Identity of 'Deep Throat' Source Confirmed - Yahoo! News

I'm almost shaking with excitement. I've just logged on and after 30 years one of the biggest political mysteries of my pre-teen years has been solved - the identity of "Deep Throat".

If you didn't live through the times, if you hadn't come to dislike Nixon as much as I had, not for being a Republican, there were then and are now lots of fine Republicans, but for somehow embodying what I would later come to know as "The Dark Side of the Force", Deep Throat's role in triggering the the chain of events that led to Tricky Dicky Nicky's resignation elevated him to the level of the status of cult hero in my book - only I didn't know who he was.

When All the President's Men came out I poured over it for clues to my hero's identity. I read blind ambition from cover to cover in college any number of times wondering if it was John Dean.

In the years that have passed though, it seemed to be one of those things that was just not going to come out until Deep Throat died, which was a shame I thought, because, as one of our most important whistle blowers, Deep Throat risked his professional and family life in the ultimate service of his country.

So I was especially glad, when 6 minutes ago, the news flashed across my screen that after 30 years Former number 2 man at the FBI under Nixon, W. Mark Felt had identified himself as deep throat and that this identification was confirmed by Ben Bradlee, Senior Editor of the Washington Post at the time who took the risk to print the controversial stories in the first place.

For those for whom Watergate belongs to the distant past, the thanks that America owes to W. Mark Felt may not be clear. But the risks he took to get the truth about the dirty trick and corruption within the Nixon White House were staggering for the time, helped by leading to a trail of financial hornswaggling to irrefutable proof of corruption, and ultimately led to the discovery of covert taping in the White House, the clean up of the CIA, and of many other branches of Government.

It also made the press aware as never before about how much out right mis-direction was coming from the White House and led to the expansion and toughness of most of the Washington Press Corps.

As for myself. I'm just glad I have a chance to say thank you Assistant Director Felt, from a greatful citizen.

Here's the a clip of the AP story. Click on the link to get the whole story and links to photos.


Peter

Identity of 'Deep Throat' Source Confirmed

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Breaking a silence of 30 years, former
FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper ratified his claim.
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'It's the last secret' of the story, said Ben Bradlee, the paper's top editor at the time the riveting political drama played out three decades ago.

It tumbled out in stages during the day — first when a lawyer quoted Felt in a magazine article as having said he was the source; then when the former FBI man's family issued a statement hailing him as a 'great American hero,' and finally when the Post posted a story on its Web site confirming him as the secret leaker of long ago.

'I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat,' Felt, the former No. 2 man at the FBI, was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair.

He kept his secret even from his family for almost three decades before his declaration."

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