   The use of "black bag jobs" by the FBI was declared unconstitutional by
   the United States Supreme Court in the Plamondon case, 407 U.S. 297
   (1972).

   After revelation by the Church Committee of the FBI's illegal
   activities, many agents were investigated. Felt in 1976 publicly stated
   he had ordered break-ins and that individual agents were merely obeying
   orders and should not be punished for it. Felt also stated Gray also
   authorized the break-ins, but Gray denied this. Felt said on the CBS
   television program Face the Nation he would probably be a "scapegoat"
   for the Bureau's work.^ "I think this is justified and I'd do it again
   tomorrow", he said on the program. While admitting the break-ins were
   "extralegal", he justified it as protecting the "greater good". Felt
   said:

          To not take action against these people and know of a bombing in
          advance would simply be to stick your fingers in your ears and
          protect your eardrums when the explosion went off and then start
          the investigation.

   The Attorney General in the new Carter administration, Griffin B. Bell,
   investigated, and on April 10, 1978, a federal grand jury charged Felt,
   Miller and Gray with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of
   American citizens by searching their homes without warrants, though
   Gray's case did not go to trial and was dropped by the government on
   December 11, 1980. Felt told Ronald Kessler:

          I was shocked that I was indicted. You would be too, if you did
          what you thought was in the best interests of the country and
          someone on technical grounds indicted you.^

   The indictment charged violations of Title 18, Section 241 of the
   United States Code. The indictment charged Felt and the others

          did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combine, conspire,
          confederate, and agree together and with each other to injure
          and oppress citizens of the United States who were relatives and
          acquaintances of the Weatherman fugitives, in the free exercise
          and enjoyments of certain rights and privileges secured to them
          by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of
          America.^

   Felt, Gray, and Miller were arraigned in Washington on April 20. Seven
   hundred current and former FBI agents were outside the courthouse
   applauding the "Washington Three", as Felt referred to himself and his
   colleagues in his memoir.^

   Felt and Miller attempted to plea bargain with the government, willing
   to agree to a misdemeanor guilty plea to conducting searches without
   warrants—a violation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 2236—but the government rejected
   the offer in 1979. After eight postponements, the case against Felt and
   Miller went to trial in the United States District Court for the
   District of Columbia on September 18, 1980.^ On October 29, former
   President Richard M. Nixon appeared as a rebuttal witness for the
   defense, and testified that presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had
   authorized the bureau to engage in break-ins while conducting foreign
   intelligence and counterespionage investigations.^ It was Nixon's first
   courtroom appearance since his resignation in 1974. Nixon also
   contributed money to Felt's legal defense fund, Felt's expenses running
   over $600,000. Also testifying were former Attorneys General Herbert
   Brownell, Jr., Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Ramsey Clark, John N.
   Mitchell, and Richard G. Kleindienst, all of whom said warrantless
   searches in national security matters were commonplace and not
   understood to be illegal, but Mitchell and Kleindienst denied they had
   authorized any of the break-ins at issue in the trial. (The Bureau used
   a national security justification for the searches because it alleged
   the Weather Underground was in the employ of Cuba.^ )

   The jury returned guilty verdicts on November 6, 1980. Although the
   charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, Felt was fined
   $5,000. (Miller was fined $3,500).^ Writing in The New York Times a
   week after the conviction, Roy Cohn claimed that Felt and Miller were
   being used as scapegoats by the Carter administration and it was an
   unfair prosecution. Cohn wrote it was the "final dirty trick" and that
   there had been no "personal motive" to their actions ^. The Times
   saluted the convictions saying it showed "the case has established that
   zeal is no excuse for violating the Constitution".^

   Felt and Miller appealed the verdict.

Pardoned by Reagan

   President Ronald Reagan, who pardoned Felt and Miller.
   Enlarge
   President Ronald Reagan, who pardoned Felt and Miller.

   In a phone call on January 30, 1981, Edwin Meese encouraged President
   Ronald Reagan to issue a pardon, and after further encouragement from
   law enforcement officials, and former bureau agents, he did so. The
   pardon was given on March 26, but was not announced to the public until
   April 15. (The delay was partly because Reagan was shot on March 30.)
   Reagan wrote:

          Pursuant to the grant of authority in article II, section 2 of
          the Constitution of the United States, I have granted full and
          unconditional pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller.

