Should We Jail Deep Throats ...John W. Dean

Should We Jail Deep Throats ...
By John W. Dean
John W. Dean is a former White House counsel and author, most
recently, of "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George
W. Bush."

February 6, 2005

I have little doubt that one of my former Nixon White House
colleagues is history's best-known anonymous source — Deep
Throat.
But I'll be damned if I can figure out exactly which one.

We'll all know one day very soon, however. Bob Woodward, a reporter
on the team that covered the Watergate story, has advised his
executive editor at the Washington Post that Throat is ill. And Ben
Bradlee, former executive editor of the Post and one of the few
people to whom Woodward confided his source's identity, has publicly
acknowledged that he has written Throat's obituary.

When that posthumous profile reveals the secret name, it will be
flash powder on the long-simmering debate about reporters' use of
anonymous sources — an issue much in the news lately because my
former law school classmate, Thomas F. Hogan, now the chief judge of
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has been
holding journalists in contempt of court for refusing to reveal their
sources to a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of CIA
operative Valerie Plame.

I'm caught in the middle on this discussion. As a columnist,
occasional freelancer and author of six nonfiction books, I use
unidentified sources myself. In fact, I just used one. The source who
informed me that Woodward leaked the news of Throat's illness to the
executive editor of the Post gave me that information either on "deep
background" or "off the record" (I never could get the distinction of
those rules straightened out). So I apologize to my source if this
information was never meant to be public, but it is a tidbit too hot
to keep sitting on.

I don't like using unidentified sources and never was one. During my
years at the White House, not to mention those at the Justice
Department and on Capitol Hill, I never leaked information, although
I was frequently approached. If I couldn't say it on the record, I
didn't say it. And because I had no authority to speak on the record,
I chose not to speak.

So what is to be made of those who clank jail keys to encourage
reporters to reveal their sources?

Without confidential sources, much of what people need to know in a
democracy would never be reported, so unless there is a higher
reason, journalists must be able to protect such sources who are
willing to impart such information. That said, no news person should
agree to provide confidentiality unless it is essential to obtain
information that the public should be told and there is no other way
to obtain the information. A scoop per se does not justify a pledge
of confidentiality.

A source may be using the reporter, while the reporter is using the
source. Motives range from the noble whistle-blower who is morally
offended by misconduct to the staffer who is floating a trial balloon
to the low-end leaker who is seeking to gain advantage by sabotaging
a competitor or foe.

Reporters and their sources (and the public) must remember that when
journalists agree to keep a source confidential, they have entered
into a contract. Indeed, reporters have been successfully sued for
damages when they have breached their agreement. However, in most
states, every contract has an implied warranty of good faith and fair
dealing — meaning that neither a reporter nor a source can take
unfair advantage of the other. This is important because insiders
leak for an array of reasons, not always honorable, and may be using
the reporter's confidentiality to protect themselves if, say, they
are releasing information obtained improperly. If the source tried to
enforce confidentiality, or collect damages from the reporter, the
attempt would fail because of implied warranty.

Finally, if the confidential information relates to criminal
activity, the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1972 (in Branzburg vs.
Hayes) that should a grand jury investigating the crime need the
information, the journalist must turn it over — despite the
freedom
of the press guaranteed under the 1st Amendment.

No reporter can enter into an agreement that violates that law.
Rather, an agreement of confidentiality is subject to it. The so-
called news person's privilege, just like the attorney-client
privilege or a president's executive privilege, is a qualified
privilege. When a judge holds a reporter in contempt for violating
the law, that judge is merely upholding the law of the land.

As for Deep Throat, well, we will all soon learn if Woodward has been
protecting a criminal for three decades, or merely a source who gave
him some good information and some bad information — when
history's
greatest source was wrong — that Woodward has never corrected.
(To
pick just one of Throat's many errors, I randomly opened "All the
President's Men," scanned until I came to the passage in which
Woodward reports Throat as giving him this: "Dean talked with Sen.
[Howard] Baker after [the] Watergate committee [was] formed and Baker
is in the bag completely, reporting back directly to the White
House." It never happened.)

I suspect that Throat's identity may prove a cautionary tale for all
news gatherers. Stay tuned.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-
sources6feb06,0,3062317,print.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

Dean is also not what he seems...Check out
A break-in that unsettled America
By Mark Sachs
Times Staff Writer
http://sitbot.net/htm/9302.html

peace,
Tom
frnthlthg@yahoo.com

-------------------
Offered Dean: "Unfortunately, I think the lesson of Watergate is, 'Don't get caught,' and that's really about it."

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-tips30jul30,0,5286077.story?coll=cl-calendar

This is a very accurate quote by Dean if he was referring to himself...According to "Silent Coup" Dean was the instigator of the Watergate break-in(#2) and Haig was Deep Throat...

The book is on line!!!!:

Silent Coup:
The removal of a president
by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991

Table of Contents

Full Book
http://www.nixonera.com/etexts/silentcoup/fullbook.asp