Geoff Shepard writes on the 1976 hit, “All the President’s Men,” which has fashioned our consciousness of the Nixon White House and which made Woodward and Bernstein’s names and fortunes:
But here’s the rub the no one seems interested in exploring: Mark Felt was Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Information, an agency of the Department of Justice-without any connection to Nixon or his White House staff. Of course, there remains the underlying question about whether the Deep Throat character was really a composite-but it is relatively clear, by Woodward’s own words, that Mark Felt was his secret source of the government’s investigative information.
There are several ramifications from this, now fully confirmed, situation:
* First, far from a whistle blower, Felt was a career bureaucrat, bitter about not being named FBI Director following the death of J. Edgar Hoover-who was venting his disappointment by leaking dynamite information derived from the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into the Watergate cover-up. Who cares? Well,
o Woodward was not printing information from someone within the Nixon White House that knew specifics of the cover-up; he was printing information already known to and under aggressive investigation by the Department of Justice.
o Put another way, it is now clear that it was the career prosecutors (Earl Silbert, Seymour Glanzer and Donald Campbell) who had broken the cover-up case and were moving swiftly toward a comprehensive indictment-well before Archibald Cox’s appointment as Special Prosecutor.* Second, it is little wonder Woodward kept Felt’s identity secret:
o Merely printing information passed along from someone at the heart of a Department of Justice investigation hardly qualifies as the sort of investigative reporting that had won Woodward worldwide acclaim-and made him rich and famous.
o What Felt did-leaking information from an on-going investigation-was not only illegal and improper, it could well have slowed the progress of the investigation itself (by alerting participants and their defense counsel to actions being taken by their former colleagues). Perhaps as important, Felt had compounded his offense: He had retired from the FBI in 1973, shortly after Haldeman, Erhlichman and John Dean had been forced to resign; but following the 1974 publication of the book, he had been subjected to a hostile, aggressive FBI interview (at a Washington hotel room rented for that occasion), during which he specifically denied being the Deep Throat of Woodward’s book. His patiently false answers to FBI questions-especially after being informed of his risk–subjected him to further criminal prosecution.I was a lawyer on Nixon’s White House staff for five years-and Fred Buzhardt’s principle deputy during the Watergate defense effort that began in earnest following the Haldeman/ Ehrlichman/Dean resignations. I am quite confident that, but for Woodward printing Felt’s revelation without attribution (or even indication that they came from within the Department of Justice’s own ongoing investigation), the promised comprehensive criminal indictment for the Watergate cover-up would have come in the summer of 1974 and the nation (regardless of who was included in that indictment) would have been spared a fully year of agony-and all of the political intrigue I documented in my recent book.
The movie’s lie [that the leaker was a White House operative], perpetrated as Woodward stood silent for three decades, is almost universally accepted as true. So much so that no one really cared when Deep Throat’s identity became known.-Such is the enduring power of a hit movie’s falsehood.
White House Press corpse: He’s dead, Jim.
MORE on Felt: Set the Wayback Machine for William Young’s 2005 post on the subject.
Felt is no hero. Most whistleblowers are not (it does not mean they are necessarily evil either). They have an agenda that they want to pursue–usually payback. That was Felt’s motivation. He might have been offended by Nixon, but he supported Hoover uniquivically? Give me a break, Hoover made Nixon look like a saint.
It’s not only universally accepted as true, it has become a model, like the Chicago Tribunes “exposing” the Blago fiasco.
[Dan] was a lawyer on Nixon’s White House staff for five years-and Fred Buzhardt’s principle deputy during the Watergate defense effort that began in earnest following the Haldeman/ Ehrlichman/Dean resignations
So when can we expect an unsourced 18 minute audio clip to show up on YouTube?
You can set the tape to dancing hamsters if you like.
Geoff was a lawyer, BumperStickerist. Don’t pin that shit on me.
I get it but I think I still have to file this under stuff what baby boomers think about a lot excessively. But I could give a flip about the Beatles either, who are mostly not dead. And JFK, who is really emphatically dead. And I’m kind of over the man on the moon thing. I like Janis Joplin. She was from Texas, you know. I had a teacher from Port Arthur in high school that went to school with Janis and she said all the kids were mean to her cause she was a big fat weirdo. She included herself among the mean kids. I thought that was an unusual admission to make. She sounded sort of proud of herself.
