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Deep Throat, Watergate, and the Bureaucratic Politics of the FBI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2012

Beverly Gage
Beverly Gage*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 157 - 183
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

NOTES

1. Felt’s revelation was first published in a Vanity Fair article authored by Felt family lawyer and friend John D. O’Connor. O’Connor, “I’m the Guy They Called Deep Throat,” Vanity Fair, July 2005, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2005/07/deepthroat200507. For the Washington Post’s confirmation, see David von Drehle, “FBI’s No. 2 Was ‘Deep Throat,’” Washington Post, 1 June 2005, A1. For examples of the long-running guessing game about Deep Throat’s identity, see esp. Garment, Leonard, In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time (New York, 2000)Google Scholar, and Dean, John W., Unmasking Deep Throat: History’s Most Elusive News Source (New York, 2002).Google Scholar James Mann identified a high FBI official as the most likely source in an influential 1992 essay that also provided background on the “institutional” conflict between the FBI and the White House. Mann, “Deep Throat: An Institutional Analysis,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1992, at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/05/deep-throat-an-institutional-analysis/4084. Although Woodward and Bernstein have confirmed Felt’s identity, several Nixon experts continue to speculate that Felt was not Deep Throat, that Woodward had multiple sources for the information attributed to Felt, or that Felt acted in concert with other officials in the FBI and the Nixon administration. See esp. Jonathan Aitken, “Why I Believe the Real Deep Throat Will Never Be Revealed,” Mail on Sunday (London), 2 June 2005, 26; L. Patrick Gray III, with Ed Gray, In Nixon’s Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate (New York, 2008). For Woodward’s memoir of his relationship with Felt, see Woodward, Bob, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat (New York, 2005).Google Scholar For Woodward’s original account of “Deep Throat,” see Woodward, and Bernstein, Carl, All the President’s Men (New York, 1974).Google Scholar For a succinct example of the “hero or villain” debate, see David Cook and Randy Dotinga, “A Mystery Solved, But ‘Deep’ Issues Linger,” Christian Science Monitor, 2 June 2005, A2.

2. Genovese, Michael A., The Watergate Crisis (Westport, Conn., 1999), 3.Google Scholar

3. In the 1970s, Watergate produced a rash of narrative histories by journalists. The most important are Washington Post staff, Fall of a President (New York, 1974); New York Times staff, End of a Presidency (New York, 1974); Sussman, Barry, Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; White, Theodore, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Anthony Lukas, J., Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Woodward, and Bernstein, , All the President’s Men and The Final Days (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

4. The most influential scholarly work on Watergate is Kutler, Stanley, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (New York, 1990)Google Scholar. For useful analyses of the cultural and historiographical debates surrounding Watergate, see Schudson, Michael, Watergate in American Memory (New York, 2002)Google Scholar; Greenberg, David, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Morgan, Ruth P., “Nixon, Watergate, and the Study of the Presidency,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26, no. 1 (Winter 1996): 217–38Google Scholar. For the origins of the “imperial presidency” theme, see Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar. For scholarly overviews of Watergate, see esp. Genovese, The Watergate Crisis; Olson, Keith W., Watergate: The Presidential Scandal That Shook America (Lawrence, Kans., 2003)Google Scholar; Maxwell-Long, Thomas, Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon: Impact of a Constitutional Crisis (Washington, D.C., 2004)Google Scholar. Many biographies and cultural histories of the Nixon years contain useful analyses of Watergate. See esp. Wills, Garry, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Parmet, Herbert S., Richard Nixon and His America (Boston, 1990)Google Scholar; Genovese, Michael A., The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in Turbulent Times (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Wicker, Tom, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Ambrose, Stephen A., Nixon, Volume III: Ruin and Recovery, 1973–1990 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Hoff, Joan, Nixon Reconsidered (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Cannon, James, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Reeves, Richard, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York, 2001)Google Scholar; Drew, Elizabeth, Richard M. Nixon (New York, 2007)Google Scholar; Black, Conrad, Richard Nixon: A Life in Full (New York, 2007).Google Scholar

5. James Mann first hinted at this explanation in his 1992 Atlantic Monthly essay, speculating that “identifying Deep Throat would clarify our view of the Nixon Administration and would enhance our understanding of the underlying institutional forces at work in Washington during the late 1960s and early 1970s.” Mann, “Deep Throat: An Institutional Analysis.” Kutler’s Wars of Watergate also provides useful background for addressing the problem of bureaucracy within the Nixon administration, but he devotes only cursory attention to the FBI itself, and to its internal culture and history of bureaucratic autonomy. See Kutler, 94–96.

