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Watergate "Deep Throat" Mark Felt Dead At 95
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Dec 20, 2008 03:42 PM
from the linda-lovelace-in-mourning dept.
from the linda-lovelace-in-mourning dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "W. Mark Felt Sr., 95, associate director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal, better known as 'Deep Throat,' the most famous anonymous source in American history, died at his home in Santa Rosa, California. Felt secretly guided Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to pursue the story of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office buildings, and later of the Nixon administration's campaign of spying and sabotage against its perceived political enemies. 'It's impossible to exaggerate how high the stakes were in Watergate,' wrote Felt in his 2006 book A G-Man's Life. 'We faced no simple burglary, but an assault on government institutions, an attack on the FBI's integrity, and unrelenting pressure to unravel one of the greatest political scandals in our nation's history.' No one knows exactly what prompted Felt to leak the information from the Watergate probe to the press. He was passed over for the post of FBI director after Hoover's death in 1972, a crushing career disappointment. 'People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward. The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out, and isn't that what the FBI is supposed to do?'"
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Mark Felt Dead at 95? (Score:5, Funny)
I think I'd feel dead at 95 too, if I were not in really good health.
Re:Mark Felt Dead at 95? (Score:4, Funny)
He is survived by his wife, Ivana B. Felt.
Parent
Answer's obvious. (Score:5, Interesting)
Media AI source code (Score:5, Funny)
if(politician.party=="republican") {
attack(politician);
} else if(politician.party=="democrat") {
fellate(politician);
} else {
ignore(politician);
}
Parent
that was a recent change. (Score:4, Funny)
2008-11-05 08:35 cabal_hacker
* Media/src/com/murdock/ruppert/policy/Spin.java: Thank god we don't
have to fellate that warmongering dunce anymore. Reversing parties.
Parent
Re:Media AI source code (Score:4, Funny)
} else {
ignore(politician);
}
Good for you, accounting for those rare, one-in-a-million occurrences.
Huh. I can't get the non-breaking spaces to work.
Parent
Re:Media AI source code (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worth bearing in mind that Nixon's predecessor was objectively far worse than him, namely LBJ.
Starting and then fighting the Vietnam war badly, deliberately falsifying the Gulf of Tonkin incident (whatever about Bush, I think he genuinely believed his pretext, that Iraqi WMDs existed), ordering the USS Liberty to not be defended when it was under attack and then falsifying details of the attack later (probably the most spineless act in US military history).
Aside from that, there's the personal - forcing aides to talk to him while he was talking a dump, laughing at the dead body of JFK, etc..
A truly odious and terrible president.
Parent
Re:Media AI source code (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worth bearing in mind that Nixon's predecessor was objectively far worse than him, namely LBJ.
Starting and then fighting the Vietnam war badly, deliberately falsifying the Gulf of Tonkin incident (whatever about Bush, I think he genuinely believed his pretext, that Iraqi WMDs existed), ordering the USS Liberty to not be defended when it was under attack and then falsifying details of the attack later (probably the most spineless act in US military history).
Aside from that, there's the personal - forcing aides to talk to him while he was talking a dump, laughing at the dead body of JFK, etc..
A truly odious and terrible president.
Sure, those are terrible things.
Breaking the oath of office and using the power of the Presidency illegally in order to retain power is far more cancerous and treasonous. That was Nixon's big crime.
Parent
Re:Media AI source code (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if we are going back to a Roman Citizen type culture where freedom and democracy is important for people who are in, but absolutely forbidden for people that are 'out' (in this case, the Vietnamese).
Parent
Re:Media AI source code (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, maybe the 60,000 Americans who died pointlessly because of LBJ would disagree.
I'd wager the 1.5 million Vietnamese who did likewise would, also.
And maybe congress would think that being deliberately misled about a false enemy attack in order to start said war would constitute the president "breaking the seal of office".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Slaughtered. So LBJ didn't save them. He started US involvement, and then fought the war badly enough to irreparably erode a huge amount of belief in it from the US public and to galvanize a lot of South Vietnamese opinion against their corrupt rulers, wasted vast amounts of tax dollars and large numbers of US lives (along with Koreans and Australians), and ultimately it didn't turn out exactly well, did it?
