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Letter to the editor

Nixon suspected Felt might be Deep Throat, tapes show

By wire services
Published June 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - Nearly 15 months before his 1974 resignation, President Richard Nixon described W. Mark Felt as a traitor who should be required to take a lie detector test, according to previously undisclosed tapes of White House conversations stored at the National Archives.

Felt was identified this week as the Washington Post's source known as Deep Throat in the Watergate investigation. While a national debate has developed over whether Felt is a hero or a villain, tapes show Nixon had concluded as early as October 1972 that Felt, then the deputy director of the FBI, was leaking damaging information on the Watergate scandal.

The newly disclosed tapes also showed Nixon and his aides believed Felt was leaking information to the New York Times and Time magazine on a variety of topics, including wiretaps of news reporters and a White House-authorized break-in into the office of psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who earlier had leaked the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's internal history of decisionmaking during the Vietnam War.

In a tape recorded on May 12, 1973, Nixon brought up Felt's name in a telephone conversation with chief of staff Alexander Haig, saying that Felt had apparently "blown the whistle" on the administration's involvement in investigating Ellsberg.

Referring to Felt, Nixon told Haig, "Everybody is to know that he is a g-- d--- traitor and just watch him damned carefully."

But he said he was going to leave it to the "new man to clean house" at the FBI, referring to William Ruckelshaus, who had just been named acting director to replace L. Patrick Gray.

Nixon said he found out from Time's attorney three or four months before this May meeting that Felt had leaked information to the magazine. He said he told Gray at the time to investigate leaks he said were coming from the FBI. Nixon said Gray denied the leaks were from the bureau.

"And I said we have it on very good authority that they're from Felt," Nixon said he told Gray. But when the acting FBI director said the leaked information couldn't be coming from Felt, Nixon said, "I said, "Damn it, there it may be and you ought to give him a lie detector test.' You know I was very tough." Gray told him he could not give Felt a lie detector test, and vouched for his deputy, as did Attorney General Richard Kleindienst.

But Nixon said Felt "has to go, of course" and added that "this guy ain't going to be the big hero now."

In a meeting a day earlier, on May 11, 1973, Haig and Nixon expressed their frustration over their belief that Felt had leaked damaging information, but were wary of removing him from office.

In the hours after the May 15, 1972, assassination attempt against Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, then a Democratic presidential candidate, Nixon counsel Chuck Colson is heard on tape urging Felt to aggressively pursue theories that the assassin may have been tied to Nixon nemesis Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., or the antiwar movement.

Felt, who was directing the Wallace investigation, phoned Nixon in the Oval Office, evidently in response to a message he received from the White House. Colson took the call and relayed the ideas as rumors that the White House was hearing from news reporters.

Colson discussed the "reports" at length. He went so far as to ask that Felt direct FBI agents to question Arthur Bremer, the Wallace shooting suspect who eventually was convicted in the case, about the rumors and raise the issues "early" in their interrogation.

"Be sure you push that Mark, just to be certain that they ask those kind of questions, you know, to get that kind of information," Colson said.

Felt told the presidential adviser, "We'll push it as hard as we can." But he expressed doubt, particularly on the idea of a Kennedy tie.

"I think that's probably a pretty wild rumor," Felt told Colson.

Shortly afterward, Felt called back to relay findings suggesting that Bremer was mentally disturbed.

In an Oct. 19, 1972, conversation between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff until Haig took over in early 1973, Haldeman said Felt was responsible for the leaks to the Post. "He knows everything there is to know in the FBI," Haldeman said. "He has access to absolutely everything."

When told that Felt was the suspected leaker, Nixon said, "Why in the hell would he do that?"

The disclosure of Deep Throat's name solved one of the last mysteries of the Watergate scandal, but triggered a debate about whether he is a hero or a villain.

To Nixon administration operatives like Colson, who was convicted of obstructing justice in the Watergate investigation; G. Gordon Liddy, convicted in the Watergate conspiracy; and Nixon speechwriter Patrick Buchanan, Felt was no hero.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reporters Felt gave information to said the source known as Deep Throat wrestled with whether he was doing the right thing.

Carl Bernstein disputed critics who say it would have been more honorable for Felt to resign as the FBI's deputy director. "Clearly this person wanted to effect some kind of end to the criminality and unconstitutionality of what was occurring," Bernstein said on ABC's Good Morning America.

Bob Woodward, speaking on the Today show, described Felt as "a very reluctant person in the turmoil of, "Am I doing the right thing, how do I get this out'."

"We had no idea of his motivations, and even now some of his motivations are unclear," Bernstein said on NBC.

Information from the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and the Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified June 3, 2005, 01:17:39]