Truth: A Concept Irrelevant to
Watergate
A Review of The Secret Man: The
Story of Watergate's Deep Throat
by Robert U.
Woodward
Author Biography
Robert U. Woodward was born in Geneva,
Illinois, in 1943. He attended Yale University on a Naval ROTC
scholarship, and majored in English literature and history,
earning a B.A. degree before leaving for the Navy on a
four-year term. He embarked on his journalism career for The
Washington Post in 1971 by reporting on police
investigations before the Watergate scandal of 1972. He is
now assistant managing editor at The Washington Post.
Regarded as the most reprehensible episode to occur in
American politics during the early seventies, the Watergate
scandal involving President Richard M. Nixon was an utter
abuse of executive authority. Although the American public
relied on the expertise of their investigative bureaus to
solve the alarming incident, the corrupt leaders of a
democratic government utilized the full extent of their
resources to conceal the remnants of convictional evidence.
Much
to their skepticism, an unidentified entity known as Deep
Throat was providing appalling information and confidential
evidence to journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of
the Washington Post. This anonymous FBI assistant director
was Mark Felt, who upon personal judgment leaked the
nonexistent facts towards the deserving American people. As
these
three audacious individuals embarked upon a journey to
uncover the surrounding offenses of an American President, they
single handedly unraveled the affair with the law-abiding
truth. In Bob Woodward’s 2005 novel, The Secret Man: The
Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, Woodward concludes the
chapter upon one of America’s greatest controversies as he
recollects the moments he shared with the clandestine hero
in Mark Felt, also celebrated as the courageous Deep Throat.
Woodward’s revealing novel, The Secret Man: The Story of
Watergate’s Deep Throat, initiates through a personal
recollection of the contentious Watergate incident. As the
novel traces the remarkable actions of Watergate’s Deep
Throat, Woodward reminisces upon how Mark Felt disclosed the
information to the renowned reporter with such anonymity
and secrecy. He effortlessly recalls how the Watergate
cover-up had executed so well as Nixon’s Committee for the
Re-election of the President had “Dean’s effectiveness in
squelching further inquiry; and the seeming utter lack of
imagination on the part of the FBI."1 The
illegitimate act of suppression upon the corrupt political
scene
was imposed upon a perplexed and delirious investigative
bureau that had all odds in opposition to their cause of
justice. With Felt providing much of the disclosed
information without the consent of a hostile White House,
Woodward
and Bernstein exposed the deceiving nature of a national
leader to America. Furthermore, Woodward uncovers his early
acquaintances to Felt as a personal advisor during his
formative years and how his career as a journalist arose
from the
Watergate affair overwhelming the media scene. The
chronicles of Felt’s involvement as an Assistant Director in
the FBI
also engage upon the early investigation of the fraudulent
Nixon administration as “the FBI had information that Vice
President Spiro T. Agnew had received a bribe of $2,500 in
cash.”2 Amid Woodward’s disclosure of the
deplorable corruption of an American administration during
the late sixties, his novel, published three decades after
the incidents adjoining the pre-Watergate era, conveys the
persistent defiance of American integrity.
As the five burglars functioning on behalf of CREEP were
arrested on Saturday, June 17, 1972, for intruding the
Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in
Washington D.C., Woodward immediately reported the account as
his career emerged as the only exclusive reporter to leak
out classified evidence throughout the public. From the
commencement of the court cases, the White House became
furious over the information leaks as “Washington Post’s
Woodward and Bernstein were soon giving their readers
details of the investigation…Ehrlichman called Gray…and told
him
that the leaks must stop…Felt refused.”3 From
that point forward, the corrupt strategies of the Nixon
administration to acquire the public opinion was undeniably
thwarted by an anonymous individual leaking out classified
information and substantiation on the five burglars; men who
had been apparently functioning for the CIA alongside
Nixon’s deceptive CREEP. In November 1973, Felt revealed
the “symbol for Nixon’s entire Watergate problem” as Felt
explained that “one or more of the Nixon tapes contained
deliberate erasures.”4 The eighteen and a half
minute gap was the final assault upon the Watergate case.
Regarded by countless individuals as the culmination of the
entire affair, Nixon’s decision to conceal the noticeable
evidence embedded in the secret tapes indicated the triumph of
the American people in which Woodward, Bernstein, and Felt
had single handedly delivered. Without the assistance of
Felt and the investigative efforts of Woodward and Bernstein
to exploit the truth, the Watergate scandal would never
have been resolved with the altitude of government suppression.