I myself as a 30 year old American, look forward to being freed of all these boomer pathologies. I think the fact that my parents rejected all of the supposed boomer ideals colors my perspective.
I like Janis Joplin. She was from Texas, you know.
I was a big fan of Joplin’s (played Cheap Thrills until it turned grey) and still am even though my wife hates her. Joplin’s return to Port Arthur, when she strutted around town showing off her success and wealth to all her high school nemesi (is that correct?) was kind of sad, though.
Three Days of the Condor was a better movie.
Is something wrong parsnip? That comment wasn’t in any way confrontational, and was apropos to the conversation.
Sorry, this is horsehit writ large.
Woodward and Bernstein did a good job on this book and this story.
Shepard forgot to mention that Deep Throat almost awlays confirmed something the lads had dug up, or provided them with a lead…whereupon the pair got two levels of confirmation on.
Felt a hero? He never said he was, nor did Woodward initially view him as one. And his motives? Everyone has ’em, like assholes and pimples. America and history were well-served the day that Woodward bumped into Felt in that basement waiting room.
Leakers? i love ’em. So do most people, when they leak stuff that’s agreeable or of interest to them.
Leakers? i love ‘em. So do most people, when they leak stuff that’s agreeable or of interest to them.
Especially politicians, when they fuck up criminal investigations.
oh. Geezer – I didn’t know the return to Port Arthur story. I will have to read. That would explain the enmity I think.
I don’t think his beef is with Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, mcgruder. I think it’s with the fact that Woodward, serving as an advisor to the production, helped to misportray what happened and deliberately divert attention from that particular source.
I like when they spill the national security beans. Stick it to The Man!
Happy, I didn’t think I could ever disagree with you, but the Beatles were all sorts of wonderful. Perhaps that is where you originally went astray music-wise? I watched “Ghost Town” the other day and they played “I’m looking through You” … a great song you don’t hear too much.
Or that Woodward and Bernstein convinced many young folks, myself included, that Creep would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the heroic journalists. The real cover up was the fact that there was already an ongoing investigation.
Wasn’t “The Rose” loosely based on Janice? They had that whole “home town- look I’m a star” stuff in it.
Dan, I pointed this out in December 2006:
But the real story of 2005 was covered by the media on A1 and forgotten on Day 2, the media figuring it was just a passing compliment to itself, so why bother with too much fanfare? But the real story of 2005 was the media outing itself as a whining, feckless, incompetent sissy who’s greatest success was a lie:
Deep Throat, the secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post’s groundbreaking coverage of the Watergate scandal, was a pillar of the FBI named W. Mark Felt, The Post confirmed yesterday.
See that? The anonymous source grandaddy of all time turns out to have been an embittered FBI agent with an axe to grind because he was passed over for promotion to the #1 spot in the Bureau, so he decided to spill the beans to a couple of WaPo reporters about the details of a botched robbery of a hotel room. Pretty lame, if you ask me, to claim as your laurels that you brought down a president when it turns out you couldn’t have done it without a disaffected FBI careerist looking to piss in Nixon’s cornflakes only because he could, and you now know he wouldn’t have — that he’d have towed the Nixon line — if he’d been appointed.
So, how’s that re-cast history for you? Suddenly, Woodward and Bernstein are no longer brave reporters, but merely useful idiots. Nixon wasn’t brought down by popular declaim and constant anti-war marching, but because he most-likely tired of the media pressure casting him as a liar and a scoundrel. Who knows what future historians will say when the re-write the Watergate scandal with the new facts, because they’ll have to re-write the scandal and turn it into a media-driven head-hunting operation. I’m guessing in the future, Woodward and Bernstein won’t be played by Redford and Hoffman, but by digitally re-animated duo Laurel and Hardy, blithely going along with what they were told the story was.
