Going Deeper

I can't resist saying more about Deep Throat's surfacing. First off, here's a link to a fantastic 1992 piece by James Mann, a former colleague of Bob Woodward's at the Post, in Government Executive's sister publication, The Atlantic. Thirteen years ahead of Vanity Fair, Mann all but outs Deep Throat in the story, writing, "he could well have been Mark Felt."

Mann delves deeply into the reasons why Felt would have been motivated to become the ultimate leaker. For starters, he and others were legitimately concerned that the Nixon White House was actively seeking to undermine the independence of the FBI in the aftermath of Hoover's death--and worse, obstructing the Watergate investigation.

But Felt also was deeply disgruntled about being passed over for the top job at the FBI when J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972. Mann quotes from Felt's 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid:

It did not cross my mind that the President would appoint an outsider to replace Hoover. Had I known this, I would not have been hopeful about the future. There were many trained executives in the FBI who could have effectively handled the job of Director. My own record was good and I allowed myself to think I had an excellent chance.

So Felt's motives weren't entirely pure. As my colleague Anne Laurent points out, that puts him in the company of a very large percentage of other federal whistleblowers. And it makes his revelations no less true or important. As an IRS employee wrote to me today, Felt "was the ultimate whistleblower in the name of preserving the intent of the Constitution and he was a blabbermouth. They can be one and the same."