This past week, the media have had a field day revealing the true identity of “Deep Throat.” And now that we know it is Mark Felt, what does this add to the story?
I think it complicates it even more. Felt seems to be a dual personality. On the one hand, he helped bring down a government mucked in dishonesty and lies; on the other hand he was also cited for the same behaviors in regard to “spying” on private citizens. Isn’t this a contradiction.
Felt’s motives may also have been influenced by the fact that he was not chosen to succeed J. Edgar Hoover, when he thought he should have been. Instead, then President Nixon chose Patrick Gray, who was — from all accounts — a Yes Man to the President.
Now Felt is 91 years old, and pundits claim he revealed himself because his family needs money. However, at age 91, I’m not sure how rational the man might be or whether, in fact, it was he himself who chose to leak the story.
One article I read noted that Woodward and Bernstein, the reporters with whom Felt communicated his information, had agreed that they would not reveal their source until that source had passed away. Now Felt has one-upped them.
Personally, I feel that Mark Felt should have taken his secret to the grave, regardless of whether his family needed money or not. Nobody else has promoted this theory, but when you insist on anonymity for thirty-plus years and require that you die before others can reveal what you did, then I think you owe it to yourself and the others to keep quiet. In a sense, you forego your allotted fifteen minutes of fame.
But you keep your word, and that is worth something in my book.
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