So Deep Throat has died. Mark Felt is to be applauded for putting his country first during Watergate.
But it's interesting how things come around. The lesser-known Felt story involves his own conviction for using illegal methods to conduct investigations of suspected radicals in the 1960s. He was a high-ranking FBI official during the bureau's infamous Cointelpro operations, and at the very moment he was ratting out old Nixon, he was supervising warrantless break-ins at the homes of members of...the Weather Underground!
Whether Bill Ayers' home, I do not know. Maybe some of you do. But I do know that the wingers who were mad during the campaign that a scallawag like Ayers never paid his debt to society can probably blame Mark Felt and the other FBI officials who approved such obviously illegal and unconstitutional tactics that judges had no choice but to throw the cases out.
Anyway, Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt in the 1980s. And as for Nixon, this is from today's NYT obit, linked to above:
Nixon cursed his name when he learned early on that Mr. Felt was providing aid to the enemy in the wars of Watergate. The conversation was recorded in the Oval Office and later made public.
"We know what's leaked, and we know who leaked it," Nixon's chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, told the president on Oct. 19, 1972, four months after a team of washed-up Central Intelligence Agency personnel hired by the White House was caught trying to wiretap the Democratic Party's national offices at the Watergate complex.
"Somebody in the F.B.I.?" Nixon asked.
"Yes, sir," Mr. Haldeman replied. Who? the president asked. "Mark Felt," Mr. Haldeman said. "Now why the hell would he do that?" the president asked in a wounded tone.
And yet, at Felt's later trial, Nixon testified on his behalf and, after the pardon, sent him a bottle of champagne. Gosh, what a guy.