—
If you’re curious, here’s the post url:http://williamyoung.blogspot.com/2005/12/only-mockingly-self-proclaimed-genius.html
I’d have offered a hyperlink, but I can’t remember the href coding and there aren’t any formatting buttons here to help with italics, bold, hyperlinks or draft beer and salsa dispensing.
that would be December 2005
Just like the mental giants at Abu Ghraib would have gotten away with their mistreatment of prisoners, if our sainted media hadn’t printed those damning photographs (*ahem* from the investigation that was ongoing at the time *ahem*).
I can never keep it straight — which time is tragedy, and which is farce?
It’s not that I dislike the Beatles. I just take them for granted is all. Like Pixar movies and Pepperidge Farm cookies and CO Bigelow. But not artisanal cheese. I’m just not there yet.
oh. I haven’t seen The Rose. I saw Beaches and that was probably disincentivizing.
“I was shocked by his tone – unprofessional, indignant, disrespectful, condescending. Wow, just wow.”
The surprised dismay is amusing to me. He must not have noticed many of O’s speaking engagements.
I still have a man on the moon thing going on. Cried like a baby at Ron Howards Apollo 13 where they used NASA footage for the liftoff sequence.
Reminds me of what I believed America would be when I grew up.
In the 80’s one of my friends shared a rented house and one of the gay guys upstairs played his “The Rose” LP over and over. He would sing the songs on his knees like that one guy in “Platoon”, with feeling, and cry in a heartfelt way.
I saw The Rose when it came out. It was basically like watching “Anthony Blanche, the musical”.
mcgruder, I’m really interested to hear what you have to say on the subject. I don’t want to cut off your point of view. Please let me know if I’m completely wrong.
I think I cry on cue whenever the tv show or the movie tells me to. I’m a real easy mark like that.
I feel comfortable sharing that with you.
I hate “A Christmas Carol” that way.
Self-recrimination usually follow my movie-tears. Also I hate being actually scared by a movie. The last time that happened was a college theatre second-run screening of Alien in 1980 but I hated it alright.
follows, not follow
My mother would get hysterical at movies and I think that’s where that comes from.
I’d say the Rose was better than Beaches, but then again I saw it so long ago.
You know what I liked? Was it “Mean People” or something? Where Bette gets kidnapped for ransom but the husband doesn’t want her back and wants them to kill her.
Dan, I’m guilty of talking my book on this one. literally. As an investigative reporter, I rely deeply on leakers and/or documents produced in legal discovery. So people who have beefs about classified or confidential information seeing the light of day get in the way of me providing tution and food, heat and clothes. I know mine is a minority opinion, especially after the last 8 years, but that is that.
I did take what he wrote as a criticism of some of the ethics of Woodstein’s reporting, which I don’t need to defend. Im not sure I take the distraction bit…the thrust of the movie’s dramatic arc centered around Woodward’s contact with Felt. The book downplays it, and emphasizes the amount of shoe-leather the two put into things.
My view: I praise the lord for embittered sources with access to documents. I cant get enough of them. No good reporter relies on them, but they sure as hell keep a door open and provide an introduction to the reality of a situation. The literal hours I have saved by getting leaked an internal phone directory: cell phones (Gods gift to reporters), home addresses….yum.
Young’s criticism seems heartfelt to be, and also insanely naive. His prescription…On-the-record interviews with happily employed people who are obeying the letter and the spirit of the law. Good for him.
Me? F–k that. Give me someone who makes the trains run who got passed over in a sleazy political shuffle, and seeks earthly vengance. Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.
Was it “Mean People†or something?
Ruthless People.
A fairly good light comedy. The husband was Danny DeVito.
“So people who have beefs about classified or confidential information seeing the light of day get in the way of me providing tution and food, heat and clothes. I know mine is a minority opinion, especially after the last 8 years, but that is that.”
So you will forgive me when I wish those leakers a fiery place in Hell for allowing our enemies to operate more effectively and kill the innocent and my brothers in arms (and try, more than once, to kill your humble commenter)?
Some smug bastard leaked how we track financial stuff and then AQI and the JAM changing their money-moving TTPs and ending sending funds to the local JAM $hitheads in Dhi Qar. Who ended up blowing a bus full of women and children between Tallil and Basrah. I’m still #$%&ing steamed about that one.
It is all about you, isn’t it, John?
