Deep Throat (Watergate)

:This article is about the source of information for Watergate; for other uses of the term, see Deep Throat.

Hints to his identity

According to Woodward in his book, The Secret Man, released in July 2005, Deep Throat's identity was known only to six people: himself, his wife Kathleen Woodward, Bernstein, their editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, his successor Leonard Downie Jr., and by a perspacious Assistant US Attorney General named Stanley Pottinger. Woodward said in repeated interviews that the identity of Deep Throat would be kept confidential until Deep Throat died or agreed to let his name be made public. Plans, however, fall apart and Woodward reveals in The Secret Man that during a 1976 grand jury appearance over break-ins Felt ordered, a grand juror asked Felt, "Were you Deep Throat?" Felt "seemed to go white" and answered no. Pottinger, present at the questioning, requested the stenographer stop typing and then whispered to Felt:

Related Topics:
Benjamin C. Bradlee - Assistant US Attorney General - Stanley Pottinger

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"You are under oath so you have to answer truthfully. On the other hand, I consider the question to be outside the bounds of our official investigation, so if you prefer, I'll withdraw the question. What would you like me to do?" Felt had the question withdrawn. At a lunch meeting with Woodward, Pottinger recounted his uncloaking to an astonished Woodward.

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In the years prior to Felt's disclosure, there was much speculation about the identity of Deep Throat. Woodward would only confirm that Deep Throat was a specific man in Nixon's administration — not a composite of several secret informants — who smoked heavily and liked drinking scotch.

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Woodward gave specific denials to six other possibilities, at the request of those people:

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• Alexander Haig
• Earl Silbert
• John Sears
• Diane Sawyer
• Cord Meyer Jr. (CIA official)
• William Colby (CIA official)

Following the disclosure in May 2005 of Deep Throat's identity, Slate writer Tim Noah pointed out in a column that some of Woodward's characterizations, including the claim that Deep Throat was a heavy smoker, were misleading.

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