A mystery solved, but 'deep' issues linger

Deep Throat: hero or villain? Important or not?

The revelation that a top FBI official named W. Mark Felt was The Washington Post's secret source on Watergate has answered one important question - his identity. But nearly 33 years after the skein of the Watergate scandal was slowly untangled, the meaning of the affair, and of Mr. Felt's role in it, remains a matter of debate.

His coming-out has raised divisions about Watergate that, like the Vietnam war, have been lodged deep in the recesses of public thought - and may always persist.

As a stalwart of a then-embattled agency, Mr. Felt had complex motives in dealing with the Post. Some view him as a public servant, albeit one operating in the shadows due to the circumstances of the times. Others see a breach of duty for a law enforcement official who had other options at his disposal.

The mere identity of Deep Throat is in large measure about celebrity. It simply renews, rather than resolves, key questions about the Watergate affair, notably about ethics for both government officials and journalists.

"It's fine for people to be curious, but ultimately what does this tell us? . . . I don't think it fundamentally changes our understanding of Watergate," says David Greenberg, a professor of journalism at Rutgers University and the author of a book about the Nixon administration.

Ironically, the Post itself got scooped Tuesday when the mystery was solved. Vanity Fair released a story in which the FBI's former No. 2 official, W. Mark Felt, was quoted as saying, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." Late in the day, the Post confirmed this report. Thus Felt, now 91, was revealed as the person who met Post reporter Bob Woodward in dark garages and provided crucial guidance for the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories Woodward wrote with partner Carl Bernstein.

The revelation is reverberating in the political and journalism worlds. "A good secret deserves a decent burial and this one is going to get a state funeral," Leonard Garment, special counsel to President Nixon after the Watergate story broke, told the Associated Press.

The unmasking of Deep Throat's identity has meaning beyond revealing a secret held for three decades in a town not known for keeping confidences. It shines new light on the complexities and ambiguities surrounding journalists' use of anonymous sources, especially the sources' complicated motives for leaking.

In California, Nick Jones, Felt's grandson, read a family statement saying that Mark Felt "is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice."

But the Post in its Wednesday story on Deep Throat notes that Felt's "motivations were complex." He wanted to be J. Edgar Hoover's successor as director of the FBI and was furious when he was passed over by the Nixon administration in favor of L. Patrick Gray. Felt's view was that Gray was allowing the White House to control and hamper the FBI's investigation.

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