Meredith Medoway Watergate: A Constitutional Crisis Midterm Deep Throat: Morals Versus Revenge and Hero Versus Helper

Mark Felt, or Deep Throat, is a somewhat controversial figure in Americas history. Over time, he has become the hero of the Watergate scandal while other important figures and their impacts have been overlooked or forgotten. Some argue that Felts role has been overly exaggerated. Others sing his praise, saying he is the reason why Woodward and Bernstein were able to uncover the scandal. Another mystery surrounding Felt revolves around his motivation for sharing the information he had with Bob Woodward. Was it was based on purely his moral standards? Or was Felt so infuriated by the appointment of an outsider to the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he decided to reveal the truth? Obviously, these questions cannot be answered definitively because we cannot know what Felt was thinking around the time of the Watergate scandal. Even his own memoirs are not one hundred percent trustworthy because he may be trying to hide certain facts to protect his image. To gain a somewhat balanced view of the debate, I look at several sources to come to a conclusion about the questions raised above. One source is a memoir written by Felt himself and John OConnor, the son of an FBI agent. Next, I looked at a couple of peer-reviewed articles written about Felt and his involvement in Watergate, a short piece from nixontapes.org and the tapes attached to the article, and finally, the movie All the Presidents Men. To begin, Ill give a short overview of Felts early life. Felt was possessed by ambition since the day he was born in Twin Falls, Idaho. He didnt necessarily put all of his efforts into his education (he fell short of a star-student status at his high school), but he always had a taste for adventure. He worked full time

while at the University of Idaho and then immediately set his eyes on law school. Once again, he undertook both duties at the same time, working full time on Capitol Hill while attending night classes at the George Washington University Law School. After a job at the Federal Trade Commission, Felt looked to the FBI for a position. Two months after filing his application, he received an acceptance letter on January 26, 1942 with J. Edgar Hoovers signature, thus beginning the close relationship that would last until Hoovers death in 1972 (Felt 8-9). Felt quickly absorbed Hoovers attitude and techniques in the FBI. The head of the Bureau was known partially for his need to keep the FBI separate from the government so that it could serve the country. The Nixon Administration recognized this quality immediately and despite early praise of Hoover, the relationship between the two began to disintegrate early (Gage 159-168). However, its inappropriate to assume that the relationship between President Nixon and Hoover was always rocky. In fact, they had been friends since at least the 1940s and Nixon was rarely captured on tape saying something unfavorable towards Hoover (nixontapes). Either way, Nixon eventually decided that he would rather have Hoover out of his way so that he could have more control over the FBI from the inside. And either way Felt had whole-heartedly embraced Hoovers system and logic for running the intelligence organization. In his book of memoirs, Felt dedicates an entire chapter to Hoover. He praises him for all of his work and tries to dispel any foul images that may have been cast over the years. Felt writes of his commitment to civil rights and challenges the one-sided caricatures of him as the gangbuster or storm trooper. Additionally he cites Hoovers selfdiscipline, sense of humor, frugality, decisiveness, and numerous other laudable attributes

(Felt 160-171). Of course, Felt is writing his memoir in retrospect and may be leaving out some details of things that he disapproved of in Hoover. For the most part however, Felt seemed to truly respect his superior at the FBI. Such unbridled admiration leads to the argument that Felt most likely decided to leak private information because he wanted to continue Hoovers legacy of honesty at the Bureau. He wrote in his memoirs that,
We faced no simple burglary, but an assault on government institutions, an attack on the FBIs integrity, and unrelenting pressure to unravel one of the greatest political scandals in our nations history (Felt 193).

Felt writes about other attacks on honesty that the Nixon White House had launched before Hoovers death. For example, he mentions the Daniel Schorr incident in which the FBI was asked for a full field investigation on the journalist because the Administration wanted to find some dirt on him. The White House was attempting to use the FBI to do its bidding while making the Bureau look bad in the process. Hoover and Felt both disapproved of incidents such as these (Felt 133-35). (Felt always paints himself in these stories as the man who fought the machine and broke all the rules to do the right thing.) But ultimately, the duos time would come to an end when J. Edgar died on May 1, 1972. This is where the question of motive comes into play. The number two guy in the FBI at this point was a Mr. Clyde Tolson, a very sickly man. Third in rank was Felt. Naturally, the FBI assumed that an insider would be picked to replace Hoover. In his memoir, Felt emphasizes that he didnt think he could fill Hoovers shoes, but that he was hopeful for a promotion (Felt 148). The Gage article writes that Felt had been Hoovers hand-picked successor (171). It was expected that he become the head of the FBI.

