DEEP THROAT Biography - Polititians

 
 

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DEEP THROAT

Name: Deep Throat                                                                   
                                                                                   
Deep Throat is the pseudonym given to Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark       
Felt, Sr., the secret source who leaked information about the involvement of U.S.   
President Richard Nixon's administration in the first Watergate break-in and       
subsequent events that came to be known as the Watergate scandal.                   
                                                                                   
Deep Throat was an important source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward     
and Carl Bernstein, who together wrote a series of articles on the scandal that     
played a decisive role in exposing the misdeeds of the Nixon administration. The   
scandal would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nixon as well as     
prison terms for White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy,       
Egil Krogh, chief counsel Charles Colson, and presidential adviser John             
Ehrlichman.                                                                         
                                                                                   
Howard Simons, the managing editor of the Washington Post at the time, dubbed       
the secret informant "Deep Throat" as an allusion to the notorious pornographic     
movie of the same name. The name was also a play on the journalism term "deep       
background," referring to information provided by a secret source that, by         
agreement, will not be reported directly. "Deep Throat" came to public attention   
when Woodward and Bernstein wrote All the President's Men, a book also made into   
an Academy Award-winning movie. In the movie, Deep Throat was portrayed by Hal     
Holbrook.                                                                           
                                                                                   
For more than 30 years, the identity of Deep Throat was one of the biggest         
mysteries of American politics and journalism, the source of much public           
curiosity and speculation. Woodward and Bernstein insisted they would not reveal   
his identity until he died or consented to have his identity revealed. On May 31,   
2005, after W. Mark Felt revealed himself in a Vanity Fair magazine article,       
Woodward, Bernstein, and former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee confirmed that   
Felt was the source they called "Deep Throat."