Author Now Suspects 'Deep Throat' Was -- Drumroll, Please -- George H.W. Bush

By E&P Staff

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/art ... 1000789447

NEW YORK The author of the 1993 biography of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Deep Truth,” today named George H.W. Bush the new chief suspect as famed Watergate source Deep Throat.

The “outing” was timed to the opening of the two reporters’ Watergate archives at the University of Texas.

The author of several books for major publishers, Adrian Havill says his claim is based on recent events and his own research at the the National Archives. He announced the “finding” in a letter posted at the Romenesko site at the Poynter Institute.

Havill, author of a book about FBI double agent Robert Hanssen, “The Spy who Stayed Out of the Cold,” formerly believed that the Deep Throat character was a composite of several sources.

Among the suggestive evidence he cited for his new theory:

“Did Bush have motivation? You bet,” Havill wrote. “It was Richard Nixon who urged Bush to leave a safe seat in Congress, hinting there would be a position as assistant Secretary of the Treasury waiting for him if he failed to win a Senate seat held by Ralph Yarborough. When Bush lost, Nixon reneged and asked him to take the U.N. slot instead but teased him by hinting he would be the replacement for Spiro Agnew in 1972. Instead, he was given the thankless task of heading the Republican National Committee in 1973. The elder Bush got his revenge in the end, by standing up at a cabinet meeting in August of 1974 and becoming the first person in Nixon's inner circle to ask the President to resign.

Havill also pointed out that, like Woodward, Bush was a Yalie and a Navy man. And he recalled that Woodward in his 1998 book, “Shadow,” boasted that Bush had aides drop off “classified documents to his home which became the basis of a Washington Post front page story.”

Furthermore, George W. Bush, to the surprise of many, gave Woodward seven hours of interviews and urged his cabinet to cooperate with Woodward on book projects.

wowzers...thats interesting

Well, that means we got at least a decade until we know, H.W. ain't dying anytime soon.

I'm not sure I buy this. Bush seems to have had obvious motivation to fuck Nixon, but I don't see how he would have had access to the information in the way that some of the other names I've heard over the years did. A University of Illinois professor and his class determined that the most likely candidate in their analysis was Pat Buchanan, but I've seen a few holes in that theory as well, including timelines of when Buchanan knew certain things and when Woodward learned them.

Bush did kill John Lennon though.

--PunkDavid

I would imagine such an article is simply to promote the upcoming documentary (due to be released in March) on the making of the film and its place in history.

c-

The more I think about this, the less I beleive it was Bush.

Deep Throat was a Republican insider. He demonstrated through his actions of taking down his president because of that president's abuses of power that he cared more about his country than he did about his party, his position, or his personal safety.

As I said in a thread a few weeks ago, Pat Buchanan is someone whom I have never once doubted the sincerity of his patriotism. Bush, and all the Bushes, have always been "company men", more concerned with power and loyalty to the powers that they serve than to any high ideals.

I don't buy it.

--PunkDavid

never questioned his patriotism or his racism?

Oh, I think he's a racist, and lots of other things, but I also believe that in his heart, he thinks he acts primarily in the interest of his country. Above his personal gain, above his party, and above all else.

One thing we know about deep throat is that he had deep convictions. George Bush is an opportunist, not a man of deep convictions. Pat Buchanan is a man of deep convictions.

--PunkDavid

this is true.

but, do you dismiss the supposition that deep throat was actually more than one person?

No. There is a lot to suggest that.

--PunkDavid

Bush did run the CIA and his father was a senator. I think he had all the insider connections one might need. Still yet to be proven, but interesting nevertheless. I don't buy Buchannan because he's today such a Nixon apologist.

I love Deep Throat.

Best Porno ever.

The information Woodward claims to have recieved from Deep Throat was not the kind of thing the CIA or a former Senator would have known. They are the kinds of things that a special advisor to the president, the very first person that Nixon hired when he decided to run for president in 1966, would know because he was in the inner circle and part of many secret meetings. That person was Pat Buchanan.

--PunkDavid

Anyone see the interview with John Dean last night?


Deep Throat revealed? (Keith Olbermann)



SECAUCUS— The greatest mystery of 20th Century American politics may soon be solved.

We might shortly find out who "Deep Throat" was.

John Dean, the former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, whose testimony unlocked the enigma and the insidiousness of Watergate, wrote in The Los Angeles Times that an impeccable source has informed him that “Throat” is in ill health, that Bob Woodward has notified his colleagues at The Washington Post of this fact, and that an obituary has been prepared— almost certainly identifying the man behind the pseudonym.

John Dean will join me exclusively on Countdown tonight (Monday the 7th) to discuss what he’s learned— and how the roster of candidates may have been re-shaped by simple dint of the illness of one of the names on it.

For the record, Mr. Woodward is not commenting— and the Post’s executive editor says that Woodward hasn’t told him to make any special preparations. But an obit appears to be “in the can”— not by itself a necessarily revealing fact, because the likelihood is that the passing of the man himself would’ve merited such a notice with or without his status of journalistic legend.

If somehow you don't know who I'm talking about, “Deep Throat” was the pivotal source— still anonymous nearly 33 years later— in the coverage of the Watergate scandal by Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein, and their former editor Ben Bradlee, have vowed never to reveal his identify so long as he lived.

Contained in that edifice of anonymity is perhaps the most intricate of the many “Throat” conundrums. The man doesn’t want to be identified, and by implication, is not proud of his role in stabilizing the democracy— even though so many others are proud of him.

There seems to be something approaching a “Throat” Harmonic Convergence, just at the moment. Dean’s health scoop is unfolding, by extraordinary coincidence, just as the reportorial records of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are being formally unveiled in the permanent home, at the University of Texas—dedication ceremonies were Friday.

Make sure to bring the kids (“Ooooh, look, Timmy - Bernstein’s lunch voucher for August 22, 1972! Take a picture!”)

Dozens of individuals have been previously "outed" as "Deep Throat.” In an entertaining if not particularly scholarly book, former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment pointed the finger at Nixon attorney John Sears. Several others fingered Garment. Carl Bernstein's ex-wife said it was former FBI bigwig Mark Felt (it occurred to me in conversation the other night that there’s a whole clothing theme going on here: Felt, Garment, Sears…)

A computer-aided study by a journalism class at the University of Illinois concluded it was still another Nixon attorney, Fred Fielding. And John Dean himself, in a methodical, grid-by-grid, fact-by-fact electronic book for Salon three years ago, narrowed it down to appointment secretary Dwight Chapin, deputy press secretary Jerry Warren, and speechwriters Ray Price and Pat Buchanan.

Our colleague Mr. Buchanan has denied that. Regardless, Pat’s candidacy made for interesting television the other night. Carl Bernstein also wrote a great biography of the Pope, and when John Paul took ill, we interviewed Carl on Countdown. He was also interviewed on an MSNBC special hosted by—Pat Buchanan. It wasn’t necessarily Deep Throat interviewing one of “his” reporters, but it made a fascinating picture nonetheless.

Even at what may be the last hour of “Throat” speculation, new candidates are emerging. In a letter to Jim Romenesko's Media News blog on the Poynter organization's website, one of the hundreds of authors who dream of unmasking history's greatest anonymous source, wrote that "Deep Throat" was in fact President Nixon's Ambassador to the United Nations— a man named George Herbert Walker Bush.

Yeah, that George Herbert Walker Bush.

The purported motive, according to author Adrian Havill, was that the future 41st President was ticked off that Nixon had induced him to resign from Congress on a hint that he might make him his Vice-Presidential candidate in 1972— and then didn't.

This is not being taken particularly seriously by the many Throat-obsessives, and the former President's office told us Friday it would not even comment on the posting.

But it underscores how this one figure in the history of American politics— and journalism— continues to enthrall us.

And how much I have to ask John Dean about tonight.

You know, I really have to start watching Keith's show.


When is he on?

Its Pope John Paul.

That's what I was thinking. Appropriate alias too.

--PunkDavid

I think he's on at 8PM. I don't think I've ever watched an entire show, I usually watch O'Reilly. I read his blog on MSN, it's usually pretty entertaining.

hmm... Keith... or throwing things at the TV


this is going to be hard

Rhenquist.