          During their long careers, Mark Felt and Edward Miller served
          the Federal Bureau of Investigation and our nation with great
          distinction. To punish them further — after 3 years of criminal
          prosecution proceedings — would not serve the ends of justice.

          Their convictions in the U.S. District Court, on appeal at the
          time I signed the pardons, grew out of their good-faith belief
          that their actions were necessary to preserve the security
          interests of our country. The record demonstrates that they
          acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had
          grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of
          government.

          America was at war in 1972, and Messrs. Felt and Miller followed
          procedures they believed essential to keep the Director of the
          FBI, the Attorney General, and the President of the United
          States advised of the activities of hostile foreign powers and
          their collaborators in this country. They have never denied
          their actions, but, in fact, came forward to acknowledge them
          publicly in order to relieve their subordinate agents from
          criminal actions.

          Four years ago, thousands of draft evaders and others who
          violated the Selective Service laws were unconditionally
          pardoned by my predecessor. America was generous to those who
          refused to serve their country in the Vietnam war. We can be no
          less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an
          end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation.^

   Nixon sent Felt and Miller bottles of champagne with the note "Justice
   ultimately prevails".^ The New York Times disapproved, saying that
   America "deserved better than a gratuitous revision of the record by
   the President".^ Felt and Miller said they would seek repayment of
   their legal fees from the government.

   The chief prosecutor on the trial, John W. Nields, Jr., said "I would
   warrant that whoever is responsible for the pardons did not read the
   record of the trial and did not know the facts of the case." Nields
   also complained that the White House did not consult with the
   prosecutors in the case, which was usual practice when a pardon was
   under consideration.^

   Felt reacted by saying, "I feel very excited and just so pleased that I
   can hardly contain myself. I am most grateful to the President. I don't
   know how I'm ever going to be able to thank him. It's just like having
   a heavy burden lifted off your back. This case has been dragging on for
   five years." Miller told a press conference the day of the announcement
   "I certainly owe the Gipper one." Their attorney, Thomas Kennelly, said
   "We thank God and we thank President Reagan that these two good men
   have been vindicated at last." Carter Attorney General Griffin Bell
   said he did not object to the pardons as the initial convictions showed
   that behaviour such as Felt and Miller's was no longer tolerated.

   Despite their pardons, Felt and Miller won permission from the United
   States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to appeal
   the conviction so as to remove it from their record and to prevent it
   being used in civil suits by the victims of the break-ins they
   ordered.^Ultimately, Felt's law license was returned by the court in
   1982, which cited Reagan's pardon. In June 1982, Felt and Miller
   testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's security and
   terrorism subcommittee that the restrictions placed on the FBI by
   Attorney General Edward H. Levi were threatening the country's safety.^

Later years

   Felt published his memoir The FBI Pyramid From the Inside in 1979. It
   was co-written with Hoover biographer Ralph de Toledano, though the
   latter's name appears only in the copyright notice. Toledano in 2005
   wrote that the volume was "largely written by me since his original
   manuscript read like The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Toledano
   said:

          Felt swore to me that he was not Deep Throat, that he had never
          leaked information to the Woodward-Bernstein team or anyone
          else. The book was published and bombed.^

   Library Journal wrote in their review that "at one time Felt was
   assumed to be Watergate's 'Deep Throat'; in this interesting but hardly
   sensational memoir, he makes it clear that that honor, if honour it be,
   lies elsewhere."^ The memoir was a strong defense of Hoover and his
   tenure as Director and condemned the reaction to criticisms of the
   Bureau made in the 1970s by the Church Committee and civil
   libertarians. He also denounced the treatment of Bureau agents as
   criminals and said the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act of
   1974 only served to interfere with government work and helped
   criminals. (The flavor of his criticisms is apparent with the very
   first words of the book: "The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact",
   Justice Robert H. Jackson's comment in his dissent to Terminello v.
   City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).^ ) The New York Times Book Review
   was highly critical of the book saying Felt "seeks to perpetuate a view
   of Hoover and the F.B.I. that is no longer seriously peddled even on
   the backs of cereal boxes" and contains "a disturbing number of factual
   errors"^ , sentiments echoed by Curt Gentry who said Felt was "the
   keeper of the Hoover flame".^

