Mark Felt--Deep Throat?

[Tim Gratz]

This topic needed a better title than "Interesting" so I took the liberty of giving it the property title.

A assume John can transfer the previous posts re this disclosure here.

Last I heard Woodward and Bernstein had yet to confirm Felt as Deep Throat.

Time will tell. Presumably fairly soon.

Query whether Felt as Deep Throat has any implications to the conspiratorial view of Watergate?

[Pat Speer]

I re-read every reference to Felt in my many Watergate books and have concluded that it was obviously him. He's just not as exciting as some of the other figures. Should have been solved a long time ago.

[Evan Burton]

I read that it had been confirmed by the Washington Post.

So how many of the pundits got it right, and how many got it wrong?

[Tim Gratz]

Evan, I have for a long time felt it was Felt. (Kidding, could not help myself!!)

[Evan Burton]

(groan!)

I suppose that it had to come up!

[John Simkin]

I have spent the last week in rural Spain and have been a long way from national newspapers and the internet. I only discovered this morning that Mark Felt had confessed to being Deep Throat. It has long been known that Felt was passing information to the press.

On 19th October, 1972, White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman told Nixon a secret source had identified Felt as someone who was leaking information about Watergate to the press. Nixon considered sacking Felt but Haldeman urged caution: "He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything... If we move on him, he’ll go out and unload everything."

Nixon knew that Felt had complained bitterly to L. Patrick Gray when he had stopped Charles Nuzum, the FBI agent in charge of the Watergate investigation, from interviewing Ken Dahlberg and Manual Ogarrio. Gray claimed that it was Vernon Walters, deputy director of the CIA, who was applying pressure on the FBI not to interview these two men. It was claimed that these interviews would “imperial a CIA operation”. The truth of the situation was that Walters and Gray were both being pressurized by Nixon not to carry out a full investigation into Watergate. Both Gray and Walters were Nixon appointees and had been long time political associates of the president.

Felt, on the other hand had as a young man been active in the Democratic Party and had worked closely with James Pope, the senator from Idaho in the 1930s. This is interesting story in itself as Pope lost his seat after discovering details of corruption concerning arms dealings during the First World War. (I will post more about this fascinating story later).

Several writers have suggested that Mark Felt was Deep Throat. This includes Ronald Kessler (The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI), James Mann (Atlantic Monthly) and Jack Limpert (Washingtonian). The first person to provide any real evidence that Felt was Deep Throat was Chase Culeman-Beckman. The 17 year old exposed Felt in high-school history paper in 1999. He revealed how as a 8 year old he was told Deep Throat’s identity by Jacob Bernstein, the son of Carl Bernstein. Culeman-Beckman's history teacher was not impressed and did not even give the essay an 'A' grade.

The reason why Felt has so far been rejected as a serious Deep Throat candidate concerns the information he was giving to Woodward. Some of it did include evidence acquired from the FBI investigation. As associate director, it was Felt's responsibility to compile all the information that came from all FBI agents before it was sent to L. Patrick Gray.

However, most of the important information that Deep Throat revealed did not come from the FBI. Instead it came from the CIA and the White House. How did Felt get hold of this information?

For example, one of the most important pieces of information Deep Throat gave Woodward was that Nixon’s was tapping his conversations at the White House. Woodward leaked this information to a staff member of Sam Ervin Committee. He in turn told Sam Dash and as a result Alexander P. Butterfield was questioned about the tapes. Only a very small number of people knew about the existence of these tapes. If Felt knew about these tapes he had his own Deep Throat. I suspect that was William Sullivan, his former colleague at the FBI who was working for the White House during this period (Nixon employed him in this role after he was sacked by Hoover).