6. Carpenter, Daniel P., The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862–1928 (Princeton, 2001), 4–5Google Scholar. For other relevant literature on the rise of twentieth-century bureaucratic entrepreneurs and bureaucratic autonomy, see esp. Doig, James W. and Hargrove, Erwin C., Leadership and Innovation: A Biographical Perspective on Entrepreneurs in Government (Baltimore, 1987)Google Scholar; Cook, Brian J., Bureaucracy and Self-Government: Reconsidering the Role of Public Administration in American Politics (Baltimore, 1996)Google Scholar; Carpenter, , Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA (Princeton, 2010)Google Scholar. As Claire Potter has noted, most work on federal policy and bureaucracy among historians has focused on the evolution of the social welfare state, rather than on police and security agencies. Potter, , War on Crime: Gangsters, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture (Newark, N.J., 1998), 1–3Google Scholar. For an excellent model of the study of bureaucracy and social welfare policy, see Derthick, Martha, Agency Under Stress: The Social Security Administration in American Government (Washington, D.C., 1990).Google Scholar

7. For “indoctrination,” see J. J. Casper to John Mohr, “W. Mark Felt . . . ,” 24 October 1962, section 4, FBI FOIA 67-276576-330 (William Mark Felt); “77 Years Young,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 1 January 1972, box 229, J. Edgar Hoover Scrapbooks, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. (hereafter JEHS). For overviews of Hoover’s career, see esp. Powers, Richard Gid, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Theoharis, Athan and Cox, John Stuart, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the American Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1988)Google Scholar; Gentry, Curt, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Summers, Anthony, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1993)Google Scholar. Of these, only Powers seriously analyzes Hoover’s rhetoric and approach to state-building on its own terms. The other major biographers, like much of the sensational literature on Hoover, take the approach of exposé, seeking to highlight the contrast between Hoover’s rhetoric and action. For an early analysis of Hoover as a bureaucratic entrepreneur, see Lewis, Eugene, Public Entrepreneurship: Toward a Theory of Bureaucratic Power: The Organizational Lives of Hyman Rickover, J. Edgar Hoover, and Robert Moses (Bloomington, 1980).Google Scholar

8. For Carpenter, see Reputation and Power, 9–15.

9. Within the burgeoning literature on the rise of the American right, the subject of Watergate has been noticeably absent. The main exceptions can be found in books that treat the 1970s as a synthetic decade. Even here, though, Watergate is often segregated into a chapter with little relationship to the broader trends of the book. See, for example, Schulman, Bruce, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York, 2001)Google Scholar; Berkowitz, Edward, Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies (New York, 2006).Google Scholar

10. For quote, see J. H. Hanson, “Report of Interview with Applicant Richard M. Nixon for appointment as Special Agent,” 17 July 1937, FBI 67-102459-4 (Richard Nixon). For an account of the controversy over Nixon’s failed appointment, see Gellman, Irwin, The Contender: Richard Nixon, The Congress Years, 1946–1952 (New York, 1999), 5–8.Google Scholar

11. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 289.

12. Nixon, Richard, “The Hiss Case—A Lesson for the American People,” 26 January 1950, reprinted in Perlstein, Rick, ed., Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents (Princeton, 2008), 55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. The quote is from William C. Sullivan, one of Felt’s chief Bureau rivals, describing a typical FBI relationship with a key politician—in that case, Gerald Ford. Robert Fink, Interview with William C. Sullivan, 2 May 1976, L. Patrick Gray III Papers, in the possession of Ed Gray, East Lyme, N.H. (hereafter LPGP), 5. See also p. 22.

14. Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 193.

15. Rung, Margaret C., “Richard Nixon, State, and Party: Democracy and Bureaucracy in the Postwar Era,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, no. 2 (June 1999): 421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. In the spring of 1953, for instance, Nixon, Hoover, and McCarthy all attended a party celebrating Cohn’s appointment as counsel for McCarthy’s Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments. Ambrose, Nixon, vol. 1, 313.

17. Nixon to Hoover, 15 December 1956, box 19, folder 7, Richard M. Nixon: Pre-Presidential Papers (Special Files, J. Edgar Hoover, 1949–61), Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace, Yorba Linda, Calif. (hereafter RMN-PPP-JEH).

