![]() ![]() Some US newspapers said he showed the value of whistleblowers in keeping the government in check. He was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.Īfter the revelations, Mr Felt's grandson, Nick Jones, described his grandfather as "a great American hero who went well and above the call of duty at much risk to himself". In the 1970s, Mr Felt was convicted of organising illegal searches of houses of radicals associated with the Weather Underground movement. ![]() The FBI has not commented on the admission. Mr Felt only admitted his secret to his family in 2002, he told the magazine, when his daughter confronted him after being tipped off by one of his close associates. The name derived from a famous pornographic film of the time. Mr Felt, now 91, told Vanity Fair: "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." "However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate." Initially the Washington Post reporters refused to confirm Mr Felt's identity, sticking with their 31-year promise only to break the silence after their source's death.īut later on Tuesday, they issued a joint statement, saying: "Mark Felt was Deep Throat and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. Mr Felt's role was revealed by US magazine Vanity Fair after three decades of mystery and speculation. Mr Felt's family said he deserved recognition for the risks he took - but some in the US called him a "traitor". The scandal forced the resignation of Republican President Richard Nixon in August 1974.ĭeep Throat helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate affair. The Washington Post has confirmed that Mark Felt, a former top FBI official, was Deep Throat, the source who leaked secrets during the Watergate scandal. But he was pardoned by the incoming President, Ronald Reagan, the following year.Mark Felt says he only told his secret to his family three years ago His last brush with notoriety came in 1980 when he and other senior FBI officials were convicted of ordering illegal break-ins without search warrants during a 1972/73 investigation of the radical Weather Underground group. But after the 1976 film version of All the President's Men, starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and Jason Robards as Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee respectively (and featuring Hal Holbrook as a rasping "Deep Throat"), there was nothing Felt could do about it. His biggest dislike was his nickname, bestowed upon him by Howard Simon, the Post's managing editor, after the porn movie that was then the sensation of the day. But not until May 2005 and the Vanity Fair article, written by a lawyer and family friend to whom Felt had told his story, did confirmation come. Equally important parts were played by judges and special prosecutors, by cabinet officers like the Attorney General Elliot Richardson, by the sleuthing of Woodward and Bernstein – not to mention Frank Willis, the security man that June night at the Watergate building without whose alertness the break-in would never have been detected.Īfter the event, Felt always strenuously denied his role, first in his 1979 memoir The FBI Pyramid From the Inside, and then in 1992, after an Atlantic Monthly article in which the journalist James Mann persuasively argued that Felt was the most likely suspect. "Deep Throat", it should be said, was not decisive in Nixon's downfall. ![]()
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