FBI Agent who was Deep Throat Dies at 95
An FBI official who leaked information on the Watergate burglary and cover-up has died at the age of 95.
W. Mark Felt Sr., who was second-in-command under J. Edgar Hoover, died Thursday in a hospice near his home, report the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Felt was the source known as “deep throat” who provided information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He didn’t reveal his identity until 2005, when he spoke to Vanity Fair.
The Times sums up Felt’s impact this way: “Without Mr. Felt, there might not have been a Watergate—shorthand for the revealed abuses of presidential powers in the Nixon White House, including illegal wiretapping, burglaries and money laundering. Americans might never have seen a president as a criminal conspirator, or reporters as cultural heroes, or anonymous sources like Mr. Felt as a necessary if undesired tool in the pursuit of truth.”