After Nixon’s milestone resignation on August 8, 1974 in
order to evade Congressional impeachment, a national endeavor
to testify against the abuses of investigations on Bureau
corruption went underway with Felt as a prime suspect. In
1975, Felt was summoned to testify five times before the
Senate committee investigating intelligence agency abuses, but
for the intention of defeating any indications that may
exploit his alias as Deep Throat, he was “acting with approval
on the Weathermen burglaries” and “proud of what [he]
did.”5 This seemingly false disguise of the proper
characteristics of Felt’s true integrity as an FBI assistant
director effortlessly mislead the media’s efforts to expose
Deep Throat. Although he could not tolerate the exposure of
his secret identity for honorary intent, his existence and
reputation was at jeopardy as the proclamation of his
clandestine identity would have ironically salvaged his
situation
in trial. With the bureau’s evasion of the Fourth
Amendment, the jury found Felt and Miller accountable of
conspiring
to violate citizen rights, but the “judge fined Felt $5,000
and Miller $3,500. Neither received a prison
sentence.”6 Felt’s livelihood had been
fortunately rescued from a profound prison sentence, but the
emotional
consequence that Woodward deemed accountable for, occupied a
deep despair for the remainder of his life. The distraught
and dismal manner of Felt for reluctantly assisting Woodward
nearly expended him of his family and cherished existence,
but he undoubtly deserved his status of significance in
history as a valiant and audacious voice of truth.
With nearly three decades following the conclusion of the
Watergate incident and Felt’s disappearance from the American
political scene, Woodward contacted Felt on January 4, 2000.
Woodward had desperate but decisive questions on the
motives behind Felt’s participation as Deep Throat. Felt was
around 86 years old with his mind deteriorating from
dementia or loss of mental power and memory. Although
Woodward was confident that Felt had contradiction and
denial to
the questionable errors he had executed throughout his FBI
career, Woodward eventually realized that he had a “feeling
of gratitude”; Felt had “showed [him] the way to develop
relationships of trust for [his] reportings.”7 He
would persistently learn from his unforgettable
establishment as a journalist for the Watergate incident, he
may never
attain the answers to the questions that had dominated his
outlook upon Deep Throat, but his affiliation with such a
courageous individual proved the resilient trust of a
reporter and his source. While confronting the most tentative
decision in his life, Woodward knew “it [was] critical that
confidential sources feel they would be protected for
life…it was a matter of [his] work, a matter of honor. Mark
Felt was entitled to promise of anonymity in his
lifetime.”8 The highly contentious revealing of
the legendary Deep Throat’s identity in Woodward’s new novel
upon the legacy of Deep Throat would serve as an antidote to
the concealment of Watergate, but he vastly respected and
honored the man who gave up his reputation and family to
exploit the truth to a deserving American public. In the end,
Woodward concluded that Felt used Watergate much like an
instrument to establish his Bureau’s sovereignty from the
corruption and entanglements of Nixon. Nixon had lost much
more: his presidency, moral aptitude, and authority while
attaining the disgrace of an entire country.
Woodward’s thesis defends the identity or legitimacy of an
individual or issue. Ironically, Nixon, during the Watergate
era, had struggled to employ all of his resources to cover
up the break-in, but he unsuccessfully retained his control
over the affair as he was forced out of presidency to evade
impeachment. In the justification of Mark Felt and his
unknown alias of Deep Throat, Woodward had successfully
protected the livelihood and reputation of Felt by maintaining
his identify from the universal media who sought to exploit
the unknown vigilante. Deep Throat or “the concept of rigid
source protection” had become “more important” than “the
intimate and important struggles of government, the conflict
and lethal bureaucratic maneuver warfare” of the Watergate
era.9 Throughout Watergate, the White House or
bureaucratic government of the United States had ultimately
been trying to utilize source protection to avert an
outburst in public opinion, but ended upon the disbursement
of a mortified American President and distrustful executive
government that seemingly tried waging a political war of
deceit and treachery.
Woodward, as one of the individual pragmatic forces behind
the Watergate media investigation, has a point of view that
is disposed toward the antagonism of Nixon’s administration
and political actions. With the assistance of one of
America’s greatest political entities Deep Throat, Woodward
and Bernstein pursued the legitimacy that was being
dissolved among White House suppression. The most evident
attitude of Woodward upon Nixon’s political actions resulted
from “his bitterness and anger and his efforts to break the
law ant to use his presidential power to settle new and old
scores with his enemies, real and imagined.”10 By
concluding the novel upon such a unsympathetic manner,
Woodward relies on the unresolved truth and matter of the
issues surrounding his analysis of Watergate; not only was he
one of the lonesome few who discovered the unimpeded truth,
but was skeptical upon the White House and CIA attempts to
conceal with a devised plot. In due course, Woodward’s novel
is indisputably unbiased as he persistently sought for the
truth behind the “smoking gun” leading to Nixon’s timely
persecution. Although Woodward composed the novel throughout
the beginning of the twenty-first century, three decades
after Watergate, it has enabled him to revert to an incident
with an entirely fresh and untainted mindset without the
emotional confinements he experienced as a reporter; his
deplorable criticism is evidently liberal, as he evaluates
the seventies from a political infringement of human rights.
