...and Deep Throat IS..... drum roll....... W. Mark Felt.
( Do I win something if I'm right?)
Nixon: Well, if they've got a leak down at the FBI, why the hell can't Gray tell us what the hell is left? You know what I mean?...
Haldeman: We know what's left, and we know who leaked it.
Nixon: Somebody in the FBI?
Haldeman: Yes, sir. Mark Felt. You can't say anything about this because it will screw up our source and there's a real concern. Mitchell is the only one who knows about this and he feels strongly that we better not do anything because--
Nixon: Do anything? Never.
Haldeman: If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything ...
Nixon: What would you do with Felt?
Haldeman: Well, I asked Dean ...
Nixon: You know what I'd do with him, the bastard? Well that's all I want to hear about it.
Haldeman: I think he wants to be in the top spot.
Nixon: That's a hell of a way for him to get to the top.
Haldeman: You can figure a lot of--maybe he thought--first of all, he has to figure that if you stay in as president there's a possibility or probability Gray will stay on. If McGovern comes in, then you know Gray's going to be out ...
Nixon: Is he Catholic?
Haldeman: (unintelligible) Jewish.
President Nixon: Christ, put a Jew in there?
Haldeman: Well, that could explain it too.
In the summer of 1999, [Bob] Woodward showed up unexpectedly at the home of Felt's daughter, Joan, in Santa Rosa, California, north of San Francisco, and took him to lunch, Joan Felt, who was taking care of him at her home, told me.
She recalled that Woodward made his appearance just after a mini-controversy broke in the press late July 1999 about whether Bernstein had told his then-wife, Nora Ephron, that Felt was Deep Throat. Woodward had been interviewing former FBI officials for a book he was writing on Watergate.
However, now confused because of the effects of a stroke, Felt was in no shape to provide credible information. Joan said her father greeted Woodward like an old friend, and their mysterious meeting appeared to be more of a celebration than an interview, lending support to the notion that Felt was, in fact, Deep Throat.
"Woodward just showed up at the door and said he was in the area," Joan Felt said. "He came in a white limousine, which parked at a schoolyard about 10 blocks away. He walked to the house. He asked if it was OK to have a martini with my father at lunch, and I said it would be fine." |
