W. Mark Felt , the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as `` Deep Throat '' 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president , has died .
W. Mark Felt
w. mark felt fbi second-in-command reveal `` deep throat 30 year he tip reporter watergate scandal topple president die
<m> W. Mark Felt </m> , the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as `` Deep Throat '' 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president , has died .
Mark Felt , Watergate 's `Deep Throat , ' dies at 95
<m> W. Mark Felt </m> , the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as `` Deep Throat '' 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president , has died .
He was 95 .
Felt died Thursday in Santa Rosa after suffering from congestive heart failure for several months , said family friend John D. O'Connor , who wrote the 2005 Vanity Fair article uncovering Felt 's secret .
The shadowy central figure in the one of the most gripping political dramas of the 20th century , Felt insisted his alter ego be kept secret when he leaked damaging information about President Richard Nixon and his aides to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward .
While some - including Nixon and his aides - speculated that Felt was the source who connected the White House to the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee , he steadfastly denied the accusations until finally coming forward in May 2005 .
`` I 'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat , '' Felt told O'Connor for the Vanity Fair article , creating a whirlwind of media attention .
Weakened by a stroke , the man who had kept his secret for decades was n't doing much talking - he merely waved to the media from the front door of his daughter 's Santa Rosa home .
Critics , including those who went to prison for the Watergate scandal , called him a traitor for betraying the commander in chief .
Supporters hailed him as a hero for blowing the whistle on a corrupt administration trying to cover up attempts to sabotage opponents .
Felt grappled with his place in history , arguing with his children over whether to reveal his identity or to take his secret to the grave , O'Connor said .
He agonized about what revealing his identity would do to his reputation .
Would he be seen as a turncoat or a man of honor ?
`` People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward , '' Felt wrote in his 2006 memoir , `` A G-Man 's Life : The FBI , `Deep Throat ' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington . ''
`` The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out , and is n't that what the FBI is supposed to do ? ''
Ultimately , his daughter , Joan , persuaded him to go public ;
after all , Woodward was sure to profit by revealing the secret after Felt died .
`` We could make at least enough money to pay some bills , like the debt I 've run up for the kids ' education , '' she told her father , according to the Vanity Fair article .
`` Let 's do it for the family . ''
The revelation capped a Washington whodunnit that spanned more than three decades and seven presidents .
It was the final mystery of Watergate , the subject of the best-selling book and hit movie `` All the President 's Men , '' which inspired a generation of college students to pursue journalism .
It was by chance that Felt came to play a pivotal role in the drama .
Back in 1970 , Woodward struck up a conversation with Felt while both were waiting in a White House hallway .
Felt apparently took a liking to the young Woodward , then a Navy courier , and Woodward kept the relationship going , treating Felt as a mentor as he tried to figure out the ways of Washington .
Later , while Woodward and partner Carl Bernstein relied on various unnamed sources in reporting on Watergate , the man their editor dubbed `` Deep Throat '' helped to keep them on track and confirm vital information .
The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate coverage .
Within days of the burglary at Watergate that launched the Post 's investigative series , Woodward phoned Felt .
`` He reminded me how he disliked phone calls at the office but said that the Watergate burglary case was going to `heat up ' for reasons he could not explain , '' Woodward wrote after Felt was named .
`` He then hung up abruptly . ''
Felt helped Woodward link former CIA man Howard Hunt to the break-in .
He said the reporter could accurately write that Hunt , whose name was found in the address book of one of the burglars , was a suspect .
But Felt told him off the record , insisting that their relationship and Felt 's identity remain secret .
Worried that phones were being tapped , Felt arranged clandestine meetings worthy of a spy novel .
Woodward would move a flower pot with a red flag on his balcony if he needed to meet Felt .
The G-man would scrawl a time to meet on page 20 of Woodward 's copy of The New York Times and they would rendezvous in a suburban Virginia parking garage in the dead of night .
In the movie , the enduring image of Deep Throat - a name borrowed from a 1972 porn movie - is of a testy , chain-smoking Hal Holbrook telling Woodward , played by Robert Redford , to `` follow the money . ''
In a memoir published in April 2006 , Felt said he saw himself as a `` Lone Ranger '' who could help derail a White House cover-up .
Felt wrote that he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could pressure the administration to cooperate .
`` From the start , it was clear that senior administration officials were up to their necks in this mess , and that they would stop at nothing to sabotage our investigation , '' Felt wrote in his memoir .
Some critics said Felt , a J. Edgar Hoover loyalist , was bitter at being passed over when Nixon appointed an FBI outsider and confidante , L. Patrick Gray , to lead the FBI after Hoover 's death .
Gray was later implicated in Watergate abuses .
`` We had no idea of his motivations , and even now some of his motivations are unclear , '' Bernstein said .
Felt wrote that he was n't motivated by anger .
`` It is true that I would have welcomed an appointment as FBI director when Hoover died .
It is not true that I was jealous of Gray , '' he wrote .
Felt was born in Twin Falls , Idaho , and worked for an Idaho senator during graduate school .
After law school at George Washington University he spent a year at the Federal Trade Commission .
Felt joined the FBI in 1942 and worked as a Nazi hunter during World War II .
Ironically , while providing crucial information to the Post , Felt also was assigned to ferret out the newspaper 's source .
The investigation never went anywhere , but plenty of people , including those in the White House at the time , guessed that Felt , who was leading the investigation into Watergate , may have been acting as a double agent .
The Watergate tapes captured White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman telling Nixon that Felt was the source , but they were afraid to stop him .
Nixon asks : `` Somebody in the FBI ? ''
Haldeman : `` Yes , sir. Mark Felt ...
If we move on him , he 'll go out and unload everything .
He knows everything that 's to be known in the FBI . ''
Felt left the FBI in 1973 for the lecture circuit .
Five years later he was indicted on charges of authorizing FBI break-ins at homes associated with suspected bombers from the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground .
President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt in 1981 while the case was on appeal - a move applauded by Nixon .
Woodward and Bernstein said they would n't reveal the source 's identity until he or she died , and finally confirmed Felt 's role only after he came forward .
O'Connor said Thursday his friend appeared to be at peace since the revelation .
`` What I saw was a person that went from a divided personality that carried around this heavy secret to a completely integrated and glowing personality over these past few years once he let the secret out , '' he said .
Felt is survived by two children , Joan Felt and Mark Felt Jr. , and four grandchildren .
His wife , Audrey Felt , died in 1984 .