   In 1990, Felt moved to Santa Rosa, California, from Alexandria,
   Virginia, his home since the 1970s. In 1992, he bought his present home
   in Santa Rosa and since then lived with his daughter Joan Felt. He
   suffered a stroke before 1999, reported Ronald Kessler, and met with
   Bob Woodward in 1999. Kessler took this as evidence that Felt was "Deep
   Throat". However, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat said Felt's stroke was
   in 2001.^

Family

   Felt and his wife, Audrey, who died in 1984, had two children, Joan and
   Mark. Joan earned two degrees from Stanford University and won a
   Fulbright Scholarship. According the Vanity Fair article by John D.
   O'Connor revealing Felt's secret, Joan joined a commune in the 1970s
   and gave birth to her first son on camera for a documentary called The
   Birth of Ludi. Joan teaches Spanish at Sonoma State University and
   Santa Rosa Junior College, and is a long time member of and local
   contact for Adi Da. Joan has three sons, Will Felt (a.k.a. Ludi, born
   1974); Robbie Jones (born circa 1979); and Nick Jones (born circa
   1981). Nick Jones was a schoolmate of O'Connor's daughter.

   Felt's son Mark Jr. is a pilot for American Airlines and a retired U.S.
   Air Force lieutenant colonel.^

   Felt's grandson, W. Mark Felt II, attended the University of Florida,
   graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 2005, and now practices
   emergency medicine in Orlando, Florida.

Deep Throat speculation

   The identity of Deep Throat was debated for over three decades. Jack
   Limpert had published evidence as early as 1974 that Felt was the
   informant.^ On June 25 of that year, a few weeks after All the
   President's Men was published, The Wall Street Journal ran an
   editorial, "If You Drink Scotch, Smoke, Read, Maybe You're Deep
   Throat". It began "W. Mark Felt says he isn't now, nor has he ever been
   Deep Throat." The Journal quoted Felt saying the character was a
   "composite" and "I'm just not that kind of person." ^During a grand
   jury investigation in 1976, Felt was called to testify and the
   prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Stanley
   Pottinger, stumbled upon the fact Felt was "Deep Throat", but the
   secrecy of the proceedings preserved the secrecy of Felt's alter ego
   from the public. ^

   In 1992, James Mann, who had been a reporter at The Washington Post in
   1972 and worked with Woodward, wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly
   saying the source had to have been within the FBI. While he mentioned
   Felt as a possibility, he said he could not be certain it was him.^

   Alexander P. Butterfield, the White House aide best known for revealing
   the existence of Nixon's taping system, told The Hartford Courant in
   1995, "I think it was a guy named Mark Felt." ^In July 1999, Felt was
   identified as Deep Throat by The Hartford Courant, citing Chase
   Culeman-Beckman, a nineteen-year-old from Port Chester, New York.
   Culeman-Beckman said Jacob Bernstein, the son of Carl Bernstein and
   Nora Ephron, had told him the name at summer camp in 1988, and that
   Jacob claimed he had been told by his father. Felt denied the
   identification to the Courant saying "No, it's not me. I would have
   done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't
   exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?" Bernstein said
   his son didn't know. "Bob and I have been wise enough never to tell our
   wives, and we've certainly never told our children."^ (Bernstein
   reiterated on June 2, 2005, on the Today Show that his wife had never
   known.)

   Leonard Garment, President Nixon's former law partner who became White
   House counsel after John W. Dean's resignation, ruled Felt out as Deep
   Throat in his 2000 book In Search of Deep Throat. Garment wrote:

          The Felt theory was a strong one . . . Felt had a personal
          motive for acting. After the death of J. Edgar Hoover . . . Felt
          thought he was a leading candidate to succeed Hoover . . . The
          characteristics were a good fit. The trouble with Felt's
          candidacy was that Deep Throat in All the President's Men simply
          did not sound to me like a career FBI man.^

   Garment said the information leaked to Woodward was inside White House
   information Felt would not have had access to. "Felt did not fit."^
   (Once the secret was revealed, it was noted Felt did have access to
   such information because the Bureau's agents were interviewing high
   White House officials.)

