“My grandfather is pleased that he is being honoured for his role as Deep Throat with his friend Bob Woodward,” Jones said. His family eventually convinced him that his actions were heroic and he could perhaps profit from the revelation of his role, the magazine said.įelt’s grandson, Nick Jones, told reporters in Santa Rosa that his grandfather was “an American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save the country from a horrible injustice”. Vanity Fair said Felt’s family learned of his role in Watergate in 2002, but the former FBI No. Nixon resigned after it became clear the US House of Representatives would impeach him for a string of transgressions named after the famous break-in of Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington. The source was instrumental to the Post’s reporting on the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 – the only resignation of a US president in history. 2 guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source,” Bradlee told the Post.įelt had always been on the short list of potential Deep Throats. The Post quoted Bradlee as saying that knowing Deep Throat was a top FBI official gave him confidence about the newspaper’s reporting on Watergate. Only three people – Woodward, Bernstein and former Post Editor Ben Bradlee – knew his name, and they vowed not to reveal it until after his death. Woodward and Bernstein had refused for decades to reveal the name of their source, spawning multiple books, documentaries and investigations guessing at his identity. Nixon resigned in August 1974 after the Watergate exposeįelt’s grandson told reporters on Tuesday his grandfather was “an American hero” for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal, and his daughter said he had “a big grin” upon learning of the Vanity Fair article. “I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” Felt told lawyer John O’Connor, author of the magazine story. Vanity Fair had reported earlier on Tuesday that Felt, now a 91-year-old retiree living in Santa Rosa, California, had told the magazine and his family that he was the Post’s anonymous source. Mark Felt was Deep Throat and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage,” Woodward and Bernstein said in a joint statement posted on the Post’s website. The unmasking of Deep Throat solves one of the greatest political and journalistic mysteries of modern times and ends three decades of speculation on his identity by historians and political observers. Thirty years after their aggressive stories on Watergate felled Nixon in August 1974, the two Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on Tuesday confirmed that Felt was Deep Throat after Vanity Fair magazine and Felt’s family members made his role public.

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