Nixon, however, decided to pick an outsider. He chose L. Patrick Gray. In regards to Watergate, some see this as the turning point for Felt. Just shortly after being passed over for the position of chief of the FBI, Felt gets a chance to investigate the White House for the Watergate burglary (Gage 174). Its the perfect opportunity for him to get a little revenge (whether he wants to admit it or not). In fact, Felt is not willing to admit that retribution was his motive in his memoir. First, he writes that though he may have been surprised at Grays appointment, that he was ready to support him fully and help him do the best job possible (159). However, not long after, Felt writes about how Gray had always been a Nixon loyalist and that he had no experience that would make him capable of running the Bureau (173). So, he would support the man, but he had no confidence in him and thought it was a mistake to have appointed him in the first place. In his memoirs, Felt tries to play dumb about the reason why Gray had been appointed, but its obvious from some of his remarks. Remarks like It was a political appointment, lend to the belief that Felt was certainly bitter about the appointment (173). This question of morality versus revenge brings the question of whether Felt really was a hero of the Watergate scandal. There is one part of the issue at stake here that has a definitive answer. Mark Felt was putting himself at a major risk when he decided to start leaking information to Bob Woodward. One article about Watergate discusses the protection of inside sources in journalism. Luckily for Felt, it was easier to keep sources secret in his time. It is becoming more difficult today. Revealing his identity nearer to the time of the scandal would have created a mess and possibly sacrificed Felts hero status (Mills 99). Instead, Woodward and Bernstein were able to keep their source concealed until

he was ready to divulge his true identity. Additionally, the Nixon administration suspected Felt early on as being the source for the Woodward and Bernstein articles (Felt 221). There is no doubt that whatever the reason for the leak and however much information Felt truly gave, he was putting himself in danger. In doing so, he at least aided in bringing down a very corrupt President. But now we come back to the question how much of a hero Felt really was. Leaking information on the Nixon administration for moral reasons would certainly boost the hero aspect of the story, but did he leak enough information to aid in uncovering the scandal? In the movie, All the Presidents Men, Deep Throat plays a very small role. He only comes on screen three times and in each of those scenes, he gives littleif anydefinitive information to Woodward. He mostly takes the information that Woodward has and makes him think about it. For the audience, Deep Throat just looks like a guy that wants to play mind games with Woodward. The movies point of view must be taken with a grain of salt, however. Its motive is to promote the investigative skills of Woodward and Bernstein (which are, without a doubt, impressive). Perhaps the movie downplayed Felts role in order to boost the journalists responsibility for the uncovering of the scandal. Felt has a different view of his interactions with Woodward. In his memoirs, he goes back and forth on his role in leaking the Watergate story. First, he reveals how the leaks happened in the third person, as if he were not at all involved in the leaking process. He just writes that somehow Woodward and Bernstein were publishing articles in the Washington Post using leaked information, trying to distance himself from the issue. Then, Felt changes tactics and refers directly to his interactions with Woodward, saying that he either confirmed or didnt confirm the information given, nothing more. He trusted Woodward

and was happy to have an outlet (199-202). Maybe Felt is telling the truth or maybe he is still trying to protect himself from the idea that he did something wrong. Even later in his memoirs, Felt switches again, claiming that he is proud of his dedication to the FBI (243). Felts internal struggle with his decision to leak information stands out in his memoirs. Felt didnt stay with the FBI too much longer after the leaks came out. Not long after Ruckelshaus joined the FBI on June 22, 1973 (another political appointment), Felt retired; he believed the FBI was now being used for the White Houses personal matters. Ruckelshaus himself decided to leave not too much later after the Saturday Night Massacre (251). Felt was originally caught in the sweeping punishment that had flooded the intelligence community, but that eventually faded (258-9). At the same time, Felt had become the top suspect leaker of FBI secrets (269). Unfortunately, the many years of stress did its damage on both Felt and his wife, Audrey, who committed suicide on July 20, 1984 (280). And near the end of his life, Mark Felt finally came forward as the guy they used to call Deep Throat. Why did Mark Felt decide to leak information to Woodward? Is he as much of a hero as we make him out to be? We will never know the answer to the first question. However, it is clear that it was neither 100 percent for moral reasons nor 100 percent for vengeful reasons. He had a bone to pick, but he also disagreed with the misdemeanors of the White House. As for his hero ranking, Felt deserves some credit for uncovering the scandal. Though some sources downplay his role, Felt did help to reveal one of the greatest scandals in American history.

References All the Presidents Men. Dir. Alan J. Pakula. Perf. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. Warner Bros., 1976. Film. Felt, Mark and John OConnor, A G-Mans Life. New York: Public Affairs, 2006. Print. Gage, Beverly. Deep Throat, Watergate, and the Bureaucratic Politics of the FBI. Journal of Policy History. 24.2 (2012): 157-183. Mills, Nicolaus. Deep Throat and Protected Sources. Dissent. 52.3 (2005): 99-100. Nixon and Hoover: Partners in Power. Nixontapes. 2007. <http://nixontapes.org/jeh.html>