I don't follow your logic.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Media AI source code (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"All in all they all do it and it's only politics"
Oh i see, it's only politics, just some arbitrary tit-for-tat, as harmless as a checkers game.
Re:Media AI source code - All presidents do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't stand Bush and think his presidency has been among the most dangerous in modern history, but there's no credible evidence he "let" 9/11" happen. There's evidence he treated the threat too lightly, but no real reason to believe he had specific knowledge of what would happen and chose to look the other way. What not-so-credible evidence has been presented by conspiracy theorists has been debunked to high heaven.
Hate him on the indisputable merits. It's easier.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the 9/11 attack would have happened with any president. The way it would be dealt with would have been completely different. Others would not have raped peoples rights so much.
Found one for the general population (Score:2)
if(politician.party=="republican") {
QQ(democrat);
} else if(politician.party=="democrat") {
QQ(republican);
} else {
watch(TV);
}
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because Islam's history before the '80s was one of peace and love.
Re:Media AI source code (Score:5, Funny)
#include "clinton.inc"
It provides a public interface to the fellate() function, making it compatible with the politician class. Unfortunately it randomly leaves behind objects of class blue_dress in memory.
Parent
The role of the media (Score:3, Insightful)
This may be okay if you have a media that's actually motivated by some kind of ethics. In my area (and I suspect many others), the economy isn't really large enough to support much more than a commercially sponsored media primarily interested in turning news into entertainment, and presenting whatever news in whatever form and bias it tak
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"Mark Felt did do the right thing"
The right thing isn't to go outside the business/government process. Especially since he was at the top of the government arm designed to investigate crime. He seems to have taken the short path to victory, letting outsiders gain notoriety while letting the FBI lay idle.
Re:Answer's obvious. (Score:5, Interesting)
The right thing isn't to go outside the business/government process.
Nonsense, both in general and this specific case.
The "process" in this case was blocked and corrupted from multiple angles. The Attorney General (John Mitchell) was involved in the original crimes. His replacement, Eliot Richardson, was fired in the Saturday Night Massacre along with the special prosecutor and others. It was later shown that the CIA, FBI, etc., all had elements participating in the crimes or cover up.
Working within the system Felt would not have been any more effective than anyone else. Yes, like Richardson et.al. he could have taken a stand and been shoved aside or fired. And effectively silenced because he didn't have any specific evidence himself but merely the knowledge of where to point the investigation. He would have been a small part of a 3 day news cycle and the Nixon gang might well have gotten away with it.
Going outside the system was precisely the right thing to do, arguably the only thing available to him. Even so, if it weren't for a rather unique group of people at the Washington Post it might not have had anymore success than working inside the system. One only wished the NY Times had such guts with the illegal wiretapping information instead of sitting on it for a year.
The business/governmental "process" only works when there are people of integrity involved. When those people, like Nixon, Bush, Enron, Countrywide, etc., are up to eyeballs in the crime the "process" is nothing more than convenient choke points to stop the truth from getting out.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's no different from the multiple scandals that plagued the Clinton administration, the difference between that the media actively covered it up back then.
Hell, the only reason we know about Monica Lewinsky is that Matt Drudge broke the story after Newsweek was going to quietly shelve it. And look how Obama's campaign got away with breaking its campaign financing prom
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think we do, quite honestly, judging by the multiple scandals that have gone seemingly unpunished during the Bush administration.
That's no different from the multiple scandals that plagued the Clinton administration, the difference between that the media actively covered it up back then.
Unless I misunderstand you, I think it is quite different. During the Clinton era, we had attack dogs in congress spending millions of dollars investigating petty bullshit like Christmas Card lists and the firing of a travel agent.
Just to name one of the uninvestigated crimes of the Bush administration, we had the attorney firings scandal, where the administration fired dozens of federal prosecutors, who wouldn't play ball and pursue crimeless political cases. Or how about Bush's multiple meetings with Jef
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, Felt did the right thing.
Unfortunately there is nobody left to do it now.
Thanks Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
He did brave thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh please, he was Hoover's #2 (Score:5, Insightful)
More importantly, he was J. Edgar Hoover's #2 at a time when the FBI was wiretapping MLK and John Lennon - and presidents. Yes, there is a reason that Hoover stayed as FBI director, a huge plum appointment for any president, for 48 friggin years. Hoover blackmailed presidents, and everyone else he could wiretap and burglarize. You think his #2 wasn't in on that?
