Deep Throat: Hero or traitor?
W. Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat"
Johanna Neuman has a terrific obituary on Mark Felt in today’s Los Angeles Times. He, of course, was the deputy associate FBI director who “came out” in 2005 as “Deep Throat,” the deep background source who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the Watergate story for the Washington Post in 1972.
Here are a few paragraphs:
His disclosure in a Vanity Fair article by his family’s lawyer, John D. O’Connor, provoked a national debate: Was he a hero who should be lauded for sparing the country the strain of further high crimes and misdemeanors by the Nixon White House? Or was he a traitor who betrayed not only his president but his oath of office by disclosing grand jury information and the contents of FBI files?
For the most part, reaction is split along political lines.
“There’s nothing heroic about breaking faith with your people,” said commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter. Felt “disgraced himself and dishonored everything an FBI agent should stand for.”
But Richard Ben-Veniste, a key lawyer in the Watergate prosecution team, said Felt’s role showed that “the importance of whistleblowers shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly when there are excesses by the executive branch of government — which in this case went all the way to the executive office.”
Most Americans, I’d argue, viewed Deep Throat as a hero, mostly since their perceptions of Watergate were formed after Woodward and Bernstein published their book, “All the President’s Men,” and especially after seeing Hal Holbrook’s portrayal of Deep Throat in Alan Pakula’s and Robert Redford’s 1976 movie version.
The question — hero or traitor — takes on new relevance these days. Thomas Tamm, 56, a former Justice Department lawyer, last week admitted to Time magazine that he was the source of the 2005 leaks to The New York Times about President George W. Bush’s domestic surveillance program. Tamm left the Justice Department and may now be under investigation for leaking government secrets. Hero or traitor?
Kevin Horrigan is deputy editor of the editorial page. He writes editorials on local, state and national politics and public policy and also contributes a signed column to the Sunday Commentary Page. "The Old Sport" is a former sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch and for 10 years hosted radio talk shows on KMOX and KTRS in St. Louis. He lives in South St. Louis with his wife, Kate, and a dream of one day starting a professional catfish noodling tour. 
If the actions that were “excesses by the executive branch” were so egregious, then why did Felt deem it necessary to bring it to the attention of journalists instead of government officials? Why did he hide behind an alter ego instead of making the issue transparent to the public? Further, why is our public perception based on a journalists version instead of a historians? Journalism inherently is sensationalist; history is academic and, as a result, held to a higher level of scrutiny. Is the public aware that every president from FDR to Nixon had a taping device in the White House? Are they aware that Nixon initially thought of having it removed as a matter of conscience? (see Johnson, Paul A History of the American People) It seems a lot of our assumptions of history are really conventional wisdom.
It takes courage of conviction to do what Mark Felt, Thomas Tamm and others have done to reveal wrong doing among the powerful. I’d call them heros.
W. Mark “Big Snitch” Felt.
Just hero or traitor… How about a selfish coward?
— Coward for protecting himself by lying under oath to a Federal jury:
According to Woodward, one juror asked a simple question, “Were you?”
“Was I what?” Felt inquired.
“Were you Deep Throat?”
Felt said no but was visibly shaken, Woodward wrote. Recognizing the delicacy of the situation, Pottinger told the court stenographer to stop taking notes. He approached Felt and quietly reminded him that he was under oath and needed to answer the question truthfully.
— Coward for accepting a pardon from Reagan
…after “(acknowledging) that he had approved 13 secret break-ins by FBI agents between May 1972 and May 1973, roughly the same time he was talking to Woodward about Watergate.”
Imagine the torment he endured all these years knowing he had ratted-on his colleagues while he essentially orchestrated similar crimes upon the nation.
Or maybe he was more like a Bernie Madoff-type, a no guilt sociopath.
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I’d be curious how many of you ‘mark felt is a traitor’ types feel the same way about Monica Lewinsky and Linda tripp?
…Kinda tough when the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it?
— paging mr black pot
It’s never a good time to lie under oath to a Federal prosecutor
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClfpG2-1Bv4&eurl=
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“There’s nothing heroic about breaking faith with your people,” said commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter. Felt “disgraced himself and dishonored everything an FBI agent should stand for.”
What Buchanan either forgot or does not want to remember is that Pres. Nixon and his advisors had already broken faith with their sworn oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.
I would not call Felt a hero or a traitor. He was apparently someone troubled by what he saw happening. Woodward and Bernstein and others had much of the information already. It might have taken a bit longer, but the outcome would have been the same.
What else but a hero?
Tamm’s a hero, no question. He’s sacrificed practically everything to stand up for what he believes in, and what we should all fight for: An honest and law-abiding government.
Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky didn’t hide behind a journalist’s protection. That makes the issue quite different.
If the belief is that nothing illegal was not done during the administrations before Nixon, and that none of those transgressions were not revealed on tape, then our society is more naive than I fear. Why, for example, were MLK and Malcolm X secretly taped during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations?