Felt was only contacted on matters of great importance.Īlthough the two initially talked by phone, Felt soon began to worry that his phones could be tapped. And, of course, the reporters had to promise to keep his identity a secret. Felt refused to be quoted, even anonymously, and agreed only to confirm information already obtained, refusing to provide new information. But his cooperation came with strict restrictions. So, when Bob Woodward called the veteran FBI employee to request information about the bureau’s Watergate investigation, Felt agreed to talk. He was also upset over Nixon’s attempts to stall the bureau’s investigation into the Watergate break-ins. Edgar Hoover, then director of the FBI, Felt, who was serving as the bureau’s assistant director, wanted the job and was angry over Nixon’s failure to appoint him. Although his name was often mentioned as a possibility, Felt consistently denied being Deep Throat, even writing in his 1979 memoir, “I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or to anyone else!” Even as recently as six years before the admission, he was quoted as saying, “It would be contrary to my responsibility as a loyal employee of the FBI to leak information.”Īfter the death of J. America was obsessed with the shadowy figure who went to great lengths to conceal his involvement with the Washington Post reporters. The question “Who was Deep Throat?” had been investigated relentlessly in the ensuing years since Watergate in movies, books, televisions shows and on the Internet. READ MORE: The Watergate Scandal: A Timeline Tapes show that President Nixon himself had speculated that Felt was the secret informant as early as 1973. Felt's admission, made in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, took legendary reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had promised to keep their source’s identity a secret until his death, by surprise. Mark Felt’s family ends 30 years of speculation, identifying Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as “Deep Throat,” the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal.
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