Deep Throat Dying?

The well-worn Watergate saga of Deep Throat, the shadowy insider source for Woodward and Bernstein, retains its fascination for one good reason: most secrets are not so well-kept. For this reason, I've never subscribed to conspiracy theories; human nature, my reporting experience tells me, always favors the moving lips and the clucking tongue. And yet 30 years on, Deep Throat retains his cloak of invisibility, known only to himself, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and Ben Bradlee.

So today's news that Deep Throat may be truly on his way into history is (human considerations aside) so Goddamned delicious! John Dean, the former White House counsel turned whistleblower turned commentator/author, writes today:

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.

Watergate was such a central event of my adolescence - and Richard Nixon such a towering figure - that the public unveiling of the last riddle is almost too cool to contemplate. So I did a little digging. Patrick Buchanan? Saw him on the McLaughlin Group Sunday chortling healthily away. Al Haig? Busily taping his cable business show, apparently fit and still in charge. Former associate counsel and Republican legal powerbroker Fred Fielding? Last seen on the 9/11 commission stage just weeks ago, still standing. Now here's where it gets interesting. Former President Gerald Ford, 91, did not attend the Bush inaugauration and was described as "in failing health?" Wouldn't that be a blockbuster?

Oh, and Hal Holbrook you might ask? Still packing them in as Mark Twain on the community theater circuit, thank you.

UPDATE: Editor & Publisher picks up on the "mania" the Dean report has generated. Some good stuff, and a silly contest.

Comments

[Tom K]

There's a good piece on DT, which you may have already seen (or already blogged) at:

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues03/dec03/presence.html

Th article seems to favor Fielding. Ford is a provocative and intriguing choice, but this article suggests he was not among those with access to the necessary information. Gergen seems like the sort to me, and there's some guy named Rose who may have done it to raise money to pay off his bookie.

But I don't really think Deep Throat existed in the form we've all come to believe. A useful amalgam of personalities serving as a "source crow" -- that is, a fake source offered as "authority" for reasonable guesses, to get those who could confirm to figure they might as well.

I suppose we'll hear soon, if the indivdual's demise is imminent. I admit I'm very curious. But I still think they'll be as much surprise at the things DT's identity will confirm we have wrongly atributed to him (or her) -- since he or she couldn't have known them -- as there is at the identity.

[Tom K]

By the way, Pat Buchanan recently took emeritus status at the American Conservative, the magazine he co-founded just a couple of years ago. A curious decison that I haven't seen explained. And he was ill in 2000.

So I wouldn't assume, from his appearance alone, that Pat's out of the running. Though I'd be very surprised if he were DT, for a variety of unrelated reasons.

[Tom W.]

Strangely enough, I think DT is one person - a man, as Woodward says - from the executive branch, and or fairly high stature, necessitating his anonymity of the good of the nation. Don't forget, Woodward believes Ford was a true hero for pardoning Nixon.

[Wendy Writer]

Rehnquist is quite ill.

[bruce b.]

Are either Rehnquist or Ford in the realm of possibility? Can someone clarify the chronology on this?

When did Ford become VP? Would he have had access to the info that Deep Throat was giving?

[ken thomas]

throat was william c sullivan who died in 1977.

grahm and woodward will try to pretend that sullivan associate, mark felt, who is 91 and gravely ill was throat.

he wasnt.

kthomas

[Tom K]

Here's an interesting link proposing Ben Stein, and arguing persuasively for him.

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/617862#sw

Anyone know how he's doing health-wise?

[brian]

I will step out of rational thought and predict that Deep Throat was Hunter S. Thompson. (yeah, I've never correctly predicted the Powerball numbers either)

[Lincoln]

Come On!

"Deep Throat" was and always will be a figment of Woodward and Bernsteins imagination. They dust it off every few when their careers start to sag. Nothing more, nothing less.

[ken thomas]

please see my feb 10 post.

sullivan was throat.

unlike woodstein, felt is lying because he is ACUTELY aware of the catastrophic consequences, should sullivan+hoover role in misdirecting FBI investigations of assassinations of jfk,mlk,rfk
of almost handing USSR a victory in cold war by ruining OPERATION SOLO, to please angleton and other blathering lunatics- some on jcs. and much more. i was there. very soon, i will be the last survivor who knows the truth- and has told the truth .
in other posts i predicted a crudely calculated date of june 1- didnt expect to hit exact day, but not just a lucky guss either.
kthomas