The search for Deep Throat

Why has the secret lasted?

Deep Throat’s identity apparently is known only to four people—reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, their former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and Deep Throat himself. The whistle-blower who brought down a president has insisted on maintaining his privacy, the journalists say, and they’ve promised to keep the secret as long as he lives. That hasn’t stopped a slew of amateur sleuths from trying to solve the puzzle.

What do we know about him?

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In their 1974 book, All the President’s Men, Woodward and Bernstein describe Deep Throat as a friend of Woodward’s who drank scotch, sometimes a little too much, and chain-smoked cigarettes. He had an extremely sensitive position in the upper reaches of the federal government. From his well-placed perch, he was able to watch the workings of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, the FBI, the Justice Department, and even the Oval Office. Deep Throat’s detailed description of President Richard Nixon’s anger, expressed in Oval Office meetings, convinced many Nixon partisans that the informant worked in the White House.

Who are the suspects?

At least 29 have been publicly named over the years, ranging from Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, to ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, then a Nixon press aide. Woodward and Bernstein have discounted most of the major suspects, and journalists have ruled out others. White House lawyer Leonard Garment, who was an early suspect, two years ago wrote a book, In Search of Deep Throat, in which he fingered Republican operative John Sears. Sears insisted it wasn’t him, and the two reporters stated publicly that Sears hadn’t been their source. Ten years ago, a CBS documentary cast doubt on three major suspects: Kissinger; Alexander Haig, who served as Nixon’s chief of staff; and Melvin Laird, Nixon’s defense secretary. All three, CBS found by researching White House records, were traveling abroad at the time of at least one of the critical meetings with Woodward that are described in All the President’s Men.

So what suspects remain?

Many believe Deep Throat worked for the FBI. A former newsroom colleague of Woodward’s, James Mann, wrote in a 1992 Atlantic Monthly article that Woodward had a “friend” at the FBI who often gave him tips for news stories. Several writers theorized that the most likely leaker in the bureau would have been L. Patrick Gray, appointed by Nixon as acting FBI director when J. Edgar Hoover died. Gray lived four blocks from Woodward, in a building with an underground parking garage like the one Woodward and Deep Throat used for their shadowy, late-night meetings. But Gray was a Nixon loyalist who actually helped cover up the administration’s role in Watergate, and Woodward has publicly stated that Gray wasn’t Deep Throat.

What about other FBI officials?

On White House tapes, Nixon himself is heard speculating that the traitor ratting him out was W. Mark Felt, who was the FBI’s second in command. Felt, a member of the bureau’s old guard, resisted Nixon’s attempts to gain control over the FBI after Hoover’s death. The Felt theory gained some momentum in 1999, thanks to a term paper written by a high school student who once went to summer camp with Bernstein’s sons, Jacob and Max. On a field trip to the beach, student Chase Culeman-Beckman said, Jacob Bernstein had confided the name of his dad’s secret source—W. Mark Felt. After the story hit the newspapers, Bernstein said that his son was mistaken, and merely repeating a theory long held by his mother, writer Nora Ephron, to whom Bernstein was married during the Watergate years.

What if Bernstein is lying?

Writer Adrian Havill believes he is. Havill, author of a biography of Woodward and Bernstein, says, “The secret of Deep Throat is that there is no Deep Throat.” Havill, among others, believes that Deep Throat was actually a composite drawn from numerous anonymous sources, created to add drama as the Watergate story grew into a modern myth. Alice Mayhew, who edited All the President’s Men, also believes in the composite theory. In their book proposal, Woodward and Bernstein made no mention of Deep Throat. But defenders of the two reporters point out that the late Howard Simons, then a managing editor of the Post, coined the nickname for their source early in their reporting on Watergate—long before they became famous or had a book contract.

What does Dean know?

This will be his third attempt to name Deep Throat. In 1975, Dean named Watergate prosecutor Earl Silbert, and in 1982, he decided it was Haig. This time, Dean—a lawyer for the Nixon White House—has teamed with former Chicago Tribune reporter William Gaines to nail down Deep Throat’s identity by cross-referencing government documents, Post articles from the time, and other evidence. They plan to reveal their conclusion on June 17, the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, in Salon.com, an on-line magazine. Rival Web magazine Slate.com reports that Gaines and Dean will name someone who worked for Nixon domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman. But Felt, Slate says, remains “the default assumption of any serious Deep Throat scholar.”

The source who changed history

Without the information provided by their secret source, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have said, the Watergate story would have petered out long before they could have traced the scandal to the White House and forced the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Deep Throat provided the first key tip, the reporters say, on June 19, two days after the break-in. The informant told Woodward that Howard Hunt, a member of a secret White House team of “plumbers” charged with stopping press leaks, was involved with the burglars. Deep Throat later assured Woodward that he would find clear evidence that the White House had authorized the break-in and hush payments to the burglars. As the story unfolded over the next 18 months, Deep Throat refused to be quoted on record, providing only broad guidance to keep the Post on track. By keeping the Post’s investigation alive, Deep Throat doomed the Watergate cover-up to failure. “Had there not been that pressure,” Dean told ABC News, “the power of the presidency might have been able to sweep it under the rug.”