Washington - W. Mark Felt, a former No. 2 man at the FBI, has revealed that he was the legendary source known as Deep Throat, who helped two Washington Post reporters expose details in the Watergate scandal that forced Richard Nixon to give up the White House.
Bob Woodward, who, along with Carl Bernstein, led The Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, confirmed Felt's identity as the source.
"It's one of the big mysteries of the 20th century finally solved," said Jane Briggs-Bunting, director of the MSU journalism school and a member of The State News Board of Directors. "It is a footnote in history."
Watergate, which brought about the first presidential resignation in U.S. history, centered on Nixon's efforts to cover up an array of illegal and unethical activities against political opponents leading up to his re-election in the early 1970s.
While other newspapers and journalists contributed important reporting, it was Woodward and Bernstein and the Post who pushed the story hardest and became most closely identified with the Watergate scandal. Woodward told the Post's Web site Tuesday that Felt had helped the paper at a time of tense relations between the White House and the FBI.
And having a source as highly placed as Felt buttressed the newspaper's confidence in pursuing the story, even though he was never quoted by name. The reporters said Deep Throat provided important inside information early in the Watergate saga. That helped keep the story boiling until televised congressional hearings rocked the country.
"Deep Throat was not really the source, he was the conformation for sources," said Steve Lacy, a journalism professor. "He was more of a guide."
Trying to figure out the identity of Deep Throat became a cottage industry for journalists and historians in the decades following Nixon's resignation on August 8, 1974.
Now, in an article in the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine, 91-year-old Felt is described as having confided to family and friends that he was the source.
"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," author John O'Connor said Felt told him on several occasions. O'Connor - a San Francisco lawyer and former federal prosecutor - wrote the article with the cooperation of the Felt family, who he said had grown concerned that the former FBI official's role in history might pass unnoticed.
Felt, who suffered a mild stroke in 2001, had been a prime candidate in the 30-year guessing game about the identity of Deep Throat. Nixon himself once voiced suspicion that Felt might be the Post's secret source.
On Tuesday, at the two-story home in Santa Rosa, Calif., that Felt shares with his daughter, he appeared briefly before reporters and camera crews but took no questions. He stood with his walker at the front door for a minute or two, smiling and waving to the crowd.
In his No. 2 position at the FBI, Felt headed an agency investigation into the Watergate break-in and thus was in a position to know details that formed the basis of stories that the Post team broke.
Why he decided to leak confidential information and why he and his family decided to reveal his identity remain unclear.
"It was a dangerous thing," Lacy said. "It was not an easy thing for him to do to come out."
Relatives are portraying Felt as a silent hero who took action against a powerful but corrupt president.
"Mark Felt Sr. 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," a statement released by the family said. "We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well."
But Watergate-era journalists suggested Tuesday that Felt might have had other motives as well.
The break-in at the national Democratic Party's Watergate hotel offices occurred shortly after the death of longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Felt's decision to become a source for Woodward and Bernstein coincided with his efforts - as well as efforts by other FBI officials - to become Hoover's successor, Watergate-era journalists said Tuesday.
Felt and others wanted to see an agency veteran promoted to succeed Hoover, but Nixon nominated an administration insider, then-Assistant Attorney General L. Patrick Gray, to take over. Gray served as acting director but eventually was caught up in the scandal himself.
The White House pulled Gray's nomination after he acknowledged sharing information about the FBI's probe with White House counsel John Dean and destroying Watergate-related evidence in a fireplace at his Connecticut home.
By helping to propel the Watergate investigation, Felt undercut both Nixon and Gray.
Felt later was involved in illegal activities himself.
In November 1980, Felt and Edward S. Miller, then head of the FBI's intelligence division, were convicted of authorizing break-ins without warrants into the homes of members of the Weather Underground, a radical antiwar group, during the 1970s. During the trial, Felt testified that he had followed standard procedures for government investigations, according to Vanity Fair.
Felt later was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan.
O'Connor, the attorney and author of the article, noted that Felt blamed the case for contributing to the untimely death of his wife in 1984. Felt and his wife "felt betrayed by the country he had served," O'Connor wrote.
Revealing his identity as Deep Throat is seen by some analysts as an effort by Felt to refurbish his image.
Former Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee told the paper's Web site Tuesday, that while he had known Deep Throat was a high-level government official, he did not learn Felt's name until after Nixon resigned.
"The No. 2 guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source," Bradlee said. "I knew the paper was on the right track."
Now, journalists can face jail time for not naming sources. New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time correspondent Matthew Cooper are both being prosecuted for protecting the identity of a source.
"Today's contrast might be a grand jury investigation and subpoenas flying everywhere and reporters being held in contempt of court," Briggs-Bunting said. "You have to be very judicious and stingy with using anonymous sources."
But in the case of Deep Throat and the Watergate scandal, Lacy says the Post was in the right.
"I don't know of any journalist who would not have allowed him to remain anonymous, especially for this big of a story," he said.
Leonard Garment, the former White House counsel and one-time Nixon law partner. In his 2000 book, Garment acknowledged Felt as a "reasonable" candidate but speculated that Deep Throat was John Sears, a GOP strategist.
"I am happy it happened when I'm still alive because every good secret is entitled to a decent burial," Garment said.
Staff writer Bob Darrow contributed to this report.
