Updated During all the months that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward spent cracking the Watergate scandal, and in all the years since, Mr. Bernstein had never met the reporters’ most famous source, the man known as Deep Throat. Until now. Last Sunday, 36 years after the two young Washington Post reporters began writing about a botched burglary at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate building in Washington, both men paid a visit to Mark Felt, whom they had dubbed Deep Throat, at his Santa Rosa, Calif., home. Mr. Felt was the No. 2 man at the F.B.I., with intimate knowledge of the White House and the re-election campaign of President Richard M. Nixon, when Mr. Woodward began consulting him about the un-spooling Watergate story. Mr. Bernstein was never privy to those meetings, and for nearly four decades never met the man who guided them through the investigation that ultimately linked Mr. Nixon and his closest White House aides to the break-in and cover-up. Two years later, their work led to the threat of impeachment, forcing Mr. Nixon to resign. But late Sunday afternoon, Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein met with Mr. Felt at his home on — wait for it — Redford Place in Santa Rosa, 55 miles north of San Francisco. Mr. Felt, 95, suffers from dementia, but Mr. Bernstein said during their visit he had moments of clarity. The man who told them the truth when so many others had obfuscated and lied “was engaged,” Mr. Woodward said. The two journalists were heading to the bay area for a talk at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. Mr. Woodward said that in the back of their minds was the thought that this would be an opportunity to swing by for a visit to Mr. Felt, who has been in failing health. Joan, his daughter and caregiver, had warned that in the last few months he had almost died, Mr. Woodward said. So, he said, he and Mr. Bernstein agreed to fly west a day early to finally introduce Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Felt. The meeting, late Sunday in the family living room, included neighbors, family members and friends of the Felts. “It was like a family reunion,” Mr. Woodward said, “a festive family gathering.” Guests sipped iced tea as a few friendly dogs meandered about, he said. Mr. Felt wore a white shirt -– “like a good FBI man,” Mr. Woodward said — and a red blazer, which was not so much like an FBI man. Ms. Felt has said that her father has memories of two people: J. Edgar Hoover and Mr. Woodward. The two reporters revealed the meeting Monday night, at the Walnut Creek speaking event, and Mr. Bernstein described it as “a remarkable afternoon.” “We were there to pay our respects and gratitude and we conveyed that,” Mr. Bernstein said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “It was heartfelt and was received that way.” Both he and Mr. Woodward described Mr. Felt as having “great dignity and grace” including, Mr. Bernstein said, “in his words.” “It was a personal visit, not a working visit,” he said, “and it closed the circle.” Deep Throat’s identity had been kept secret for decades, as part of Mr. Woodward’s journalistic pledge to Mr. Felt, and it became the source of great speculation. It was not until June 2005 that the public learned his identity, and even then it was not Mr. Woodward who disclosed the information but Mr. Felt in an article in Vanity Fair. The relationship was fraught with mystery, vividly captured in a book and a movie, “All the President’s Men,” (Robert Redford played Mr. Woodward and Dustin Hoffman played Mr. Bernstein, with Hal Holbrook playing the shadowy Deep Throat). The book described Mr. Woodward planting a red flag in a flower pot on the window sill of his apartment to signal to his source that they needed to meet. Deep Throat signaled his desire to talk by circling page 20 on Mr. Woodward’s New York Times. They rendezvoused at an underground garage. In a phone interview Wednesday, Mr. Woodward recalled Mr. Felt’s importance to the investigation. “He provided confirmation and guidance and directed us,” Mr. Woodward said. “Here he is in an important position in the FBI. What he conveyed was the magnitude of Watergate, the way Nixon operated and that there were lots of tentacles and that it went to the top and that it was a concerted effort of political espionage to beat the Democrats in ’72. And they did.” “It gave us comfort that it was not just the people we were talking to at the mid-level and low-level — we had dozens of sources — it was somebody at the crossroads of the investigation.” Despite hundreds of speculative stories about Deep Throat’s identity Mr. Woodward said today, “Like all secrets, sometimes we hide it in plain sight.” Mr. Woodward said an article headlined, “FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats,” in the Washington Post on Oct. 10, 1972, gave a major clue about the source, but few Watergate sleuths noticed. The hint was buried in the lead: “FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon’s re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President…”
At Last, Bernstein Meets Deep Throat
By CAROL POGASH
Clockwise from right: Bob Woodward, Mark Felt, Carl Bernstein and John O’Connor, Mr. Felt’s co-author on “A G-Man’s Life” (Photo: Joan Felt)
Saturday, 22 November 2008
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