Mark Felt , the mysterious `` Deep Throat '' source who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein crack the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon , has died at age 95 .
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mark felt mysterious `` deep throat source help washington post reporter bob woodward carl bernstein crack watergate scandal bring president richard nixon die age 95
Mark Felt , the mysterious `` Deep Throat '' source who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein crack the Watergate scandal that <m> brought down </m> President Richard Nixon , has died at age 95 .
Mark Felt , the mysterious `` Deep Throat '' source who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein crack the Watergate scandal that <m> brought down </m> President Richard Nixon , has died at age 95 .
Felt suffered from congestive heart failure but the exact cause of his death at home on Thursday was not immediately known , said the Press Democrat newspaper in Santa Rosa , California , 55 miles ( 90 km ) north of San Francisco .
In its report on Felt 's death , the New York Times called him `` the most famous anonymous source in American history . ''
Felt , the No. 2 official at the FBI when the Watergate case broke , kept his role in the story a secret for 30 years .
Only in 2005 , at age 91 , was his part made public in an article in Vanity Fair magazine written by Felt 's family lawyer .
`` I 'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat , '' Felt told attorney John O'Connor .
For years , people had speculated and argued about the identity of `` Deep Throat , '' whose name was derived from the title of a popular pornographic movie .
Vanity Fair scooped Woodward and Bernstein , who had promised not to reveal the name of the star source of their 1974 stories until after his death .
But within a day of Felt 's unveiling , Woodward wrote of his relationship with Felt .
Woodward said he turned to Felt after he and Bernstein wrote about the break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington .