The View From Here: Secret source revealed at last
It wasn’t the aide, the speech writer, the adviser, the acting FBI director or the former national security adviser.
In the end, it was the No. 2 man in the FBI, Mark Felt, who was the infamous secret news source known as “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal of the early 70s.
The identify of the man ultimately responsible for bringing down a president has been one of the great mysteries of our time and it’s finally been solved.
As a naive young reporter advised to read “All the President’s Men,” by Washington Post reporters and Watergate news breakers Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward if I wanted to get a clue about journalism, I sat down with their book in 1998.
From the moment I opened those pages, I too, was fascinated at not only the story line and the accounting of how things went down, but also at one of the greatest journalism feats of all time. It’s interesting how their secret was kept for so long and how it shaped news gathering and reporting, aside from the politics of all of it.
Mistakes made by Woodward and Bernstein — not verifying background information on subjects with serious implications through at least two sources, a lesson learned by being wrong early on — has been a staple of modern journalism classes.
In addition to solidifying background information with on-the-record sources, hard news reporters are typically taught to protect background sources at all costs, mostly likely due to the work of these two enterprising reporters.
I can see why. Without a guarantee of secrecy, which is not granted lightly or frequently, many potential sources will simply thumb their noses at the curious, well-intentioned journalist out of self-preservation.
Like many others who read the book or watched the movie, or just plainly lived through it, with some of them going on to write books guessing the secret source, I have been curious about the identity of this person for years.
The unprecedented secrecy surrounding Felt’s identity led everyone to wonder not only who it was, but why he would give away clues as to what was really going on. Who would do such a thing? Was it treason? Why would a person risk losing his job to tell a lowly reporter about something that big?
Some accounts now allege a motivation — he was mad about being passed up for a job. It sounds plausible, but to risk everything by talking to the media, that explanation seems somewhat farfetched.
Perhaps it was the idea of seeing something wrong and knowing that something had to be done about it. It doesn’t appear this man could have gone to anyone who would have done anything about what was going on, since most of them were involved.
Righting a wrong, or at least providing a scope of the problem, could have been expedited had we had an on-the-record account during the time the news was breaking, but none of us can change that now.
If nothing more, Mark Felt’s silent courage shaped a generation of journalists try to get it right and who have to ask people to stand behind what they say on a daily basis. Woodward and Bernstein’s methods have strengthened the craft of something that ranges from very easy to very difficult.
The identity of the person who helped to do all this is finally known. What a tremendous secret to have kept for all these years and what a fascinating story. It’s a part of history that we have to wonder about no more.
Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].