18. Hoover to Nixon, 9 November 1960, box 19, folder 13, RMN-PPP-JEH.

19. Hoover, “Message from the Director,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July 1968, 1.

20. For Felt’s GW records, see Tierney, “William Mark Felt . . . ,” 12 January 1942, section 1, FBI FOIA 67-276576-8 (Felt). For quote, see Mark Felt, W., The FBI Pyramid from the Inside (New York, 1979), 17Google Scholar. Felt’s 1979 memoir is a remarkable source of insider commentary on the FBI’s bureaucratic culture. Written while Felt was under indictment for violating the civil rights of the families of New Left militants, the book offers a self-serving and not entirely reliable account of the FBI’s activities in the early 1970s (most notably in Felt’s vehement denial that he was Deep Throat). Nonetheless, his account of his rise to power under Hoover, and of Hoover’s impact on the men who served under him, offers some of the best-available descriptions of the FBI’s internal bureaucracy and bureaucratic culture in the postwar years. In 2006, in the wake of Felt’s Deep Throat confession, PublicAffairs rereleased the memoir under the title A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, Being “Deep Throat,” and the Struggle for Honor in Washington. The updated version of the memoir contains editorial interventions and speculative commentary by Felt family friend John O’Connor, who attempts to fill in the gaps about Felt’s role as Deep Throat. It also contains serious reediting. As a result, despite its factual flaws, the earlier version of Felt’s memoir offers a more persuasive firsthand account of Felt’s outlook and relationship with the Hoover bureaucracy. Where not otherwise indicated, basic events in Felt’s life have been drawn from the 1979 work. An official FBI biography of Felt’s early career can be found in the Bureau’s administrative history at the Lyndon Johnson presidential library. “Administrative History, Department of Justice, Vol. 13, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Part 19a, Doc. Sup [1 of 2],” box 10, Administrative History, Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin. For the updated memoir, see Felt with O’Connor, John, A G-Man’s Life (New York, 2006).Google Scholar

21. Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 196.

22. For pencil, see J. P. Mohr to Clyde Tolson, “Mark Felt . . . ,” 23 July 1953, section 2, FBI FOIA 67-276576-118 (Felt). For quotes, see Hoover to Felt, 26 January 1972, section 5, FBI FOIA 67-276576-423 (Felt); Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 196–97.

23. For quotes, see Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 27, 30, 47. Felt’s FBI personnel file reinforces the outlines of his published narrative on the hotel incident and includes a letter of praise from Hoover for his efficient work. Hoover to Felt, 28 July 1956, section 2, FBI FOIA 67-276576-185 (Felt).

24. J. J. Casper to John Mohr, “W. Mark Felt . . . ,” 24 October 1962, section 4, FBI FOIA 67-276576-330 (Felt); Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 45.

25. United States Senate, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [Church Committee Final Report], vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1976), 109.Google Scholar

26. Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 101.

27. Volume 3 of the Church Committee Final Report remains one of the finest sources on COINTELPRO. For additional overviews, see esp. Blackstock, Nelson, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom (New York, 1998)Google Scholar, and Davis, James Kirkpatrick, Spying on America: The FBI’s Domestic Counterintelligence Program (Westport, Conn., 1992)Google Scholar. For more detailed studies of the FBI’s operations against particular left-wing movements, see esp. Davis, , Assault on the Left: The FBI and the Sixties Antiwar Movement (Westport, Conn., 1997)Google Scholar; O’Reilly, Kenneth, Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Garrow, David J., The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr., from “Solo” to Memphis (New York, 1981).Google Scholar

28. Church Committee Final Report, vol. 3, 931.

29. For Sullivan’s account of the wiretapping controversy, see William C. Sullivan with Brown, Bill, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI (New York, 1979), 147–249.Google Scholar

30. Woodward, Secret Man, 33.

31. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 94–96.

32. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 439.

33. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York, 1982), 163.

34. As with most covert programs, the details of the Kissinger wiretaps are still highly contested. For balanced and detailed accounts of the FBI’s role in the operation, see Lukas, Nightmare, 49–67; Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 625–39. In their memoirs, both Nixon and Kissinger claim that Hoover was the one who first suggested wiretaps after a series of leaks in the early spring. See Nixon, Memoirs, 287–88; Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1982), 119–20. For an example of the emphasis on collusion, see Church Committee Final Report, vol. 2, 122.

35. Hoover to Richard Helms, 31 March 1970, reprinted as Exhibit 51, Intelligence Activities--Senate Resolution 2: Hearings Before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, 94th Cong., 1 sess. (hereafter Church Committee Hearings), vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1976), 354.

36. Church Committee Final Report, vol. 3, 946. Despite eliminating its own mail-cover program, the FBI continued to take advantage of intelligence obtained in this manner by other intelligence agencies.

37. Nixon, Memoirs, 475.

38. Ibid., 513.

39. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 111.