   In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle profiled Felt. Noting his denial
   in The FBI Pyramid, the paper wrote

          Curiously, his son — American Airlines pilot Mark Felt — now
          says that shouldn't be read as a definitive denial, and that he
          plans to answer the question once-and-for-all in a second
          memoir. The excerpt of the working draft obtained by the
          Chronicle has Felt still denying he's Throat but providing a
          rationale for why Throat did the right thing.^

   In February 2005, reports surfaced that Woodward had prepared Deep
   Throat's obituary, because he was near death. This led to some
   speculation that Deep Throat might have been William H. Rehnquist, who
   was a Justice Department official early in the Nixon administration,
   but was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by the time of the
   incident.

Deep Throat revealed

   Vanity Fair magazine revealed Felt was Deep Throat on May 31, 2005 when
   it published an article (eventually appearing in the July issue of the
   magazine) on its website by John D. O'Connor, an attorney acting on
   Felt's behalf, in which Felt said, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep
   Throat." After the Vanity Fair story broke, Benjamin C. Bradlee, the
   key editor of the Washington Post during Watergate, confirmed that Felt
   was Deep Throat. According to the Vanity Fair article, Felt was
   persuaded to come out by his family, who wanted to capitalize on the
   book deals and other lucrative opportunities that Felt would inevitably
   be offered in order, at least in part, to pay off his grandchildren's
   education. They also did not want Bob Woodward to get all the attention
   by revealing Deep Throat's identity after Felt's death.^

   Public response varied widely. Felt's family called him an "American
   hero", suggesting that he leaked information for moral or patriotic
   reasons. G. Gordon Liddy, who was convicted of burglary in the
   Watergate scandal, said Felt should have gone to the grand jury rather
   than leaking information.^ Some have contrasted Felt's media treatment
   with that of other whistleblowers.

   Nixon chief counsel Charles Colson, who served prison time for his
   actions in the Nixon White House, said Felt had violated "his oath to
   keep this nation's secrets"^ , but a Los Angeles Times editorial argued
   that this argument was specious, "as if there's no difference between
   nuclear strategy and rounding up hush money to silence your hired
   burglars."^ Ralph de Toledano, who co-wrote Felt's 1979 memoir, said
   Mark Felt Jr. had approached him in 2004 to buy Toledano's half of the
   copyright. Toledano agreed to sell but was never paid and attempted to
   rescind the deal, threatening legal action. A few days before the
   Vanity Fair article was released, Toledano finally received a check.

          I had been gloriously and illegally deceived, and Deep Throat
          was, in characteristic style, back in business — which given his
          history of betrayal, was par for the course.^

   Speculation about Felt's motives at the time of the scandal has varied
   widely as well. Some suggested it was revenge for Nixon choosing Gray
   over Felt to replace Hoover as FBI Director. Others suggest Felt acted
   out of institutional loyalty to the FBI. Felt may have simply acted out
   of patriotism.

   Publishers were interested in signing Felt to a book deal after the
   revelation. Weeks after the Vanity Fair article was released,
   PublicAffairs Books, whose CEO was a Washington Post reporter and
   editor during the Watergate era, announced that it signed a deal with
   Felt. The new book was to include material from his 1979 memoir with an
   update. The new volume was scheduled for publication in the spring of
   2006. Felt sold the movie rights to his story to Universal Pictures for
   development by Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone. The book and
   movie deals were valued at US $1 million.^

   In the summer of 2005, Woodward's longtime publisher, Simon and
   Schuster, issued Woodward's swiftly written account of his contacts
   with Felt, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat ( ISBN
   0-7432-8715-0). The book received poor reviews and, despite the media
   attention that surrounded the Vanity Fair story, sold poorly.
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