Woodward's article on Felt again talks about Bennett

Sen. Bob Bennett's name turned up this week in Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's account of his relationship with the former FBI official who was revealed earlier this week as "Deep Throat," but Bennett shouldn't be surprised,

After all, the Utah Republican's name surfaced in both the book and the movie about the newspaper's coverage of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon more than three decades ago.

Some even considered Bennett a likely candidate to be the source that Woodward relied on throughout the story, a mysterious Washington, D.C., insider known only as "Deep Throat."

That question was settled Tuesday when Vanity Fair magazine announced it was publishing an article identifying "Deep Throat" as W. Mark Felt, who had been second-in-command at the FBI.

But Bennett, who left a post with the Nixon administration before the Watergate scandal and bought a public relations firm in the nation's capital that had ties to the CIA, is still being associated with the Watergate story.

This week, Woodward referred to a conversation he and Bennett had about Watergate figure Howard Hunt, who was working at Bennett's public relations firm. The reporter recalled that Bennett told him, "I guess it's no secret that Howard was with the CIA."

The remark was made "blandly," Woodward said, noting that fact had been a secret to him.

Bennett, reached in Istanbul where he and other members of Congress are attending a conference on Islam, said he hadn't seen Woodward's latest story. He did, however, remember the conversation.

"Yes, it's true that Woodward called me and I confirmed to him that Howard had at one time been with the CIA and was retired," the senator said. He had long acknowledged that he served as a source for Woodward, sometimes anonymously.

This conversation, however, was far from anonymous.

"My memory is that Woodward's call to me with respect to Howard Hunt having been a CIA officer, a retired CIA officer, was in the movie," Bennett said, referring to the 1976 movie, "All the President's Men," that starred Robert Redford as Woodward.

Bennett's character has just a couple of lines in the movie during a scene that portrays Woodward tracking down background information on Hunt, a member of the so-called White House "plumbers" behind Watergate.

"So I don't know that that's any particular news now," Bennett said, suggesting one motive Woodward might have for including his name in the story. "Except now that I'm a senator, he decided he might make reference to it again."

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