Stripped Throat

Well, the most closely guarded secret of the late twentieth century is now out - Hal Holbrook is still alive! And so too is the man he played in the 1976 blockbuster All The President's Men. By now you've all heard that former FBI Deputy W. Mark Felt - or as his friends call him, "Deep Throat" - has finally stepped out of the shadows to bravely acknowledge that his family needs money. He did so in the perfume-scented pages of Vanity Fair, though he still declined to pose in Vera Wang. Nonetheless, this is a major revelation that has turned Washington upside down. Suddenly, everyone is called back to an era when investigative journalists were dogged and unflinching, corrupt government officials were held to account, and Robert Redford's face was forty percent less craggy. "Memor-ies" -- wait, that was a different film.

Longtime Watergate-watchers always had Felt high on the list of possible Woodward & Bernstein sources. But firming up that guess was something of a challenge. After all, what man his age hasn't been known to leak?

Now Felt himself has made it official, and a vaunted Washington guessing-game has come to an end. It was all a bit anti-climactic. Like many others, I had been anxious to learn the truth about "Deep Throat" ever since childhood, when I got slapped for asking at the dinner table. It became a fun pastime - watching hours of repetitive cable documentaries on the Nixon years just to figure out which aging GOP hack was secretly a man of honor. This week, the answer came back: none of them. For fans of surprise, that's somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, we have further assurance that "the system still works" and major stories are continuing to be uncovered by fashion and entertainment mags.

There is still room for doubt though. As many of his critics have charged, Mark Felt is not a hero. In fact, he's been known to embellish his role in history a time or two, to the great embarrassment of a certain major publication.

Here's the Washington Post front-page header for June 11, 2002:



And for June 4, 1997:




Of course, not all these stories are the kind Mr. Felt would want to leak out:




So is there a reason Woodward, Bernstein and the Post allowed themselves to be scooped? Is "Deep Throat" really "Deep Throat"? Will we ever know the truth? I'll tell you in thirty years.