As a student journalist, there are few movies that I watch on a regular basis. They give me courage and motivation through these uneasy times. One of them is “All the President’s Men,” a movie adaptation of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book about the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign.
I never speculated on who “Deep Throat” was, and honestly, I didn’t care. I was confident that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would reveal their anonymous source after he had died, as promised. However, I didn’t think Felt would end up revealing himself, but I’m glad he did.
According to Wikipedia, W. Mark Felt often met with Woodward in an underground garage in Washington around 2:00 a.m. Felt would point Woodward and Bernstein in the right direction and confirm facts for their stories as an anonymous source.
As far as motivation for Deep Throat’s revelation goes, I believe Felt’s daughter, Joan, wanted money for her family.”Bob Woodward’s gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I’ve run up for the kids’ education,” Joan Felt was quoted as saying to her father in the Vanity Fair article.
In an interview with Ryan Thornburg, Bob Woodward, said that W. Mark Felt was “very brave and took great personal risk to his career,” but there are dissenting opinions.
Pat Buchanan told MSNBC, ” . . . the breaking of Richard Nixon and the destruction of his presidency by people who had hated him for a long time . . . resulted in really pouring down the sewer everything for which 58,000 Americans gave their lives in Viet Nam.”
Buchanan said Felt should have resigned rather than leak information to Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post, which Buchanan called a “Nixon-hating newspaper.”
As far as I’m concerned, Pat Buchanan should be ashamed for his comments. As well as for appearing on television alongside Charles Colson, who went to prison for his involvement in the Watergate coverup. A man who boasted, “I’d walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon.”
William Mark Felt should be regarded as an American hero, one who risked his career, and possibly his life, to bring justice to the White House. He is not a traitor and in no way can the deaths of those in the Vietnam War be blamed on him. That is a ludicrous claim to make.
