The Devil in Mr. Felt

A couple days ago I suggested that Mark Felt could help clear up some of the remaining Deep Throat mysteries. I didn't realize just how senile the man had gotten. Here's reporter J. Todd Foster relating an earlier effort to coax Felt forward:

Felt soon moved into his daughter's basement…."He had dementia. And memory loss," his daughter said. "He was extremely confused. He was up in the middle of the night [at the convalescent home], knocking on people's doors, thinking that he was doing investigations for the bureau."

On Nov. 8, 2003, Felt told my writing partner when asked if he wanted to come forward: "You can tell them that I am Deep -- that I was Deep Throat. The only thing is that Deep Throat is a little different than you probably have in mind. Deep Throat was not anybody real inside that was furnishing information. It was somebody confirming information."…

Earlier in that same interview, Felt said he didn't remember anything about Deep Throat, even saying at one point: "Well, I wasn't a Deep Throat."

Of Woodward, he said: "I don't think I ever provided information to him."

Later, Felt said: "I thought Deep Throat was another source entirely."

It was only after prodding and coaching from his daughter and the family's attorney, John O'Connor of San Francisco, that Felt even gave his lukewarm admission.

Interviewed eight days later, on Nov. 16, 2003, he adamantly denied being the most famous journalism source in history -- and one of Washington's few well-kept secrets.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Ever since the story broke the editors have had a lot of fun inventing porno-based names for their posts. I'd like to see you guys try to do something with "Debbie Does Dallas."

[ralphus]

Felt knocking on doors doing bureau work in the convalescent home reminds me of the stories of Johnny Weissmuller freaking out his old folks home with Tarzan yells in the middle of the night. It's amazing what the brain holds on to even as it deteriorates. My grandfather was a doctor and when he was in the final stages of Alzheimer?s he would still make rounds of the facility he was in to check on "his" patients.

[TWC]

So which time(s) was Felt lying (senile, demented, etc.)?

This guy amply demonstrates exactly what is wrong with politics. What an absolutely amoral scum.

Not because I'm a Nixon fan (I agree with Nick's recent post on that).

[Jennifer]

Ralph-
I've read that in several cases of Alzheimer's or amnesia, it's the rcent memory that's most affected. So maybe you can't remember the name of the new friend you made three years ago, but you still remember who your kindergarten teacher was. Also, learned skills seem to be the llast to go in most cases--you can't remember your name, but you still know how to play the piano.

[Russell]

"Those were the days" said Mr.Bernstein, interviewed in his Walter Reed hospial suite as he recuperated from stem cell theraphy for Kuru contracted while investigating Michael Crichton's Solomon Islands sources in 2013,

"After Bill Casey and the Editors of Encounter asked me to write West Side Story, I went on into the New Journalism, and me and the Hell's Angels shot up Nixon's motorcade in Caracas, or was it Las Vegas ? You got any nicotine gum? Some of these so-called doctors don't smoke..." said the former Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and Senator from Vermont.

[Matt]

The whole thing comes across (to us cranks) as the intersection between a cash-strapped family wanting to grab a brass ring and the Newsweek/WaPo people wanting to stanch the bleeding from the anonymous source Koran pratfall.

You can't reasonably go to print with the story that a long-gone 91-year-old is Deep Throat on the say so of his lawyer without other proof, such as Woodward being willing to confirm it. Why would Woodward confirm now instead of in a hotly, wetly anticipated tell-all book someday?

Like I said, us cranks.

[Jesse Walker]

Matt: That's even sillier than the InstaPundit/Podhoretz theory that the New York Times rushed a 6,000-word report on torture in Afghanistan into print just days after Newsweek got into trouble, all to cover its competitor's butt. Woodward initially didn't confirm Deep Throat's identity when the Vanity Fair piece came out, and neither he nor the Post had anything to do with producing that article. Every account I've seen says that he was surprised by Felt coming forward, that this week's events screwed up the production schedule for his Deep Throat book, and that he was pretty much forced to confirm DT's identity by the Felt family's decision.

[Matt]

Oh, I'm posting my floaty-haired theory on a blog instead of spec'ing an article for the local paper because I'm sure you're right. Woodward being initially reluctant to confirm the identity doesn't prove much, though, if I were orchestrating this big conspiracy I'd have him appear taken aback at first, too.

You kind of hoped (thought, whatever) DT would die and leave behind irrefutable proof in a safe deposit box somewhere, though, didn't you? "I'm Deep Throat and if you're wathcing this, I'm already dead." Not be a demented 90-year-old whose lawyer is the one saying "he told me he was Deep Throat and his family says I can say so now. Really! Ask Bob!"

[Mark B.]

This guy amply demonstrates exactly what is wrong with politics. What an absolutely amoral scum.

So - a senior government official deeply concerned and upset with a corrupt, illegal power apparatus secretly constructed by a paranoid Administration decides to leak information in order to stop it, and is therefore "amoral?"

I wish the Bush Adminstration had a few of these "amoral" types - maybe Runsfeld and Cheney would be out the door by now.

[kevrob]

The Nixon loyalists have slagged Felt for not keeping secrets, which he was bound by law to do, and telling them to The Liberal Media, Tricky's sworn enemy. They only have half a point. What if Felt had asked for a meeting with the Chairman(men?) and Ranking Member(s?) of the relevant committee(s?) that had oversight responsibility for the FBI and the CIA, and spilled his guts to those fellows? The Administration would have had to explain to the lawmakers normally given access to classified material how and why their unofficial black bag jobs were actually in the service of "national security." Blowing the whistle that way might have made Felt radioactive for the top post at the FBI, and he already resented Gray getting that place after Hoover croaked.

The composite source theory is troubling. Maybe Janet Cooke was following WaPo tradition, after all?

Kevin

[Mr. Nice Guy]

It makes more sense now. If you look at the pictures taken recently, this guy doesn't seem to be all there. But his wide-grin daughter definitely appears lucid. You can see the dollar signs flashing in her eyes.

If all else fails, there is always "The Daughter of Deep Throat" for direct-to-DVD. That would be good for a fast buck.