'Deep Throat' expose just tossed together

One thing for which the politics of Washington, D.C., are famous is the recurrence of leaks. Had it not been for leaks during the Richard Nixon administration — possibly the most corrupt government administration in U.S. history — Nixon and his henchmen might never have been called to account.

The most famous leak at that time was attributed by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to a mysterious source nicknamed "Deep Throat." According to "All the President's Men" (1974), the authors' best-selling account of their journalistic investigation of Watergate, a great many unattributed sources helped them gather the evidence that would help to uncover the sins of the Nixon administration (burglary, wiretapping, destruction of evidence, money laundering, obstruction of justice, coaching witnesses before a grand jury, etc.).

When this happened in 1972, there was one source mentioned more often in their book than any other — a man known first as simply Woodward's friend but nicknamed by a Washington Post editor "Deep Throat," a smutty allusion to the pornographic film of that name.

Numerous Nixon associates and staffers were convicted of Watergate-related crimes and sentenced to prison, and Nixon himself resigned the presidency to avoid impeachment. And ever since, pundits have been trying to figure out the identity of the mysterious "Deep Throat," a highly placed government official who allegedly met Woodward with some regularity in a dark Rosslyn, Va., underground parking garage to give him hints that would help expose massive political corruption.

Woodward struck a deal with his source; he would not reveal his name until after the source's death. Thus all the guesses and assertions of who might be the source — from Fred Fielding, a Nixon attorney, to Alexander Haig, briefly Nixon's chief of staff and deputy to Henry Kissinger at the National Security Council — came to naught.

Deep Throat recently decided to reveal himself to a Vanity Fair reporter (the day after Memorial Day), and Woodward quickly verified that it was indeed Mark Felt, longtime No. 2 official at the FBI. Felt had access to materials and information that would give him the ability to guide Woodward in the right direction. (Unfortunately, Felt, now in his 90s, is mentally impaired and remembers none of his Watergate tips.)