The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward reveals how meeting an older man led to a friendship that morphed into a mentorship — and how eventually this chance encounter gave him the most important solid anonymous source in journalism history.
This is a fascinating piece for several reasons: (a)it underlines the role of fate (b)it underlines the importance of keeping in touch with interesting people (c)it’s a nice footnote because, as we all know, in the end Vanity Fair and not Bob Woodward broke the last Watergate “scoop,” a supreme irony.
It must be read in full to appreciate it. But here are some highlights:
In 1970, when I was serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chief of naval operations, I sometimes acted as a courier, taking documents to the White House.
One evening I was dispatched with a package to the lower level of the West Wing of the White House, where there was a little waiting area near the Situation Room. It could be a long wait for the right person to come out and sign for the material, sometimes an hour or more, and after I had been waiting for a while a tall man with perfectly combed gray hair came in and sat down near me. His suit was dark, his shirt white and his necktie subdued. He was probably 25 to 30 years older than I and was carrying what looked like a file case or briefcase. He was very distinguished-looking and had a studied air of confidence, the posture and calm of someone used to giving orders and having them obeyed instantly.
I could tell he was watching the situation very carefully. There was nothing overbearing in his attentiveness, but his eyes were darting about in a kind of gentlemanly surveillance. After several minutes, I introduced myself. “Lieutenant Bob Woodward,” I said, carefully appending a deferential “sir.”
“Mark Felt,” he said.
And so a friendship began. But Woodward was one of those smart young people who knew that developing a network of older people for advice and guidance can help ensure a sounder future:
I believe I encountered him only one more time at the White House. But I had set the hook. He was going to be one of the people I consulted in depth about my future, which now loomed more ominously as the date of my discharge from the Navy approached. At some point I called him, first at the FBI and then at his home in Virginia. I was a little desperate, and I’m sure I poured out my heart. I had applied to several law schools for that fall, but, at 27, I wondered if I could really stand spending three years in law school before starting real work.
Felt seemed sympathetic to the lost-soul quality of my questions. He said that after he had his law degree his first job had been with the Federal Trade Commission. His first assignment was to determine whether toilet paper with the brand name Red Cross was at an unfair competitive advantage because people thought it was endorsed or approved by the American Red Cross. The FTC was a classic federal bureaucracy — slow and leaden — and he hated it. Within a year he had applied to the FBI and been accepted. Law school opened the most doors, he seemed to be saying, but don’t get caught in your own equivalent of a toilet-paper investigation.
He then details his first two week tryout at the Post, which was less than stellar. Even here he was in touch with Felt. Felt became a mentor. One time Woodward even drove out to meet him and his wife. This was SMART networking.
Another fascinating section deals with what he picked up about Felt: despite what Pat Buchannan and Chuck Colson are contending Felt was A PATRIOT who was concerned about a shift he saw within the American government, in what was going on behind the scenes with the Nixon administration. Again, read the details but here’s a key part:
At the time, pre-Watergate, there was little or no public knowledge of the vast pushing, shoving and outright acrimony between the Nixon White House and Hoover’s FBI. The Watergate investigations later revealed that in 1970 a young White House aide named Tom Charles Huston had come up with a plan to authorize the CIA, the FBI and military intelligence units to intensify electronic surveillance of “domestic security threats,” authorize illegal opening of mail, and lift the restrictions on surreptitious entries or break-ins to gather intelligence.
Huston warned in a top-secret memo that the plan was “clearly illegal.” Nixon initially approved the plan anyway. Hoover strenuously objected, because eavesdropping, opening mail and breaking into homes and offices of domestic security threats were basically the FBI bailiwick and the bureau didn’t want competition. Four days later, Nixon rescinded the Huston plan.
Felt, a much more learned man than most realized, later wrote that he considered Huston “a kind of White House gauleiter over the intelligence community.” The word “gauleiter” is not in most dictionaries, but in the four-inch-thick Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language it is defined as “the leader or chief official of a political district under Nazi control.”
There is little doubt Felt thought the Nixon team were Nazis. During this period, he had to stop efforts by others in the bureau to “identify every member of every hippie commune” in the Los Angeles area, for example, or to open a file on every member of Students for a Democratic Society.
None of this surfaced directly in our discussions, but clearly he was a man under pressure, and the threat to the integrity and independence of the bureau was real and seemed uppermost in his mind.
Felt also provided him with advance info about what the FBI knew about Vice President Spiro Agnew, who later resigned. And with tidbits about Nixon’s concern and anger over Arthur Bremer, the man who shot and crippled Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Woodward’s actual details of the Watergate saga aren’t that new except he confirms that Felt was upset that Nixon didn’t pick from within the FBI to replace J. Edgar Hoover. Felt would have been the logical choice.
