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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
You say Throat changed journalism, giving credibility to unidentified sources -- what do you mean by that?
Before Watergate, confidential sources were seldom used. Much of the Watergate reporting was done with unnamed sources. Deep Throat became the symbol of such reporting. Bob Woodward, for example, has made a journalistic art form out of confidential-source reporting. He publishes books that may have 300 or more confidential sources.
Is that good or bad?
It can be good, for at times it's the only way for a reporter to get information. My book shows this is risky, however. While I have no interest in discrediting Deep Throat, or "All the President's Men," in analyzing all of the conversations between Woodward and Throat -- some 14 conversations from June 19, 1972, to the first week of November, 1973 -- I note in passing the incredible amount of bad information that Deep Throat gave Woodward. Information that is dead wrong. Yet many people still read "All the President's Men," or watch the movie, and believe everything Throat says is gospel. Not so. This is another reason to surface Throat, to put things in context.
You mention the film "All the President's Men." Did you rely on it to figure out who Deep Throat might be?
I watched the movie again, while doing my research. It holds up remarkably well. But the movie is not history. It's a portrait of history, not a photograph. I wrote a piece for Salon some months ago about the film "13 Days," which depicts President Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis. These movies are docudramas. They compress reality, but are not reality. They are written, acted and directed to give the audience a good story, one that will hold his or her interest. The short answer, as I explain at some length in "Unmasking Deep Throat," is that I didn't rely on it. I explain a few of the flaws from a historical point of view. But it's great theater.
Why did you publish this as an e-book?
I knew anything could happen when I set a deadline of June 17, 2002, to announce the identity of Deep Throat -- and much has happened. In fact, it's been about as thrilling as book publishing can get, maybe more thrilling than it should be. I had developed a profile of Deep Throat, based on Woodward's and Bernstein's clues in "All the President's Men," and their unedited manuscript. Remarkably, all the clues pointed at one of my former colleagues, whom I had earlier considered only a remote possibility. But there he was, right in the middle of my Throat-searching radar. I spent months trying to figure out how I could be wrong. Then I tested the material on a couple of attorney friends who are very familiar with Watergate. They found the case overwhelming that I was right. I then tested the material on a few news organizations. They, too, felt I was correct. To make a story I tell in the book very short, I turned out to be wrong. But the exercise was important in removing from consideration a former colleague who is not Throat, notwithstanding the strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
Because no one wants to claim the Deep Throat identity, I knew it would be difficult. Had I not decided to publish the results of all these years of Deep Throat sleuthing as an e-book, I would never have been able to do it, given the type of problems encountered in such an investigation.
Why doesn't Deep Throat want to identify himself?
Woodward and Bernstein never did figure out his motive. Nor can I. Woodward once said, years after Watergate, that Throat did not want the hassle of being known as a whistleblower. I look at that subject, and whether he has a right to anonymity, in the book. There are a lot of misimpressions about the fate of whistleblowers, and I get into that. I know that subject fairly well, because I blew the whistle long and hard on Watergate.
So you don't think it's wrong to leak?
Obviously, it depends on the circumstances. I think the new genre of fiction and nonfiction revenge books is appalling. Books like "The Nanny Diaries," and nonfiction books where employees attack their superiors, particularly when they are high-profile people. That's leaking at its crudest -- leak for profit. At the other end of the spectrum, government couldn't operate without leaks. Often leaks are test balloons to determine public reaction toward policies. Others times leaks are used to undercut a policy that a large segment of the public might not want.
How about Deep Throat's leaking?
I think he was very courageous -- a real "Profiles in Courage" character. He was one of the few people involved in Watergate who actually followed the code of conduct for government employees. It was adopted by Congress in 1958, and remains in full force and effect to this day. A federal employee owes his loyalty not to a president, a political party or a government entity like the White House, but rather to the American people for whom he or she works. And the code of ethics calls on all officers and employees to report corruption in government when and where they find it. It doesn't say how to report it, and Deep Throat did it his own way.
Are you disappointed that you have not named one person as Deep Throat, but instead identified a very small group who could be Throat?
Not in the slightest. I believe I've been able to advance the information about Deep Throat further than it has ever been. It would be very simple for me to toss out one of the names in this very small group, which I have located based on evidence that has not been previously available. The reason that Bob Woodward is refusing to further comment about Throat, by confirming any further denials, is that he knows how small the field has become. I have placed Deep Throat, I believe irrefutably, in the Nixon White House, and I have shown the very few people privy to the information that Throat gave Woodward when he did so. I've also laid out all the clues so others can participate in completing this process. And I hope they will join me. It's fascinating, once you start the chase.