Hold on there, sir. The MSM will at times never rest until they find a leaker. Remember that three ring circus of hypocrisy about Valerie Plame.
parsnip, i noticed you abandoned the thread yesterday instead of answering my question. So, I’m still wondering what you have to say about the UN retracting their claim that Israel bombed their school in Gaza. As I recall, you were all over them about being heartless child murderers and claiming that they lied when they said they didn’t attack the school.
What do you have to say about that now, snippy?
#37 – no, it’s all about the women and children in Dhi-Qar. But they don’t concern you, do they?
FTFY. Richard Armitage and all…
Only if America or Israel is doing the killing, LTC John. Aside from that, they’re less than useless to snippy.
it’s always some smug bastard
“Comment by parsnip on 2/6 @ 12:28 pm #
It is all about you, isn’t it, John?”
You’re an illiterate monkey, alpo.
FOAD.
John, In what way is your story related to the Nixon administration?
There’s the old joke that anyone who went to Harvard will try to work that fact into any conversation they’re having in the first minute.
You seem to want to work our trip to Iraq into any thread whether it’s appropriate or not.
What’s the matter, not enough atta boys on the home front?
Pablo,
We knew from the start that the Israeli shells hit the civilians waiting to get into the UN school.
That info was in the initial reports.
I don’t see what’s changed.
#45 – I think you have your little fixation backwards. As for the topic at hand, it is the consequence of leaking. You weren’t a party to the discussion, it was mcgruder and myself. But with your obsessiveness, you had to jump in. And now you complain about something OT.
If that ain’t the funniest thing to be put on a screen in a long time, I am not sure what is. Begging Iowahawk’s pardon.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/6 @ 12:44 pm #
John, In what way is your story related to the Nixon administration?”
You’re an illiterate monkey, alpo.
FOAD.
“Pablo,
We knew from the start that the Israeli shells hit the civilians waiting to get into the UN school.
That info was in the initial reports.
I don’t see what’s changed.”
Now you’re a liar, too.
FOAD.
Sorry, LTC, that ain’t funny. The depths of ignorance revealed are pitiful.
*yawn*
From the initial report of this incident:
Two tank shells exploded outside the Gaza school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053138.html
This is so neat and very very Baracky for reminding yourself of teh HOPE that he represents and symbolizes and stands for and stuff so even if you are on website what has tons of mean stupid ooga booga redumblicans teh HOPE is just a click away! Just drag the link under the Cornify any website! section and watch the zeigeist happens!
You said they bombed the school and called them all sorts of things because of it. they said they didn’t and you called them liars. They were right, you were wrong. That’s what’s changed. So what do you have to say about it?
Snippy, don’t forget to include *giggle* and *rolls eyes* with *yawn* to your off-topic and intellectually weak posts. I’ve seen other things by written adolescent girls and they all do that in their notes.
Seems they are very insecure and crave attention, just like you.
happy,
That Cornifying is … so wrong.
Congrats on the promotion, LTC John.
As for you, snippy; fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and the colonel who sent you (definitely not you, LTC…:)
And on a totally unrelated topic:
SarahW, actually Ron Howard did not use NASA footage for the launch sequence in “Apollo 13”. It was all computer-generated. That you thought it was the actual footage only shows how well-made it was. I knew it was not from the start, because being the spaceflight fanatic that I am, I’ve seen the actual footage so many times I could spot the differences.
I also saw “The Rose” years ago, and it was loosely based on Janis Joplin’s life. My ex was from the Port Arthur area, so I’ve heard all the stories more or less first hand. Janis had talent, but she was also a very screwed-up individual.
LTC John,
this is a true story. There were two news orgs on that story…mine and the NYT. I knew of that program in 04-05 but said nothing. Both the NYT and me were backgrounding the story, but were going in very very different directions. They aimed to discuss the program as a focus of the story, i aimed to reference it via describing a terror finance success.
Both of us had contact with the USG and both were asked not to describe it. I dropped it, the NYT didnt.
they got glory, I’m in the process of leaving my job because, well, media is dead and I want to do my work without editors and management, to say nothing of chasing down leads on a daily basis.
true story.
i take your beef because you do have a point but hold my views.
OMG That is the best thing EVER Happy. I’ve put it on my blog already. That way, people who say I’m too negative can just quickly cornify it!