Yet, nothing in Woodward’s account confirms the abuse being heaped on Felt by talk show hosts and former Nixon cronies who are now grasping at everything they can to try and claim he was just a disgruntled employee: in fact, this account confirms that the man was extremely concerned over the course his government was taking and the ability to do something about it from within the government:
It was only later after Nixon resigned that I began to wonder why Felt had talked when doing so carried substantial risks for him and the FBI. Had he been exposed early on, Felt would have been no hero. Technically, it was illegal to talk about grand jury information or FBI files — or it could have been made to look illegal.
Felt believed he was protecting the bureau by finding a way, clandestine as it was, to push some of the information from the FBI interviews and files out to the public, to help build public and political pressure to make Nixon and his people answerable. He had nothing but contempt for the Nixon White House and their efforts to manipulate the bureau for political reasons. The young eager-beaver patrol of White House underlings, best exemplified by John W. Dean III, was odious to him.
His reverence for Hoover and strict bureau procedure made Gray’s appointment as director all the more shocking. Felt obviously concluded he was Hoover’s logical successor.
And the former World War II spy hunter liked the game. I suspect in his mind I was his agent. He beat it into my head: secrecy at all cost, no loose talk, no talk about him at all, no indication to anyone that such a secret source existed.
In our book “All the President’s Men,” Carl and I described how we had speculated about Deep Throat and his piecemeal approach to providing information. Maybe it was to minimize his risk. Or because one or two big stories, no matter how devastating, could be blunted by the White House. Maybe it was simply to make the game more interesting. More likely, we concluded, “Deep Throat was trying to protect the office, to effect a change in its conduct before all was lost.”
Each time I raised the question with Felt, he had the same answer: “I have to do this my way.”
And so you have it: a story of journalism for the ages — but also a story of mentoring for the ages.
Yes, Woodward and Bernstein were skillful reporters. But Woodward’s careful and caring cultivation of a wiser older man changed his life — and the nation’s.
In the end, we would be willing to bet, history is going to judge Felt to have been a hero and Buchanan and Colson’s claims that he was somehow a traitor or just an angry employee will merely merit a footnote.
If that much.
BUT THERE ARE OTHER VOICES ON THIS ISSUE THAT MAY OR MAY NOT AGREE. HERE IS A CROSS-SECTION:
–Blogs for Bush’s Mark Noonan:”We here at Blogs for Bush are diligently looking for a story we care less about than the Felt/Deep Throat thing….when we find said story, we’ll be pleased to have one more thing to pay no attention to..”
—Garrett Graff has a concise, neat roundup. Our favorite comment of his refers to Bob “Overkill” Novak:”Robert “Prince of Darkness” Novak goes after Felt, generally accusing him of all manner of crimes. Frankly, we think it’s unfair to charge Felt with aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth.”
—Homocon blasts Felt in a long analysis. Here’s a key section of its conclusion 4 U:
The whole thing is sordid — not just Nixon’s involvement with the wiretapping and the subsequent attempts at cover-up, but also the FBI’s pathological quest for independence of any executive oversight, as well as the mainstream media’s desire to pound its chest over the kill, any kill, who cares who it is, what it is or how the carcass reached the plate. Because, really, doesn’t all this just go to show that the media is only terrific at reporting stories that are entirely handed to them on a silver platter….
—Gary Farber:”But it’s undeniably interesting, if somewhat unverifiable (where’s the second source!?)”
—Taegan Gooddard:”In an amazing, must-read piece in the Washington Post, Bob Woodward explains how he met Mark Felt, who later became Deep Throat. However, USA Today re-reads All the President’s Men and notes that “some things in the book, as well as other statements by Woodward over the years, led researchers to conclude that Deep Throat had been someone else or was a composite of several characters.”
—Bull Moose has a GREAT POST that must be read IN FULL on this issue. Here is just part:
The Moose notes the emergence of the Nixon Big House Vets for Deceit.
With the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat, the Nixon Felon Brigade is out in force. The Nixon Big House Vets for Deceit are attempting to replicate the success of the Swift Boat Vets. Instead of Kerry, their target is Mark Felt.
Forget about the trashing of the constitution- Felt’s “betrayal” must be punished! Upright law and order types like Liddy and Colson are now lecturing us on ethics. Talk about defining deviancy down! Chuck – what would Jesus do – keep his trap shut to defend criminality? The Tricky Dick Vets are ably assisted by their Communications Director and Gauleiter Pat Buchanan who is taking a much deserved break from his efforts to discredit the Allies’ decision to fight the Nazis.
Yes, the right has learned much since the Old Man went down in ’74. Never defend, always attack…. (READ THE REST YOURSELF)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.