Watergate’s Deep Throat
The Secret Source Was Part of the DC Swamp
A look back on the 50th anniversary of the June 1972 break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate complex. For three decades, Deep Throat, the source who fed secrets to Washington Post reporters was considered a hero who acted in the nation’s best interest. That all changed when he revealed himself shortly before his death. W. Mark Felt was the FBI’s bitter, angry deputy director who sought revenge against Richard Nixon for not appointing him director upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover. This essay was adapted from Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation.
The Watergate complex consists of a half-dozen modern-architecture buildings that house a hotel, apartments, office suites, and retail businesses. The complex is nestled along the eastern bank of the Potomac River overlooking Roosevelt Island on one side and the start of official Washington, DC, on the other side, with the US State Department and the western end of the National Mall only steps away. Next-door is the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center. Construction was finalized on Watergate and the Kennedy Center in 1971.
The break-in that occurred at the Watergate office building in June 1972 established the use of “gate” as a suffix to add to any event to denote its status as a political scandal. A remarkable aspect of the burglary was how unnecessary it was.
The break-in of the Democratic National Committee, which had its offices in a sixth-floor suite of the Watergate building, occurred in the months leading up to what was going to be a landslide reelection victory by Republican President Richard Nixon over Democratic challenger Senator George McGovern.
The seriousness of the break-in and the subsequent coverup was best summed up in the final report issued by the Senate committee investigating the scandal. “The Watergate affair reflects an alarming indifference displayed by some in the high public office or position to concepts of morality and public responsibility and trust. Indeed, the conduct of many Watergate participants seems grounded on the belief that the ends justified the means, that the laws could be flaunted to maintain the present administration in office.”[i]
The Watergate burglary also underscored the adage that often, it is not the act, but the cover-up, that is the real scandal.
The Democratic Party had been in disarray for a few years. Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts was considered by many in the party as the early front-runner for the 1972 Democratic nomination. He was the heir-apparent of Democratic royalty since his older brothers, John and Robert, had been gunned down. However, Ted’s drinking and womanizing, and the tragic drowning of a young woman in a car he drove off a bridge in 1969, delayed his entry into presidential politics.
McGovern championed liberal causes and issues that were far outside the mainstream of American political thought in the early 1970s. Nixon campaigned on achieving victory in Vietnam, the war he inherited from President Lyndon Johnson. McGovern preached immediate pullout. Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri famously remarked that McGovern would be unelectable once voters knew what he stood for.
McGovern later selected Eagleton as his vice presidential running mate. Eagleton would be replaced on the ticket only three weeks after he was picked, when it was learned he underwent electroshock therapy during psychiatric analysis sessions.
There was little doubt that Nixon would easily be reelected. The question was how big the victory would be. In November, Nixon registered one of the biggest landslides in presidential election history. He captured more than 60 percent of the vote and won forty-nine states. McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
McGovern could not even carry his home state of South Dakota.
The heart of the Watergate scandal began nearly six months before Nixon was reelected. During the early hours of June 17, 1972, five men who worked for the Committee to Reelect the President, the Nixon reelection committee, were caught and arrested by Washington, DC, police officers. Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martínez, James McCord, and Frank Sturgis were apprehended in the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The five had broken into the party headquarters to make adjustments to listening devices installed on office telephones during an earlier break-in.
G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt were officials with Nixon’s reelection committee who were involved in the planning and overall supervision of the break-in. They were also part of an informal group known as the “White House plumbers,” whose jobs were to prevent any leaks to the press of activities inside the Nixon reelection campaign. To some, the atmosphere of paranoia that appeared to engulf Nixon’s campaign officials was merely a reflection of Nixon’s personality.
The aftermath of the actual burglary was relatively quick and simple. A grand jury indicted Liddy, Hunt, and the five burglars in September 1972. By early 1973, Barker, Gonzalez, Hunt, Martínez, and Sturgis pled guilty. Liddy and McCord were convicted. However, the fallout from the burglary mushroomed into the biggest investigation of a political scandal since the Teapot Dome scandal fifty years earlier.
In the two-year period following the June 1972 Watergate break-in, simultaneous congressional and media investigations uncovered sweeping illegal activities tied to Nixon’s reelection committee and key personnel in the office of the president. Over a period of several months, key aides and advisors to Nixon resigned, were fired, or were indicted.
One of the great mysteries of Watergate was the identity of Deep Throat, the nickname given to a key source who fed information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein reported much of the criminal activities involving Nixon and key staff.
When it became apparent that Richard Nixon would be impeached by the House and almost certainly be convicted by the Senate, he resigned from the presidency. Nixon tendered his resignation on August 8, 1974. One month later, in a national address from the Oval Office, President Gerald Ford declared, “Our long national nightmare is over,” and issued Nixon a presidential pardon.
For years, it was presumed that Deep Throat was an individual acting in the best interest of the nation as he spoon-fed Woodward and Bernstein critical information. In 2005, W. Mark Felt, a former Deputy Director of the FBI, revealed that he was Deep Throat.[ii] But rather than acting for altruistic reasons when he passed information to the Washington Post reporters, Felt was a bitter man who was seeking revenge against Nixon and the man who got the job he desperately wanted.[iii]
Felt was angry that Nixon passed him over as Director of the FBI when J. Edgar Hoover passed away in May 1972. Instead, Nixon picked an outsider, L. Patrick Gray, as the next director.[iv]
Years later it was learned that Felt was the key figure ordering the FBI to violate civil rights and constitutional protections by engaging in illegal activities to pursue various groups and organizations at odds with US policies. Felt and an FBI assistant were convicted in 1980 of violating the civil rights of dozens of people. In retrospect, the most ironic moment was the courtroom appearance of Richard Nixon, who testified as a defense witness for Felt.
Richard Nixon came out of seclusion to testify as a defense witness to possibly save Mark Felt from being convicted of several felonies. Unbeknownst to Nixon, it was Felt who had ratted him out to Woodward and Bernstein. A bigger, self-respecting man would have never allowed Nixon to serve as a defense witness knowing he may have singlehandedly brought down Nixon. Apparently, Mark Felt had no reservations using the man he wanted to destroy.
Felt was convicted, and President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt to spare him from being incarcerated.[v]
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, and Parler at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[i] S. Rep. No. 93-981, at xxiv (1974).
[ii] Hank Stuever, “The Illuminating Experience of Being Kept in the Dark,” Washington Post, June 1, 2005.
[iii] Michael Dobbs, “Revenge Was Felt’s Motive, Former Acting FBI Chief Says,” Washington Post, June 27, 2005.
[iv] Dan Balz and R. Jeffrey Smith, “Conflicted and Mum For Decades,” Washington Post, June 1, 2005.
[v] David Von Drehle, “BI’s No. 2 Was ‘Deep Throat:’ Mark Felt Ends 30-Year Mystery of The Post’s Watergate Source,” Washington Post, June 1, 2005.