When Hoover died, Nixon did the right thing, what any of the 44 presidents would have done, cleaned house and got the Hoover cronies the hell out of there. And what did Felt do once he didn't get the director job? He did exactly what every president for 48 years was afraid of about Hoover - Felt released dirt on Nixon.
Say what you want about Nixon, but Hoover was the antithesis of a democracy, an unelected guy who abused his power and blackmailed presidents to stay in office for half a century. Appointing Felt to replace him would have been, in retrospect, politically expedient. Felt thought he was entitled to the job and brought Nixon down for it. To suggest that Felt, the ultimate black-bag guy, was appalled at Nixon's shenanigans, when Hoover freaking invented it, is like saying Linsday Lohan is offended by Paris Hilton's public tramp behavior. Ludicrous!
It is interesting that most news reports do not talk about Felt's illegal wiretapping of the Weather Underground (not that I have sympathy for that domestic terror group, but I am not running around claiming to be some civil liberties hero), or they mention it at the very end of the story like AP did.
God knows all of the shit Hoover pulled. Maybe someday it will all come to light. It would make a great movie, but would probably have to be a mini-series or TV show on HBO, as it would likely be impossible to chronicle in 2 hours.
And they named the FBI building after the sumbitch.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh please, he was Hoover's #2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be better to have a independent fiefdom that investigates terrorist, civil rights groups, and the president, rather than a group under the thumb of the executive branch that investigates just terrorist and civil rights groups?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yah, it's always better to have law-enforcement groups with no oversight. Better yet, place them in position to control pretty much the whole country. Then make the Director (Chief, whatever) unelected. Then we can rename it the Gestapo, or perhaps KGB, and we can skip a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Gestapo was run by Himmler, NOT Hitler. An important difference, since Himmler wasn't so solidly controlled as all that.
Likewise, the KGB was really under the control of the KGB Chairman/Director, not the Politburo.
An FBI with no oversight would have been a nightmare. As much so as either of the others. And dressing it up by saying they wouldn't be able to
The history of the Independent Counsel says no (Score:2)
Now the Justice Department has a Civil Rights division, and it isn't staffed by Hoover acolytes. It's run by liberals mostly (who else would join the FBI to ensure civil liberties rather than to catch crooks?)
I'll take the modern incarnation of the FBI over some independent counsel initiated
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This analogy of yours involves persons of the opposite sex. As a slashdotter, I am not able to understand such an analogy. Please provide the equivalent car analogy for this situation.
Thank you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like Library of Congresses being offended by Station Wagons full of Mag Tapes.
Mark Felt: The Black Bag Man? (Score:5, Informative)
Yet Felt was not strictly against "black bag jobs" like the Watergate break-in:
While Watergate was seething, Mr. Felt authorized nine illegal break-ins at the homes of friends and relatives of members of the Weather Underground, a violent left-wing splinter group. The people he chose as targets had committed no crimes. The F.B.I. had no search warrants. He later said he ordered the break-ins because national security required it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/washington/19felt.html?scp=1&sq=mark%20felt&st=cse [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Weather Underground wasn't an approved political party, the Democrats were and are.
There's an old saying...in Soviet Russia there was one party; in America there are two.
Re: (Score:2)
The Weather Underground wasn't an approved political party, the Democrats were and are.
I wasn't aware that the Democrats bomb Federal buildings and organize riots.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet Felt was not strictly against "black bag jobs" like the Watergate break-in:
He later said he ordered the break-ins because national security required it.
FWIW - I think that all kinds of constitutional rule breaking is OK. But there needs to be oversight. I say that if you really and truly believe there is a significant threat to national security, or otherwise, then prove it. Put your career and freedom on the line and be prepared to be judged after the fact.
Go ahead and order that bag-job, or that torture, or whatever other constitution-violating actions you think are necessary in order to counter the threat. But don't make it a secret. You should exp
In his honor... (Score:2, Funny)
I guess this weekend, seeing as I'm literally snowed into my apartment, I'll fire up All the President's Men on the TV........and Deep Throat....