Historiography, for the most part, obliged Woodward to
consider the faltering decision to finally reveal Felt’s
identity
to the world; in reality, protecting a reporter’s source was
conceivably Woodward’s greatest social responsibility. It
was not until May 31, 2005, in an issue of Vanity Fair,
where Mark Felt irrevocably decided to unveil his vague
identity
to the American people; but by the turn of the twenty-first
century, many historical suspects had died, “The list had
narrowed as the men of Watergate had passed
away.”11 In deference to Felt’s apparent
decision, It appears as
if Woodward’s’ compelling novel is deliberately defending
the former FBI agent’s questionable decisions and actions to
conceal his identity for nearly three decades. Copious
individuals previously implicated in Watergate were
attempting to
decipher the mystery; in Dean’s Unmasking Deep Throat, his
inability to “appreciate that an outsider could see, know and
piece together its true nature” is why “the journalist, and
even the novelist paints the fullest picture of the
era.”12 With Woodward representing the journalist
and even the novelist, his perception to view beyond the
ordinary means of judgment allow him to apprehend nothing
but the truth.
Mark Memmott of USA Today and Machiko Kakutani of The New
York Times, both individuals contribute their information
adjoining Woodward’s novel to substantiate the actions of
Mark Felt and his own personal experiences as a reporter for
the Washington Post during Watergate. Memmot finds that
Woodward’s confirmation of various hypothetical presumptions to
reveal the motives of Deep Throat is the most considerable
segment of the novel; “Felt was motivated by a desire to
protect the FBI, disgust with the Nixon White House and the
thrill of “the game.”13 Even though Woodward
justifies the significance of Felt during the eruption of
the Watergate trials, his intentions are much more engaged
upon a personal level than his apprehension for the public’s
interests. Furthermore, in Kakutani’s review of Woodward’s
novel, she convincingly acknowledges the correlation of the
Watergate era and the present; “two periods marked by a
White House obsessed with secrecy and control and an
eagerness to try to cow the press…Today, in a climate where the
public distrusts the press…because of efforts on the part of
the Bush administration to discredit news
media.”14 This account made from a member of
today’s press draws upon the self-realization of Americans’
failure to perceive the government’s effortless dominance to
repress the opinion of the media. Much in association to
Woodward’s basis throughout his Watergate period, the truth
will always be veiled in the midst of those who oppress it.
According to Bob Woodward throughout his critically
acclaimed novel, the Watergate period is one of the few
political
controversies surrounding American history from the era of
the sixties to the Bush administration of the present.
Ultimately, “Watergate moved history” and had subtly brought
“Nixon’s demise” to an American public ailing of political
abuses and international war.15 It was undeniably
the first time an American President had resigned, but this
resignation was referring to a national disgrace of
manipulation in the public mind. By completely altering the
perspectives of Americans nationwide upon their executive
authority, a sentiment of distrust and resentment will never
depart from the consolation of those who had sincerely
trusted the integrity of their appointed leaders. The
significance of Watergate and the influence of media are
still felt in the Bush administration’s psychological strategy
of suppressing the corruptness of certain proceedings and
autocratic abuse of political authority.
Certainly many individuals view Watergate as a single
occurrence in American history that does not persistently
affect
modern politics of the twenty-first century. Not only had
the incident tarnished the international outlook upon America,
but compelled politics to wage a new battle of supremacy
over one another. Any tactics that may be applied to gain
leverage and momentum over the opposing party in the modern
sense of political affairs can unquestionably be traced back
upon Nixon’s agitating CREEP. As the American people can no
longer trust its national leaders, the national leaders
themselves prevail as a relentless elite procured by its
authority of the media and single sided stance of America. Only
through self-realization and awareness will the American
people be able to sever from its conventional attitudes and
recognize other varieties of opinion.
As Deep Throat was best portrayed by Bob Woodward as an
individual seeking the truth against the corrupt political
abuses of the White House, he employed the media as a weapon
of mass destruction that became so devastating, its
resurgence as a discerning source for the American opinion
eventually produced an outrageous contempt in opposition to a
deceptive President. Although his identity was not announced
until May 31, 2005, Felt’s anonymous exposure proved to be
much more effective because of the absence of media and
government attention that may have hindered Woodward and
Bernstein’s rationale. In conclusion, The Secret Man: The
Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat sanctions the actions
of Mark Felt as the confidential FBI source, but reveres the
image of an American icon who exposed the American
government with courage and defiance.
review by Michael Chen
- Woodward, Bob. The Secret Man: The Story of
Watergate’s
Deep Throat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005, 3.
- Woodward, Bob 40.
- Woodward, Bob 59.
- Woodward, Bob 103.
- Woodward, Bob 128.
- Woodward, Bob 146
- Woodward, Bob 183
- Woodward, Bob 185
- Woodward, Bob 184
- Woodward, Bob 218
- Woodward, Bob 222
- Woodward, Bob 207
- Memmott, Mark . “Woodward’s ‘Deep Throat’ book surfaces.”
USA Today 6/30/2005
.
- Kakutani, Michiko. “An Aura of Mystery Still Hovers
Around the Man Who Is Deep Throat .” The New York Times
7/6/2005
.
- Woodward, Bob 217
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