Results tagged “deepthroat”

W. Mark Felt, Sr., the number 2 man at the FBI during the Watergate scandal, died yesterday from Alzheimer's disease at a hospice near his home in Santa Rosa, California, the Washington Post reports. Felt was an instrumental player in the stunning downfall of President Nixon, but his identity as "Deep Throat"—reporter Bob Woodard's anonymous source for the Post's bombshell series of scoops on the Watergate affair in 1972—was unknown until three years ago, when Felt's family unmasked him in the pages of Vanity Fair. According to the Times, even Woodward was shocked at this; he had gaurded the secret so zealously that even his partner Carl Bernstein did not meet Felt until earlier this year. Felt never revealed why he leaked details on the Watergate break-in and cover up to Woodward, but the Times obituary points out that in May 1972 Feld had been passed over by Nixon as Edgar Hoover's successor to run the bureau.

READING: What do you do after you've outed Deep Throat? Well, David

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist, who had been obsessed with wondering who Deep Throat was, thanks to American History classes and Alan Pakula's brilliant depiction of the Washington Post's investigation in All the President's Men, loves this story and has been reading all we can about it: Here's coverage from the Washington Post and the NY Times, plus the NY Post's and NY Daily News's excited coverage.