Deep Throat Rumblings

Deep Throat is in the news again. Adrian Havill, who earlier had written in Deep Truth that Deep Throat was probably a device to hide multiple informants, now believes it may be a single person: George H.W. Bush. In a letter to Poynter.org, Havill explains that Bush had means, motive and opportunity to convey information to Woodward.

That would be interesting. The CIA is deeply involved in the whole Watergate story. In fact, the investigation of Watergate led ultimately to four separate reviews of the CIA - the Rockefeller Commission, the Pike Committee, Church Committee, and ultimately, the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The CIA’s role in Watergate is well documented by Fred Thompson in At That Point In Time, by H. R. Haldeman in The Ends of Power, by Victor Lasky in It Didn't Start With Watergate, and most extensively by Jim Hougan in Secret Agenda. Given the CIA’s interest in bringing down Nixon, and given George Bush’s relationship with the agency long before and after he served as it’s Director, this is not entirely implausible.

But even as this story is breaking, John Dean, the man who helped bring down his employer, adds another jag to the story. He reports that Bob Woodward has told his executive editor that his former source on the Watergate stories, named after a famous porn movie of the time, is now ill. Woodward has separately stated he had already written Deep Throat’s obituary. George Bush, to my knowledge, is not ill - at least - not on the verge of death.

What does John Dean know? He makes curious comment that makes me wonder if he has some inside knowledge. What if Deep Throat is a criminal? What if Woodward has been shielding a criminal? Dean notes:

Without confidential sources, much of what people need to know in a democracy would never be reported, so unless there is a higher reason, journalists must be able to protect such sources who are willing to impart such information. That said, no news person should agree to provide confidentiality unless it is essential to obtain information that the public should be told and there is no other way to obtain the information. A scoop per se does not justify a pledge of confidentiality.

A source may be using the reporter, while the reporter is using the source. Motives range from the noble whistle-blower who is morally offended by misconduct to the staffer who is floating a trial balloon to the low-end leaker who is seeking to gain advantage by sabotaging a competitor or foe.

Dean knows something. And that’s interesting. Because when I saw him in town here, strangely combined in a joint appearance with Michael Moore, he said he’s been trying for years to pin down the identity of Deep Throat. Has he known who it was all along, however? Has he only just found out? What else has he heard?

Various Deep Throat candidates have been put forward over the years. Prominent suspects have included:

Alexander Haig. The authors of Silent Coup make the case that Haig was the source of Woodward’s information, noting they lived near each other and had worked together back when Woodward was an intelligence briefer for the Pentagon. Woodward has denied specifically ever briefing Hague, but given Woodward’s provable untruths in other matters related to Deep Throat, can such a denial be believed?

Robert Bennett, the current Senator from Utah. According to a memo to the Deputy Director of Plans at CIA, from Eric Eisenstadt, “Mr. Bennet rather proudly related that he is response for the article ‘Whispers about Colson’ in the March 5 issue of Newsweek. Mr. Bennet does not believe the company [the CIA] will be bothered much more by the news media which is concluding that ‘the company is clean and has gotten a bum rap while the real culprits are getting scot free.’ [sic] Mr. Bennett said also that he has been feeding stories to Bob Woodward of the Washington POst with the understanding that there be no attribution to Bennett. Woodward is suitably grateful for the fine stories and by-lines which he gets and protects Bennett (and the Mullen Company [a CIA front company]).” (Source: Secret Agenda, by Jim Hougan.)

Fred Fielding. Bob Haldeman, in his book The Ends of Power, chose Fielding as his candidate, because one of the curious things about Deep Throat was not only what he knew, but what he didn’t know. He had curious gaps in his knowledge. Fielding was John Dean’s staff assistant, and Dean had told Haldeman he had specifically kept Fielding “out of things” during the Watergate period. And that’s what makes him of interest to me. Because John Dean, more than anyone, brought Nixon down. It makes sense he’d encourage or set the example for his assistant to help do the same, albeit in a different way.

I’ve long suspected that Dean knows who Deep Throat is, and that his whole effort to “find” Deep Throat has been his attempt to distance himself from the fact that the leaks were coming from his own office. Woodward described Deep Throat as someone “in the Executive Branch who had access to information at CRP [the Committee to Re-elect the President] as well as the White House.” Dean has tried to portray himself as a good guy caught in a bad situation, rather than an outright turncoat working to bring down his employer.

At the start of the University of Illinois school year in 1999, Professor Bill Gaines, a former investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, started his students on a four-year project to determine the identity of Deep Throat. The students came to the conclusion that Fred Fielding was indeed the likeliest candidate. On their project Web site, Deep Throat: Uncovered, Erin Carlson’s biography of Fielding contains this curious tidbit:

A 1981 Washington Post article by Elisabeth Bumiller reported that Fielding had "a reputation at the White House for solidness and excellence." He drank scotch and was known to smoke Marlboros. Bumiller reported that a story circulated around Washington, D.C. that when Fielding was seriously ill with a pulmonary embolism, he said that he was Deep Throat and "then cackled uproariously." When later asked if the story was true, Fielding said, "Probably so."

So Dean’s story today, headlined, “Should We Jail Deep Throats”, has perhaps a double meaning. He ends the article with this:

As for Deep Throat, well, we will all soon learn if Woodward has been protecting a criminal for three decades, or merely a source who gave him some good information and some bad information — when history's greatest source was wrong — that Woodward has never corrected. (To pick just one of Throat's many errors, I randomly opened "All the President's Men," scanned until I came to the passage in which Woodward reports Throat as giving him this: "Dean talked with Sen. Howard] Baker after [the] Watergate committee [was] formed and Baker is in the bag completely, reporting back directly to the White House." It never happened.)

I suspect that Throat's identity may prove a cautionary tale for all news gatherers. Stay tuned.

Is Dean sending a veiled warning to Fielding and/or Woodward? Something reeks faintly here. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.

Woodward has always said he would tell us who Deep Throat is after he died. So we may be close to knowing the truth. But Woodward has also told a lot of untruths in his time (read Adrian Havill’s devastating assessment of the impossibility of the conversation Woodward claims to have had with the dying Bill Casey.) Will Woodward come clean in the end? Or will Deep Throat’s ultimate legacy be the proof that some secrets really can be kept forever?