40. For Felt’s official assessment of the Domestic Intelligence Division in 1970, see Felt to Tolson, “Inspection—Domestic Intelligence Division,” 23 April 1970, section 7, FBI FOIA 67-205182 (Sullivan).

41. Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 133.

42. Sullivan’s personnel file contains an extensive account of his forced retirement, as well as the FBI’s hunt for the Kissinger wiretap logs. See section 8, FBI FOIA 67-205182. For Sullivan’s account, see Sullivan, Bureau, 218–50.

43. For Felt’s recollections, see Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 155–74. For Nixon’s account of his conversations with Hoover, see Nixon, Memoirs, 597.

44. “Statement by the President on the Death of J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” 2 May 1972, 11:10 a.m., box 4, folder 4, FG 17-5, White House Central Files, Nixon Presidential Papers, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. (hereafter Nixon NARA). In 2010, much of the Nixon presidential collection was transferred to the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California.

45. Ehrlichman, Memorandum for the President, 3 May 1972, 2:45 p.m., box 3, folder 5, FG 17-5, White House Central Files, Nixon NARA.

46. Nichols to Nixon, 19 May 1972, box 4, folder 6, FG 17-5, White House Central Files, Nixon NARA.

47. Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 178.

48. Ibid., 277. For Gray’s defense of his tenure and policy changes at the FBI, see Gray, In Nixon’s Web, esp. 54–58. A copy of Felt’s 1979 memoir in the possession of Gray’s son Ed contains fascinating margin notes by Gray contesting Felt’s portrayal of his FBI tenure and labeling Felt’s accusations “unctuous” (112), “mendacious” (112), “phony” (134), “viciously false” (258), full of “baloney” (133), and Felt himself a self-serving “liar” (211). Gray does not, however, contest Felt’s loyalty to Hoover or the FBI’s strangely insular culture, noting that Hoover “had these guys so brainwashed they even talked like him” (111). Gray, marginal notes, Felt, The FBI Pyramid, LPGP.

49. Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 301.

50. For the FBI’s description and assessment of the criticism leveled at its investigation, see “Watergate investigation—OPE Analysis,” 5 July 1974, FBI 139-4089.

51. Among the architects of the Plumbers was former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy. For Liddy’s account of his activities in both capacities, see Liddy, , Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

52. Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 226. Even in 1979, Felt’s denials were carefully worded, models of bureaucratic misspeak. He claimed, for instance, that he “never gave any FBI documents” to reporters—not quite the same as saying that he provided no information (312). Similarly, his claim that “I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or to anyone else!” left open the possibility that he did, in fact, confirm what they already knew, or point them in the right direction.

53. Woodward, Secret Man, 33.

54. Ibid., Secret Man, 17. Where not otherwise noted, details of Woodward’s and Felt’s relationship are drawn from Woodward’s memoir. In 2003, Woodward and Bernstein sold their Watergate papers to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. After Felt’s 2005 revelation, Woodward added his Deep Throat–related notes to the collection. Digital reproductions of Woodward’s notes of his conversations with Felt can be found online at http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/deepthroat/index2.html. Gray’s son Ed has identified alleged discrepancies in the notes, suggesting that Woodward’s notes combine his interviews with Felt as well as other government officials. Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 289–302.

55. Kutler, , ed., Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York, 1997), 344.Google Scholar

56. O’Connor, “I’m the Guy,” at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2005/07/deepthroat200507.

57. Woodward, Secret Man, 214.

58. Bill Emmott, “A Leak and a Promise,” Washington Post, 10 July 2005.

59. Mike Wolk, “Ex-Hoover Aide Says ‘White House Meddled with FBI,’” Courier Post (Camden, N.J.), in SAC Newark to Director, “W. Mark Felt,” 12 October 1973, section 6, FBI FOIA 67-276576-443x (Felt).

60. Felt, G-Man’s Life, 193.

61. Kutler, Abuse of Power, 344. In the end, Felt himself fell victim to some of the same forces that his Watergate activities had helped to unleash. In 1978, five years after he resigned from the bureau, federal prosecutors indicted Felt, along with Gray and FBI inspector Ed Miller, for civil liberties violations committed in the bureau’s campaign against the Weather Underground. This was the first such criminal indictment ever issued against high-ranking intelligence officials (though the charges against Gray were soon dropped). According to the indictment, Felt had cooperated in scaling back the director’s restrictions on domestic intelligence after Hoover’s death, authorizing illegal break-ins at the homes of WUO members and their families. He was a Hoover loyalist, but only up to a point. Nixon himself testified at the trial, arguing that Felt’s actions were justified in the name of national security. For a description of the trial, see Woodward, Secret Man, 140–47.

62. Woodward, Secret Man, 102–3.