DEEP THROAT

W. Mark Felt

According to Vanity Fair, 91-year-old W. Mark Felt is Deep throat the informant that fed information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

He was the number two man at the FBI during the Watergate investigation.

It had been said that Deep Throat's identity would be revealed after the individual's death.

Apparently, Mr. Felt has given the green light to make it known that he was the informer.

Even at 91, it's never too late for 15 minutes of fame.

From ABC:

May 31, 2005 -- After more than 30 years of silence, the most famous anonymous source in American history, Deep Throat, has identified himself to a reporter at Vanity Fair.

W. Mark Felt, 91, an assistant director at the FBI in the 1970s, has told reporter John D. O'Connor that he is "the man known as Deep Throat."

O'Connor told ABC News in an interview today that Felt had for years thought he was a dishonorable man for talking to Bob Woodward, a reporter for The Washington Post during Watergate. Woodward's articles, writted with Carl Bernstein, led to the resignation of President Nixon.

"Mark wants the public respect, and wants to be known as a good man," O'Connor said. "He's very proud of the bureau, he's very proud of the FBI. He now knows he is a hero."

From MSNBC:

Ex-FBI official says he's 'Deep Throat'
Magazine quotes him as saying he was 'doing his duty'

W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.

Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif. reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity.

"The Felt family cooperated fully, providing old photographs for the story and agreeing to sit for portraits," Vanity Fair stated in a press release.

Felt said he was "only doing his duty" and did not seek to bring down Nixon over the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward broke the story as Washington Post reporters, issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt's claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies.

NBC News commentator Chris Matthews, who wrote a book about Watergate, said he wasn't surprised, adding that Felt "has always been the leading suspect."
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After ABC concluded it's coverage of President Bush's press conference, they stayed on the air to report W. Mark Felt's claim that he is Deep Throat.

Terry Moran bemoaned that today this is a "much different White House." He said this administration is disciplined and they won't talk.

Charles Gibson chimed in to agree that this White House is so secretive. No one is willing to meet reporters in underground parking lots.

I just about choked hearing the two men yearn for a highly-placed official from the Bush adminstration to leak information the way Felt claims he did.

Nixon White House = Good

Bush White House = Bad

Someone was willing to cooperate with the press to undermine Nixon. Moran and Gibson criticize the current administration because no one will do the same to Bush.

Did they consider the possibility that there is nothing untoward to leak?

No doubt, Woodward and Bernstein were banking on huge book sales when the time would come for them to release the identity of Deep Throat. I wouldn't be surprised if the book had already been written.

It looks like W. Mark Felt stole their thunder as well as profits.

More from ABC:

The identity of Deep Throat, the source for details about Nixon's Watergate cover-up, has been called the best-kept secret in the history of Washington D.C., or at least in the history of politics and journalism. Only four people were said to know the source's identity: Woodward; Bernstein; Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of the Post; and, of course, Deep Throat himself.

Both Bradlee and Bernstein have refused to confirm to ABC News that Felt is Deep Throat.

Woodward would also neither confirm nor deny the report.

"There's a principle involved here," he told ABC News. He and Bernstein promised not to reveal Deep Throat's identity until the source dies.

Despite years of feelings of negativity and ambivalence, O'Connor said, Felt's family has helped him realize that "he is a hero" and "that it is good what he did."

In his 1979 book, "The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside," Felt flat-out denied that he was the famous source.

"I would have done better," Felt told The Hartford Courant in 1999. "I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?"

...The source was dubbed "Deep Throat" by Post managing editor Howard Simons after the notorious porn film.
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The MSM is having a lot of fun with elevating Felt to hero status.

I'd be willing to bet that Dan Rather is in tears right now, crushed that he's not behind the anchor desk, rehashing the Watergate years.