Secret Honor

MANIFESTO

I have been a Watergate nut since I was 13 years old. I have a great 6-hour BBC documentary where all the participants of the scandal (Dean, Haldeman, Ehrlichmann, etc.) disclose their actions within and on behalf of the Nixon White House. I also still have a CBS doc with Mike Wallace from 1992 that I've probably watched a dozen times. It was the great because it dealt extensively with guessing the identity of Deep Throat. (Wallace and Co. guessed it was L. Patrick Gray, the acting head of the F.B.I.) Bob Woodward, Carl Berstein, and Ben Bradlee are all interviewed and, being the only ones who knew the big secret, have a ball batting away questions about his identity. One interesting fact was gleaned by Wallace though. For the first time, Bernstein disclosed that Deep Throat's identity would be revealed upon his death. I still remember, at age 16, being thrilled to know that unless I got hit by a bus or suffered some other calamity, I would one day know the real name of one of America's greatest secret heroes. And that day, May 31st, 2005, came early. W. Mark Felt, age 91, is still alive.

My source at CNN just forwarded the entire Vanity Fair piece and it is facinating reading. W. Mark Felt was the #2 guy at the FBI at the time he was giving information to Bob Woodward and The Washington Post. He is clearly a man still conflicted by disclosing inside information in order to shed light on the nefarious activities of the the White House and the Justice Department. He has on countless occasions denied being the leak and chastised any person that would betray such a trust. But now we know he was the betrayer himself, an honest man inside a terrible scandal that everyone else was desperate to cover up that was forced to do something he hated himself for doing. It is almost unimaginable to think that Nixon was thisclose to getting away with his crimes.

In the coming news cycles, I'm sure Felt will take hits from the Right for being a man without honor. I'm almost looking forward to witnessing the leaps of logic that will be required by the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter to turn this man's bravery into something sleazy and disreputable. They will celebrate people like G. Gordon Liddy, men who refused to testify against their President, their Great Right Hope, and went to prison for it. (Of course, they will conveniently skip over the fact that he and Nixon's other henchmen were acting in direct opposition of the Constitution.) They will undoubtably praise Nixon and vilify Felt. Revisionist historians are always hard at work.

But no matter what is said, it must remain clear that even he was torn by his actions. John D. O'Conner put it best in his Vanity Fair article:

Deep in his psyche...he still has qualms about his actions, but he also knows that historic events compelled him to behave as he did: standing up to an executive branch intent on obstructing his agency’s pursuit of the truth. Felt, having long harbored the ambivalent emotions of pride and self-reproach, has lived for more than 30 years in a prison of his own making, a prison built upon his strong moral principles and his unwavering loyalty to country and cause. But now, buoyed by his family’s revelations and support, he need feel imprisoned no more.

It will be very interesting to see if the current White House, itself a keeper of so many secrets, will comment and what those comments will be.

UPDATE: It's official. Woodward, Bernstein & Bradlee have confirmed Felt is Deep Throat.