Materials on Watergate (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't know much about Watergate, I suggest hitting up Watergate [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia, then considering acquiring a copy of Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men [tinyurl.com]. Those two reporters were the ones two interacted with Deep Throat [tinyurl.com], named for a 70s porn.
The 1976 Redford/Hoffman movie version of the book All the President's Men [tinyurl.com] is the definitive story in video format.
Emery's Watergate [tinyurl.com] is another arguably excellent book on the matter.
Avoid the new "Frost/Nixon" film--it's history ambiguous and largely inaccurate; it's a Hollywood version of the story with excellent acting. Instead, watch the original interviews [tinyurl.com].
No, ATPM gets a lot wrong (Score:5, Informative)
You'd also want to read Bob Haldeman's and John Erlichman's biographies.
ATPM gets a lot wrong. The bottom line is Nixon wasn't brought down by Woodward and Bernstein, they just kept up the heat.
Nixon was brought down by a guy named Alexander Butterfield announcing to the Senate Watergate Committee that Nixon taped his conversations [wikipedia.org], which led to the smoking gun tape about Nixon telling the FBI that Watergate was a CIA operation, back-off. Nixon scuttled that idea the next day, but that tape is what brought him down, not W&B. Once Nixon finally released the tapes, that particular tape is what turned Barry Goldwater to support impeachment, and Nixon's goose was cooked. After Nixon heard he lost Goldwater, he turned to his SecState Al Haig and said, "Well, there goes the presidency, Al."
BTW, when Haig dies, I'm betting he was a Woodward source too. Haig, when NSA for Nixon, was given his military briefings by a young Naval Intelligence officer named Bob Woodward. To this day, Woodward will not talk about those briefings.
Parent
Sources and the Media (Score:3, Insightful)
- Illuminate, Educate, and Illustrate
- Titillate, Castigate, and Prevaricate
One pays better than the other, but one is much better for society in the long run.
Re: (Score:2)
That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, since the trend lately has been to lie and run companies into the ground for profit on Wallstreet without producing anything of real value. http://www.motherjones.com [motherjones.com]
Felt's Revenge for Not Getting Promoted (Score:5, Interesting)
Mark Felt disclosed to Woodward and Bernstein what he thought would hurt Nixon, because Nixon had passed over Felt (#2 at FBI when Hoover finally died) in favor of a Nixon crony, an "outsider", to run the FBI instead of promoting Felt.
I'm glad he did. But I don't admire or respect Felt for it. Because Felt could have disclosed any of that stuff (or more that he surely knew) to Woodward and Bernstein, or many other journalists, well before he had reasons of personal revenge. Which might have prevented Nixon from being reelected in 1972, instead of a landslide followed by an aborted impeachment that has left this country in Constitutional crisis through today, worse every time around the cycle.
I'm not glad he's dead, either. I wish he had spilled more, about other Nixon cronies (like Rumsfeld and Cheney), and he might have done so once the Bush era was finally safely over, and those other criminals were as "retired" as he was. But evidently there wasn't enough personal gain in that kind of disclosure, so Felt never gave it. And now he never will.
he could've spilled beans earlier, too (Score:2)
Why do you think LBJ, for example, kept Hoover and his cronies (of which Felt was one) in office? To keep them from releasing dirt on him, which they duly didn't. The Hoover/Felt mafia dished the dirt as soon as someone stopped paying the protection money, which was 1972.
His bean-spilling days were over (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not glad he's dead, either. I wish he had spilled more, about other Nixon cronies (like Rumsfeld and Cheney), and he might have done so once the Bush era was finally safely over, and those other criminals were as "retired" as he was. But evidently there wasn't enough personal gain in that kind of disclosure, so Felt never gave it. And now he never will.
I heard Woodward interviewed on Fresh Air on NPR the other day (I think it was a rerun) and according to him, the last time he visited Mark Felt at Felt's home in California, Felt was in poor health. Specifically, he suffered from some form of dementia. According to Woodward, at that time he could barely remember why Nixon had to leave office. He knew who Woodward was, and he told Woodward that he and Bernstein "had done the right thing," but specific details of their past dealings were already lost to him. So as far as spilling any more beans, that door was closed.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously you thought you knew all about the Watergate scandal. But if you are just now hearing about "Deep Throat" I don't think you knew much at all.