Former FBI associate director Mark Felt died in his sleep yesterday at 95, hailed as the source known as "Deep Throat" who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the Watergate case and send Richard Nixon packing. But was Felt really Deep Throat? And did "Deep Throat" really exist?
Felt was in the throes of senile dementia when his family helped him hobble out for a photo op three and a half years ago, and they admitted flat out that they helped granddad unspool his story in hopes of a payday.
Yes, it's apparent that Felt was a source for Woodward and Bernstein on th Watergate story but whether he was a shadowy figure, leaving secret codes and signals and offerin gup all that information, is still up for debate. Even before Woodstein's book All The Presidents' Men (not to be confused with All The Presidents' Movies, the miniseries from our pals at Frozen Pictures, now updated and soon to be released as the doco film, All The Presidents' Movies: The Movie (From The Birth of A Nation to Obama Nation) was completed, the project had been bought up by Robert Redford with a movie in mind, and it was Redford and the editors who suggested adding the character called Deep Throat as a dramatic-- and ultimately cinematic-- device.
There was no "Deep Throat" in the first draft, as Jonah Goldberg pointed out in the National Review a few months before Felt's family stood him up for the photo op:
"Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns's evidence was secondhand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein — the legendary Alice Mayhew — and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of All the President's Men contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.
"This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.
"Obst also runs down several of the implausible details about Deep Throat in the book..."
Woodward rushed out a book that spelled out his relationship with Felt shortly after Vanity Fair scooped him on his own story, but how much wa san
We realize that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
But why is the old media so quick to accept the legend as fact?
Felt was in the throes of senile dementia when his family helped him hobble out for a photo op three and a half years ago, and they admitted flat out that they helped granddad unspool his story in hopes of a payday.
Yes, it's apparent that Felt was a source for Woodward and Bernstein on th Watergate story but whether he was a shadowy figure, leaving secret codes and signals and offerin gup all that information, is still up for debate. Even before Woodstein's book All The Presidents' Men (not to be confused with All The Presidents' Movies, the miniseries from our pals at Frozen Pictures, now updated and soon to be released as the doco film, All The Presidents' Movies: The Movie (From The Birth of A Nation to Obama Nation) was completed, the project had been bought up by Robert Redford with a movie in mind, and it was Redford and the editors who suggested adding the character called Deep Throat as a dramatic-- and ultimately cinematic-- device.
There was no "Deep Throat" in the first draft, as Jonah Goldberg pointed out in the National Review a few months before Felt's family stood him up for the photo op:
"Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns's evidence was secondhand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein — the legendary Alice Mayhew — and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of All the President's Men contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.
"This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.
"Obst also runs down several of the implausible details about Deep Throat in the book..."
Woodward rushed out a book that spelled out his relationship with Felt shortly after Vanity Fair scooped him on his own story, but how much wa san
We realize that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
But why is the old media so quick to accept the legend as fact?
1 comment:
So, I do not really believe it will have effect.
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