Mark Felt, Watergate's `Deep Throat,' dies at 95

[Kenny]

SAN FRANCISCO – W. Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as "Deep Throat" 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president, has died. He was 95.

Felt died Thursday in Santa Rosa after suffering from congestive heart failure for several months, said family friend John D. O'Connor, who wrote the 2005 Vanity Fair article uncovering Felt's secret.

The shadowy central figure in one of the most gripping political dramas of the 20th century, Felt insisted his alter ego be kept secret when he leaked damaging information about President Richard Nixon and his aides to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

While some — including Nixon and his aides — speculated that Felt was the source who connected the White House to the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the ....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081219/ap_on_re_us/obit_felt

 

[broad]

It is the sad news. Yet he lived a long time, but he's also a very important part of our history. R I P

 

[Premiere]

Woodstein was a great set of reporters (for those who know what that means), and perhaps someone else would have come forward or some little drabs would have leaked out. Without Felt, nothing would have ever been dramatic or as truly revealed as Watergate came to be. And it's very unlikely that we would have realized while Nixon was still in power that he was as paranoid and obsessed as any misled leader. If the Washington Post hadn't put in the time and resources to even start the discovery process who knows where we would be. People say things are bad now - they could have been much worse without dedicated journalists and responsible citizens.

 

[RogueWriter]

I wish we had had dedicated and objective journalists over this last year, lots of impotant issues never get followed up on anymore, because the topic does not fit the political orientation of the newspaper(s).