Felt, W. Mark 1913- (Deep Throat, William Mark Felt, Sr.)

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Felt, W. Mark 1913- (Deep Throat, William Mark Felt, Sr.)

PERSONAL:

Born August 17, 1913, in Twin Falls, ID; married Audrey Robinson (died, 1984); children: Joan and Mark, Jr. Education: University of Idaho, B.A.; George Washington University, L.L.B. Politics: Originally Democrat; became Republican in 1980s.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Santa Rosa, CA. Agent—John D. O'Connor, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabin, 3 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111.

CAREER:

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), joined espionage unit, 1942, head of Inspection Division, 1964, associate director, 1965-1973; public speaker, beginning 1973, now retired. The F.B.I. television series, technical advisor, c. 1960s.

WRITINGS:

(With Ralph de Toledano) The FBI Pyramid from the Inside (memoir), Putnam (New York, NY), 1979.

(With John O'Connor) A G-man's Life: The FBI, Being "Deep Throat," and the Struggle for Honor in Washington (memoir), Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

W. Mark Felt had been on the short list of "Deep Throat" suspects for many years, but it was not until May 30, 2005, that Felt confirmed he was indeed the anonymous informer. Between 1972 and 1973 Felt, as the pseudonymous Deep Throat, helped to bring down the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon. Felt spent a year leaking inside information about illegal activities—including the infamous Watergate break-in conducted by Nixon's associates—to two young reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. These two journalists' reports eventually spurred a Senate investigation into the affair, which led to Nixon's resignation on August 8, 1974.

Felt joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1942 and was a steadfast agent for the next thirty years. For most of his tenure he served under FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972. During that time Hoover changed the FBI from a tiny, inefficient government operation into a large, respected, and effective crime-fighting organization. Felt, who was assistant director of the FBI, answered directly to Hoover from 1965 until 1972. Felt wholeheartedly supported Hoover's desire to keep the FBI independent and free from the political control of presidents and other elected politicians. President Nixon, however, had other plans for the agency.

Felt had hoped to be named director after Hoover's death, but Nixon passed him over and instead chose L. Patrick Gray III, as interim director. Gray, an assistant attorney general at the time, was at least initially loyal to the president, and under his leadership the FBI became involved in attempts to cover up the crimes committed by Nixon's cronies. In the most famous of these crimes, the Watergate break-in, a group of men hired by the Committee to Reelect the President broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee (located in the Watergate Hotel complex) to plant bugs and steal data. The information they gathered, they hoped, would help Nixon defeat Democratic candidate George McGovern and win re-election. The men were caught during their second break-in, in the early-morning hours of June 17, 1972. The government's investigation, led by Felt, was not immediately able to connect the men to Nixon, and the president was reelected that November by a comfortable margin.

Felt describes this period of his life in his 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside. The book clearly communicates Felt's frustration with Nixon's attempts to use the FBI for partisan political ends and with Nixon's meddling in FBI investigations, including blatant obstruction of the Watergate investigation. Feeling that it was not possible for him to uphold the law through his post at the FBI, Felt turned to Woodward and Bernstein. He and Woodward worked out elaborate schemes to set up their meetings, involving signals with an empty flowerpot on Woodward's balcony and images of clocks drawn in the copy of the New York Times that was delivered to Woodward's home every morning. They met in a parking garage, where Felt would confirm or deny information that Woodward had gathered and give Woodward hints about which people he should investigate further. Most of what is known about Felt's participation in Woodward's investigation comes from Woodward and Bernstein's book about the Watergate scandal, All the President's Men. Interestingly, in The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, Felt staunchly and explicitly denies having been Deep Throat.

Felt eventually resigned from the FBI in June of 1973. He spent several years giving lectures across the country, but then, in 1978, he was indicted on charges of authorizing illegal break-ins while working for the FBI. He was eventually convicted, despite the vocal protests of many of his former coworkers, but was pardoned in 1981 by newly elected President Ronald Reagan. From that time until 2005, Felt lived in quiet, obscure retirement, at first with his wife, Audrey, and, after she passed away in 1984, with his daughter, Joan. It was Joan and her brother, Mark, Jr., who convinced Felt to finally go public; Felt himself, after all those years, was still ambivalent about his role in the Watergate scandal. "His attitude was: I don't think [being Deep Throat] was anything to be proud of," Mark, Jr., told John D. O'Connor for the Vanity Fair article that revealed Felt as Deep Throat. "You [should] not leak information to anyone…. He would not have done it if he didn't feel it was the only way to get around the corruption in the White House and Justice Department."