Not a good week for Snippy. Early in the week, it was just making its usual inane, substance-free noise. By midweek it admits that it has no idea what it’s talking about, but only comments to get a rise out of us. And on Friday, it resorts to blatant falsehoods and in-your-face insults against a U.S. Army officer who has always shown it more respect than it deserves, and would probably shrug off the lies and insults even if the automated rhetorical construct had the courage or decency to say such things face-to-face.
If it were a human being, I don’t know how it would face itself in the mirror. Fortunately, Mr. Soros’ research funds haven’t yet perfected emotional response in his organization’s cybernetic troll army.
Pablo,
I said the IDF were cowards for not sending their troops into the school if they thought there were bad guys inside it instead of just lazily lobbing a few tank rounds in its general direction.
Really, I can’t see what has changed.
mcgruder – and that is the point of the whole thing. You did right, they did wrong, innocent people died and the NYT can smug it’s way to glory in the salons.
I respect your discretion, probably the moreso since it had negative consequences for you in particular.
NG is wondering why I’m grinning. We will not share with her.
“President Obama seems to have an exceedingly low tolerance for criticism and adversity. At a Democratic retreat (which, come to think of it, is a timely idea) he dropped all pretense of bipartisanship and went rip-roaring negative on the Republicans and anyone who would question the wonderfulness of the pork-a-thon. (Senators Snowe and Specter, that must mean you guys too.) Even the New York Times thought he sounded “irritated.†Just when he needs some moderate Republican help he chooses the “blunt derision†route. Well, so much for the superior temperament…”
That whole diatrabe was classless and graceless, he acted like a ten year old, stamping his feet and shouting, “But that’s what I want!”…
Obama is a poseur, who puts on a well rehearsed act as a measured, cerebral, judicious leader-as long as things are working out the way he wants them to. This is but the first in what are many melt-downs to come…
Oh, and I guess that Tapper can forget about being called on by Obama ever again after his performance with that putz Gibbs; and I thought no one would ever be able to make that weasel McClellan good!
My kids keep making me adding more unicorns and rainbows. Greatest thing EVA.
Is nipply still going on about how artillery is only accurate to within a couple of hundred yards?
Jesus.
It’s just not fair when you don’t let the bad guys kill you first, Spies.
#64 – I wonder how people who dislike what the IDF has done reacted to the Russians flattening Grozny, WWII style?
Cave bear, I thought the Apollo 13 “launch” was real footage flipped and digitally modified. Was it completelyfaked?
No, SBP, now it’s more a question of the “courage” of the IDF or lack of it, for according to our resident moron, the IDF is cowardly and “lazy” for not sending men into the school to kill or capture the Hamass fighters firing mortars from within or adjacent to the school, rather than hitting them with counterbattery. That many more people, both Gazans and Israeli soldiers would have died from such as response doesn’t seem to occur to it.
they didn’t fire because they thought there were bad guys in the school. They fired because they were taking fire from the street near the school, and that’s what they hit. You also said they lied about firing on the school, which they did not do.
You’re full of shit, racist. Just thought I’d point that out.
Well, Squid, seeing how the IDF now admits there were no bad guys inside the school, it looks like they killed all those people in front of it just for the heck of it.
I believe that make this incident a war crime.
That’s the trouble using a part-time army.
No, SBP, now it’s more a question of the “courage†of the IDF or lack of it, for according to our resident moron
Ah. He’s still lying about who is committing the war crime when combatants hide among civilians. Par for the course.
Just read that no Saturn V stock footage used in the launch sequence in Apollo 13 at all. Whoah. I am a big sucker. It seemed so familiar.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/6 @ 1:12 pm #
Pablo,
I said the IDF were cowards”
Fuck you, alpo, the horse you rode in on and all the Hussars trotting along behind, you smug asshole licking coward.
war happens parsnip.
on balance, the IDF are the good guys. It would be perfect if they had a war where no civilians got killed, but then nothing is perfect. Israel is not perfect, but has busted its hump for peace, traded land, looke dthe other way, worked with Fatah’s various thugs and morons, partnered with sworn ally Ararfat…nothing worked.
so war it is. no one is perfect or blameless here.
and no, its not a war crime. it was not done deliberatly to slaughter or provoke a response that would allow them to target civilians. Unlike say, walking into a crowded pizzeria with a bomb strapped to your vest.
