A Scoop: How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI
Tue Jun 14, 2005 15:19
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"David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as
has been leveled against the current president." - Los Angeles Times
June 13, 2005
A Scoop: How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI
http://www.davidcorn.com/
The forthcoming scoop that I mentioned in earlier postings was just released. It's an intriguing tale about Deep Throat. According to FBI memos obtained by me and my colleague Jeff Goldberg--including some written by Mark Felt--at various points during Watergate Felt was in charge of trying to find out who in the FBI was leaking to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post. Yes, Deep Throat was in charge of uncovering--and stopping--Deep Throat. As we note in the piece, it was all very le Carre-like. There's much more to the article, including how Felt staged an official and unproductive interview with Woodward, apparently to make it seem that he was not cooperating with the Post reporters. But the nut is this: Felt was a clever and shrewd operator who took proactive and sly steps to escape the suspicion that was directed at him--and he fooled the FBI, especially its chief at the time, Patrick Gray. So if you're not obsessed with the Michael Jackson verdict--our piece was posted within minutes of the announcement of the Jackson verdict--go to www.thenation.com and read it. As a tease, here are the first few paragraphs:
How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI
by DAVID CORN & JEFF GOLDBERG
www.thenation.com
The recent dramatic revelation about W. Mark Felt--the former top FBI man who has confessed to being Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's secret source during the Watergate scandal--has yielded what seems to be the final chapter in the Deep Throat saga, and thus the conclusion to a three-decade-long whodunit rich in detail, psychology and irony.
But Felt's role as the most famous anonymous source in US history was even more complex and intrigue-loaded than the newly revised public account suggests. According to originally confidential FBI documents--some written by Felt--that were obtained by The Nation from the FBI's archives, Felt played another heretofore unknown part in the Watergate tale: He was, at heated moments during the scandal, in charge of finding the source of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate scoops. In a twist worthy of le Carré, Deep Throat was assigned the mission of unearthing--and stopping--Deep Throat.
This placed Felt, who as the FBI's associate director oversaw the bureau's Watergate probe, in an unusual position. He was essentially in charge of investigating himself. From this vantage point Felt, who had developed espionage skills running FBI counterintelligence operations against German spies in World War II, was able to watch his own back and protect his ability to guide the two reporters whose exposés would help topple the President he served.
Felt at different points became an FBI plumber--in the parlance of the Nixon White House, a "plumber" was an operative who took care of leaks--even though he was the number-one leaker. He was in the perfect spot to deflect any accusations that might implicate him and to misdirect suspicion. And when President Nixon and his top aides became convinced that Felt was a key source for the Washington Post--they still couldn't touch him because of what he knew about their skulduggery.
The Felt memos do not cover the entire time period (from right after the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters to November 1973) during which Felt assisted Woodward. But when placed alongside the recent disclosure and the previously available accounts--most notably, the Woodward and Bernstein book All the President's Men; Felt's 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid (in which he denied he was Deep Throat); and the Nixon White House tapes--these memos (snapshots from inside Felt's world) significantly expand and shift the view that historians and the public now have of the unique, secret space Felt occupied during Watergate.
To read the rest, click here.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050627&s=goldberg
==============
CLICK:
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation, the oldest political weekly in America, and a Fox News Channel contributor. He writes on a host of subjects, including politics, the White House, Congress, and the national security establishment. He has broken stories on George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh, Enron, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and other Washington players and institutions. He currently writes a web column for The Nation called "Capital Games".
MORE:>>
June 13, 2005
A Scoop: How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI
http://www.davidcorn.com/
The forthcoming scoop that I mentioned in earlier postings was just released. It's an intriguing tale about Deep Throat. According to FBI memos obtained by me and my colleague Jeff Goldberg--including some written by Mark Felt--at various points during Watergate Felt was in charge of trying to find out who in the FBI was leaking to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post. Yes, Deep Throat was in charge of uncovering--and stopping--Deep Throat. As we note in the piece, it was all very le Carre-like. There's much more to the article, including how Felt staged an official and unproductive interview with Woodward, apparently to make it seem that he was not cooperating with the Post reporters. But the nut is this: Felt was a clever and shrewd operator who took proactive and sly steps to escape the suspicion that was directed at him--and he fooled the FBI, especially its chief at the time, Patrick Gray. So if you're not obsessed with the Michael Jackson verdict--our piece was posted within minutes of the announcement of the Jackson verdict--go to www.thenation.com and read it. As a tease, here are the first few paragraphs:
How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI
by DAVID CORN & JEFF GOLDBERG
www.thenation.com
The recent dramatic revelation about W. Mark Felt--the former top FBI man who has confessed to being Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's secret source during the Watergate scandal--has yielded what seems to be the final chapter in the Deep Throat saga, and thus the conclusion to a three-decade-long whodunit rich in detail, psychology and irony.
But Felt's role as the most famous anonymous source in US history was even more complex and intrigue-loaded than the newly revised public account suggests. According to originally confidential FBI documents--some written by Felt--that were obtained by The Nation from the FBI's archives, Felt played another heretofore unknown part in the Watergate tale: He was, at heated moments during the scandal, in charge of finding the source of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate scoops. In a twist worthy of le Carré, Deep Throat was assigned the mission of unearthing--and stopping--Deep Throat.
This placed Felt, who as the FBI's associate director oversaw the bureau's Watergate probe, in an unusual position. He was essentially in charge of investigating himself. From this vantage point Felt, who had developed espionage skills running FBI counterintelligence operations against German spies in World War II, was able to watch his own back and protect his ability to guide the two reporters whose exposés would help topple the President he served.
Felt at different points became an FBI plumber--in the parlance of the Nixon White House, a "plumber" was an operative who took care of leaks--even though he was the number-one leaker. He was in the perfect spot to deflect any accusations that might implicate him and to misdirect suspicion. And when President Nixon and his top aides became convinced that Felt was a key source for the Washington Post--they still couldn't touch him because of what he knew about their skulduggery.
The Felt memos do not cover the entire time period (from right after the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters to November 1973) during which Felt assisted Woodward. But when placed alongside the recent disclosure and the previously available accounts--most notably, the Woodward and Bernstein book All the President's Men; Felt's 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid (in which he denied he was Deep Throat); and the Nixon White House tapes--these memos (snapshots from inside Felt's world) significantly expand and shift the view that historians and the public now have of the unique, secret space Felt occupied during Watergate.
To read the rest, click here.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050627&s=goldberg
==============
CLICK:
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation, the oldest political weekly in America, and a Fox News Channel contributor. He writes on a host of subjects, including politics, the White House, Congress, and the national security establishment. He has broken stories on George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh, Enron, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and other Washington players and institutions. He currently writes a web column for The Nation called "Capital Games".
MORE:>>
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