Deep Throat
(1972 Promo Ad)
Mark Felt died yesterday. He was Deputy Director of the FBI back in the days of Watergate, and he worked for J. Edgar Hoover and his fey pal Clyde Tolsen when the long reign of the cult of the personality that built the Bureau was ending. "Jedgar," as we called him fondly, blackmailed his way across five Adminstrations to keep his job, and never had any of the dirt used against him, except maybe by the Mob who strangely got away with a lot.
The journalists with whom Mark Felt collaborated say he never really did understand his nick-name, which was derived from the Linda Lovelace mainstream porn movie of the time.
The fact that he worked for Hoover and his insepar able companion Tolsen made it all the more delicious.
I didn’t like Hoover then, and I don’t like him now, even if I occasionally stop by his grave at the sad and bedraggled Congressional Cemetery over on the shores of the Anacostia river. It is a pleasant place, and the Director’s tomb is well kept and has a nice bench on which to sit and contemplate eternity.
It was funny about Deep Throat, I thought Felt had been dead a long time. I must have confused the flurry about revelation of his identity as the man who brought down the Nixon Administration with the news of his demise.
The rest of town is buzzing with the revelation that Admiral Denny Blair is going to be tapped by the President-elect to be the next Director of National Intelligence, replacing Mike McConnell, who will finally be able to go home and get a good night’s sleep.
Denny is a former Rhodes Scholar, which was his connection to the Clintons and the Democratic National Security community. He is 61, and a career naval officer, rather than a spook. The last time we tried this was with the lamentable choice of Stansfield Turner, who was contemptuous of spies, and thought the truth could be told from orbiting satellites. He was a disaster.
Denny has a much better feel for how things really work. The problem confronting him is not just the bad guys who want to blow us up. He is going to be responsible for 16 intelligence agencies in a shrinking budgetary environment, and that is a perilous place to be. All those bureaucrats with internet connections and live telephones on their desks. It is quite a challenge when they get offended at something, and decide to take their complaints anonymously to the press.
Mark Felt was 95 when he passed away, which is a pretty good run for a sneaking bastard who cashed his pension for thirty years after betraying his oath of office. The way it is portrayed, he had a beef with not being selected to be the Director of the Bureau, and decided to take his revenge on the people who actually turned out to be pretty good judges of people.
Mark Felt was a disloyal and untrustworthy employee. Why would you want someone just as manipulative as Hoover to be chief of the Bureau?
Say what you will about Dick Nixon, since it is all true. In the end, he was brought down by a government employee who was paid by the taxpayer, swore to keep his mouth shut as condition of employment, and enjoyed great authority as Deputy Director.
For most of us, if you see something that stinks, you are obligated to resign and tell the truth. That is a serious bit of business, if pension and mortgage are on the line, and something not to be taken lightly. That is why what Mark did is so breathtaking. Not that he told the truth about a high-stakes mat ter of national security, but that he did so anonymously and continued to take the King’s gold while he betrayed him.
It is a peculiar part of being on the shore of the big Washington stream. The rumors and leaks and outright betrayals are part of life, but galling. Periodically big secrets pop out in books that get the story completely bass-ackwards. I remember one that was spectacular. The journalist in question had disclosed some secrets that were so big that dozens of people could have been killed if the timing was right, and a colossal intelligence stream suddenly was compromised and rendered useless.
If the taxpayers had any idea what the whole thing cost they might be amazed, but of course that was in the days when we knew what money was worth.
I can’t give you any more than that, since we were all sworn to secrecy and I have oaths on file in several safes around town. The fact that the operations are long concluded and the secrets published don’t relieve us of the obligation to be circumspect.
I got a note in the mail that said there would be more disclosures coming in the Spring publishing list, and even if you can buy them and read them on the bus we are still supposed to keep our traps shut.
I should note that the journalist who makes his living disclosing secrets is still alive and doing very well. He knew Mark Felt, too, in a very deep and personal way.
’s. He is pretty good about keeping his moth shut if they happen to be about protecting his sources and methods. There is a paycheck involved, you know?
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com