Identity of 'Deep Throat' finally revealed

WASHINGTON - Former FBI deputy director Mark Felt is "Deep Throat" - the legendary source who leaked Watergate scandal secrets to the Washington Post and helped bring down President Richard Nixon - the newspaper has said.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who broke stories on key elements of the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's August 1974 resignation, confirmed Felt was the source after a Vanity Fair magazine report said he had admitted his role, the Post said on its website.

The newspaper reported that Woodward and Bernstein said in a statement today: "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage.

"However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."

Felt's grandson Nick Jones earlier read a statement to the press in which he confirmed that his grandfather was the informant.

The Post's unmasking of the identity of "Deep Throat" solves one of the greatest political and journalistic mysteries of modern times.

The decision to reveal his identity came after Vanity Fair magazine reported that Felt, the former FBI No. 2, had confirmed his role to his family and to the magazine.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt, now a 91-year-old retiree living in Santa Rosa, California, told the author of the Vanity Fair story, lawyer John O'Connor.

Felt's grandson told reporters on Tuesday that his grandfather was "an American hero" for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal. It is the first time a major potential source had claimed to be "Deep Throat".

Woodward and Bernstein had refused for decades to reveal the name of their source, fuelling an intense guessing game by historians and political observers that spawned multiple books, documentaries and investigations.

Only three people -- Woodward, Bernstein and former Post Editor Ben Bradlee -- knew his identity, and they vowed not to name "Deep Throat" until after his death.

The Post quoted Bradlee as saying that knowing "Deep Throat" was a top FBI official gave him confidence about the newspaper's reporting on the Watergate scandal.

"The No. 2 guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source," Bradlee told the Post on Tuesday.

Felt had denied in the past that he was "Deep Throat," but as a top FBI official he would have had access to many of the details of the scandal. He was passed over by Nixon for the top FBI job, giving him a potential motive.

- REUTERS, HERALD ONLINE STAFF