|
Mark felt was in charge of watergate investigation Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/11786802.htmhttp://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/11786802.htm
Posted on Wed, Jun. 01, 2005
ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Mark Felt on CBS' Face the Nation on Aug. 30, 1976. Felt, now 91 and retired in California, denied for decades that he was Deep Throat.
Nixon wrongly thought Felt would play ball
By Michael Kranish
The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - Six days after the Watergate break-in, President Nixon had a secretly recorded conversation about Mark Felt, the No. 2 man at the FBI.
Nixon was hatching a plan to stop the FBI from investigating the burglary at Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex and figured that friends at the CIA could persuade the FBI to drop the investigation.
The White House figured their appointee, FBI acting Director L. Patrick Gray, would go along. But what about Felt, a 30-year, dyed-in-the-wool bureau man who ran its day-to-day operations?
"Mark Felt wants to cooperate because he's ambitious," Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman told the president.
"Yeah," Nixon responded.
It would not be the first time that Nixon would underestimate Felt, whose identity was confirmed Tuesday by The Washington Post as "Deep Throat," the source who provided much information that helped lead to Nixon's resignation.
In the months after the break-in, on June 17, 1972, Felt would provide many accurate tips about the investigation and Nixon's role in the effort to cover up what the White House initially called a "third-rate burglary."
Indeed, in the same conversation with Haldeman about Felt, Nixon implicated himself in what became known as the "smoking gun" conversation because it showed Nixon's hands-on role in plotting the cover-up.
Felt quickly discovered Nixon's effort to get the CIA to stop the FBI's probe, and it had the opposite effect of what Nixon intended: It spurred Felt to divulge crucial information about the cover-up to Post reporter Bob Woodward, leading to Felt's role as Deep Throat.
For decades, Felt, now 91, denied that he was Deep Throat and has lived quietly in retirement and obscurity in California for years.
But observers point out that Felt had all the necessary ingredients to make him the most famous anonymous source in journalism. He had access to information as the FBI's person in charge of the Watergate investigation. He had the motive to leak to Woodward: Nixon himself was trying to shut down the probe. And he knew Woodward and was his source on the FBI's investigation of the shooting of presidential candidate George Wallace of Alabama.
Ronald Kessler, who interviewed Felt for his book The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, said Felt's motivation was clear. "Part of him hoped that Nixon would be kicked out and he would be FBI director, but I think his main motive was altruistic," Kessler said. Leaking to Woodward "was a guarantee that the investigation was not suppressed."
Felt denied to Kessler that he was Deep Throat and stuck to his story for three decades; he even denied it in his autobiography. But Kessler's book, as well as numerous other sources, stretching back to 1974, identified Felt as the leading candidate because of his position in the bureau.
A career FBI man who gained fame for breaking up the Kansas City mob, Felt moved to Washington headquarters in 1962 and was part of the old guard around longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The Nixon White House had been at odds with Hoover, who died in 1972, and installed Gray as acting director. But Felt ran the bureau on a day-to-day basis and had taken responsibility for overseeing the Watergate probe.
Nixon had been trying to figure out who at the FBI was leaking information to The Post and suspected Felt. But Haldeman worried that any effort to remove Felt would backfire.
"If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI," Haldeman told Nixon. "He has access to absolutely everything."
Nixon wondered why "the b------" was leaking information.
"I think he wants the top spot," Haldeman said.
"That's a hell of a way for him to get to the top," Nixon replied.
IN THE KNOW
Deep Throat
Name: Mark Felt
Experience: Joined the FBI in 1942; was assistant director during the Watergate scandal.
Age: 91
Education: Graduated from the University of Idaho, went to George Washington University Law School.
Personal: In failing health and living in retirement in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Quote: His denial in 1999 that he was Deep Throat: "I would have done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?"
|
|
