Now that the veil has been lifted on the mysterious identity of ‘Deep Throat’ (aka Mark Felt), one thing has become very clear. Felt ratted Nixon out because the president didn’t promote him to FBI director.
Bob Woodward said Felt helped The (Washington) Post at a time of tense relations between the White House and much of the FBI hierarchy. He said the Watergate break-in came shortly after the death of legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Felt’s mentor, and that Felt and other bureau officials wanted to see an FBI veteran promoted to succeed Hoover.
Felt himself had hopes that he would be the next FBI director, but Nixon instead appointed an administration insider, assistant attorney general L. Patrick Gray, to the post.
So, in the end, it was an act of revenge, pure and simple. Felt had a vendetta against the president, and he got back at him by spoon feeding information to Woodward, knowing it would fatally damage Nixon.
That’s the real story.
From the same article: “But yesterday Woodward and Bernstein expressed a concern that the Deep Throat story has, over the years, come to obscure the many other elements that went into exposing the Watergate story: other sources, other investigators, high-impact Senate hearings, a shocking trove of secret White House tape recordings and the decisive intervention of a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court.”
The part that Deep Throat played was important, but Nixon was going down with or without Felt’s assistance.
Yeah, he ratted Nixon out all for revenge – responsibility, anyone? It’s tough to rat out an innocent.
Both were sworn to uphold the Constitution. Both were public servants but only one was the head of a nation.