After his revelation, Felt became an instant media celebrity. In 2006 he published A G-man's Life: The FBI, Being "Deep Throat," and the Struggle for Honor in Washington with John O'Connor to finally tell his side of the story in full. Felt, not pleased with his depiction in earlier books and movies, wrote the book for posterity and, in part, to come to terms with his actions thirty years earlier, something which he occasionally feels ashamed or even fearful of having done. Writing in the Washington Post Book World, Richard Gid Powers explained Felt's relationship with Woodward during their exchange, stating: "Felt's book and his earnest but unavailing efforts to recall his relationship with Woodward make it clear that Woodward was far more than just a press conduit for Felt. He was a friend." John W. Dean, White House Counsel to Nixon, reviewed the book in the New York Times Book Review and found the recollections a "disappointment." David Leigh's review in the London Guardian explained that after Felt's stroke, his memory "is not reliable." Nevertheless, Powers called Felt, in his Washington Post Book World review, "an honorable whistle-blower who deserves the republic's thanks for exposing a crooked presidency."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Felt, W. Mark, and Ralph de Toledano, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, Putnam (New York, NY), 1979.

Felt, W. Mark, and John O'Connor, A G-man's Life: The FBI, Being "Deep Throat," and the Struggle for Honor in Washington, Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, March, 1980, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 850.

Booklist, March 1, 1980, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 916.

Boston Globe, June 1, 2005, Mark Jurkowitz, "‘Deep Throat’ Ends 3-decade Mystery"; June 7, 2005, Peter S. Canellos, "The Boston Globe National Perspective Column."

Chicago Tribune, June 7, 2005, Robert K. Elder and Charles Storch, "Mark Felt's Foes Reassess the Man."

Choice, July, 1980, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 730.

Christian Century, January 2, 1980, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 28.

Client Server News, June 6, 2005, "Deep Throat, the Ultimate Anonymous Source," p. 11.

Economist (U.S.), June 4, 2005, "What Deep Throat Did," p. 28.

Editor & Publisher, August 7, 1999, Joe Strupp, "A Campfire Story for Conspiracists," p. 6.

Film Journal International, August, 2005, "Hanks pacts with ‘Deep Throat’," p. 72.

Guardian (London, England), June 24, 2006, David Leigh, review of A G-man's Life.

History Today, August, 2005, "Mark Felt, Former Deputy Chief of the FBI, Has Been Unmasked as ‘Deep Throat’," p. 9.

Hollywood Reporter, June 1, 2005, "Big Break," p. 8; June 6, 2005, "Deep Purse," p. 8; October 17, 2005, "Confidential," p. 3.

Indianapolis Business Journal, June 13, 2005, Gerald Bepko, "Deep Throat: A Hero or a Villain?," p. 13.

Jet, June 20, 2005, Simeon Booker, "While the Nation Learned of W. Mark Felt," p. 10.

Library Journal, April 1, 1980, Henry Steck, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 850.

Miami Herald, June 1, 2005, "Deep Throat's Watergate Role a Timely Lesson on Secret Sources."

National Review, July 4, 2005, William F. Buckley, Jr., "Foul Felt," p. 50.

New American, June 27, 2005, William Norman Grigg, "Watergate & the Weather Underground," p. 16.

New Jersey Law Journal, June 13, 2005, Justin Scheck, "The Lawyer Who Unmasked ‘Deep Throat’."

New Leader, May-June, 2005, Daniel Schorr, "After D-Day in D.C.," p. 3.

New York Times, June 1, 2005, Todd S. Purdum, "‘Deep Throat’ Unmasks Himself," p. A1; June 2, 2005, Tim Sheaffer, "In the Prelude to Publication, Intrigue Worthy of Deep Throat," and David Johnston and David E. Rosenbaum, "Reporters Credit Felt with Keeping Story Alive"; June 3, 2005, Alessandra Stanley, "Woodward and Bernstein, Dynamic Duo, Together Again," p. A16; June 4, 2005, David Johnston, "Behind Deep Throat's Clandestine Ways, a Cloak-and-Dagger Past," p. A16; June 16, 2005, Edward Wyatt, "‘Deep Throat’ Sells Rights To His Story," p. A22; June 27, 2005, David Johnston, "Ex-F.B.I. Chief Calls Deep Throat's Unmasking a Shock," p. A11; July 2, 2005, "New Book on Watergate Fleshes Out Deep Throat," p. A9.

New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1980, David Wise, review of The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, p. 12; May 7, 2006, John W. Dean, review of A G-man's Life.

Newsweek, June 13, 2005, Evan Thomas, "A Long Shadow," p. 22.

People, June 13, 2005, "Mystery Solved: Deep Throat Revealed," p. 69.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 1, 2005, Michael Taylor, Vicki Haddock, and Jim Doyle, "Deep Throat Speaks Up: Retired FBI Official in Santa Rosa Admits Pivotal Watergate Role," p. A1.

Vanity Fair, July, 2005, John D. O'Connor, "I'm the Guy They Call Deep Throat," p. 86; August, 2005, Gravdon Carter, "Mr. Felt Goes to Washington," p. 52.

Washington Post, June 1, 2005, David Von Drehle, "FBI's No. 2 Was ‘Deep Throat’"; June 2, 2005, Michael Dobbs, "Leaks Came against Backdrop of a Post-Hoover Power Struggle," p. A13.

Washington Post Book World, April 23, 2006, Richard Gid Powers, review of A G-man's Life, p. 3.