But at least rainbows are real.
SarahW, yes ma’am, the entire launch sequence was re-created by computer. I was rather surprised that they did that, as the actual footage would have been just fine in my estimation. Artistic license, I suppose.
#Comment by LTC John on 2/6 @ 1:21 pm #
Or the Syrians at Hama.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/6 @ 1:23 pm #
Well, Squid, seeing how the IDF now admits there were no bad guys inside the school, it looks like they killed all those people in front of it just for the heck of it.
I believe that make this incident a war crime.”
And I believe you’re a ball licking retard.
mcgruder, LTC John,
Actually, leakers and the response thereto have to be separated into two categories.
On the one hand, we have people who are describing non-, mis-, or malfeasance. Such folk need to be encouraged, even if you have to grit your teeth to do so, and the reporters who encourage and/or seek them out deserve compliments.
On the other, you have situations like terrorist funding, or the “news” about cell phone intercepts. They don’t represent misconduct; they’re just kewl stories, and leaking them is primarily self-affirmation on the part of the leaker that they’re truly cool and In The Know. Printing them exposes nothing that needs to be exposed, and much that should not be, but they’re Really Kewl Stories® and get a lot of attention.
Regards,
Ric
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic, mcgruder?
So he quotes his hero, Stalin.
Some single deaths are tragedies but a lot of them not so much really. You have to use your own best judgment I think.
You read that on a bumpersticker, snippy?
Hey alpo, what does citing your hero have anything to do with what’s being discussed?
“Tragedy is if I cut my finger. Comedy is if parsnip falls into an open manhole and die.”
Ric,
Quite so. If you leak malfeasance, you are only hurting the perps. Unless you blow an investigation/sting type thing or reveal some sort of method for catching bad guys.
But if you have to leak to show that someone has done wrong, ’cause no body will do anything otherwise – go right ahead. Something about afflicting the comfortable, right?
78-well said. I try to live by that.
I am not blameless, and i am drawn the way i was drawn, but I do not like compromising something larger than me for the sake of a day’s glory.
Why, I do believe that the Artificial Lies/Propaganda/Hyperbole/Innuendo Entity has addressed me by name! Guess I’m cutting a little too close to the truth.
I knew all those repeated viewings of Blade Runner couldn’t be a total waste of time.
The original footage wouldn’t have “matched” the movie footage in terms of color saturation and grain. The difference would have jumped out, rather like the cheap B-movies that stick stock footage in for their “wildlife” shots.
“…like the cheap B-movies that stick stock footage in for their “wildlife†shots.”
The one that drives me nuts is a cutaway in a WW II movie that ends up showing the wrong type of airplane, like a Stuka in the Battle of Midway.
war happens parsnip.
on balance, the IDF are the good guys. It would be perfect if they had a war where no civilians got killed, but then nothing is perfect.
Tuberhead is a perfect fool.
And I agree with your overall sentiment regarding leaks and whistleblowers, mcgruder, I am just saying in this particular case we were mislead. I was a huge Woodward and Bernstein fan so it really chaps my ass to find this out.
I added cornify to firefox. It’s handy when something I read pisses me off. Or, just to amuse myself.
Felt is not the Deep Throat I remember. No, I never saw the movie but who could avoid the publicity?
Somehow having daughters changes one’s perspective.
#87
Watch it in Blue-Ray. Totally different movie.
I agree but I also dislike when they doll up US tanks and other equipment as German or Russian tanks. That’s why I liked “Cross of Iron” so much. Real WWII Russian tanks and equipment.
There’s a deep irony, that I pointed out about Felt, as played by Holbrook, that became part of a Pajamas Media profile of him; He said of the CREEP crew, at the end of the day, they weren’t too smart. Well at the end of the day, his leaks not only toppled Nixon, but undermined the FBI and
even the CIA, and his previous work against
the Weatherman was discovered, and he nearly went to jail, until Reagan pardoned
himself and Edward Miller. A realization that may have dawned on those who
participated on the Libby charade against Bush, like Armitage.