Felt, who leaked information to Time Magazine about what became known as the “Kissinger taps”, later admitted that he got this information from Sullivan (one of the first things that Sullivan had done when he was appointed by Nixon was to transfer the wiretap logs to the White House). Sullivan was playing a double-game. He provided information to Nixon about the CIA role in the assassination of JFK. It was this information that Nixon tried to use to control Helms. However, Sullivan, like Felt, was a pro-Kennedy Democrat. I imagine they combined forces to bring down Nixon. I suspect they also had help from Richard Ober of the CIA in carrying out this task.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKfeltM.htm

[Tim Gratz]

Evan wrote: (groan!)

I suppose that it had to come up!

Evan, it gets WORSE! On the thread "Mark Felt-Hero or Villian" Pat Speer wrote:

"Felt loyal to Hoover. . ."

I guess he could not being himself to write what he meant, to-wit: "Felt felt close to Hoover. . ."

I guess I should have assumed what Pat meant. Therefore, I could write, in all good faith: "Pat felt Felt felt loyal to Hoover."

Boy, enough said!

[Pat Speer]

For example, one of the most important pieces of information Deep Throat gave Woodward was that Nixon’s was tapping his conversations at the White House. Woodward leaked this information to a staff member of Sam Ervin Committee. He in turn told Sam Dash and as a result Alexander P. Butterfield was questioned about the tapes. Only a very small number of people knew about the existence of these tapes. If Felt knew about these tapes he had his own Deep Throat. I suspect that was William Sullivan, his former colleague at the FBI who was working for the White House during this period (Nixon employed him in this role after he was sacked by Hoover).

Felt, who leaked information to Time Magazine about what became known as the “Kissinger taps”, later admitted that he got this information from Sullivan (one of the first things that Sullivan had done when he was appointed by Nixon was to transfer the wiretap logs to the White House). Sullivan was playing a double-game. He provided information to Nixon about the CIA role in the assassination of JFK. It was this information that Nixon tried to use to control Helms. However, Sullivan, like Felt, was a pro-Kennedy Democrat. I imagine they combined forces to bring down Nixon. I suspect they also had help from Richard Ober of the CIA in carrying out this task.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My understanding is that Felt knew about the Sullivan taps, but that the Committee's questions about Nixon taping himself were inspired by John Dean's telling them he suspected Nixon was taping their "cancer on the Presidency" tconversation of March 73. Dean told them Nixon kept whispering things and behaving oddly, if I'm not mistaken. Dash's book might clear this up...one of the Watergate books I don't have..yet. I also have my doubts that Sullivan and Felt were chummy enough to team up on anything. As Tim has pointed out, Felt was overly loyal to Hoover, and Sullivan had become persona non grata to those around Hoover.

I also have read Vernon Walters' book, Silent Misssions. Walters seems very much to have been his own man, as testified to by his long career serving administrations both left and right. His notes on the conversations with Haldeman were some of the strongest evidence provided the Committee, and would have been exhibit A in the case for impeachment, as they confirmed what was discussed on the smoking gun tape was not just talk, but was actually put into action. I believe it was Walters who made the decision for the CIA to stop cooperating with Nixon re Watergate, and that he ran this by Helms, who gave him the okay. Accordingly, I don't believe history will record that he was Nixon's puppet.

An enlightening story I remember from Walters' book is his recount of the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran. Walters, who spoke a number of languages fluently, visited with Mossadegh with Averill Harriman, basically begging Mossadegh to restore the property of the oil companies, and to stomp down communism. (This story is one of the many reasons I laugh whenever Tim says Harriman was a communist.) Anyhow, Walters writes how Mossadegh felt politically helpless to act, and that he knew when they left that the U.S. would be using its resources (The Shah, Kim Roosevelt) to overthrow him. Walters has nothing but kind words to say of the man, and seems quite relieved that Mossadegh was not killed in the overthrow. In short, Walters was an interesting and independent man and not the cold warrior one might expect from John's post..

[Pat Speer]

more on Walters, who went on to become U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under Reagan and was awarded the medal of freedom by Bush I.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Gen. Vernon Walters

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Gen. Vernon A. Walters

VERNON A. WALTERS

Awarded by

President George Bush

November 18, 1991

As a soldier and statesman, General Vernon Walters has made service to his country his life's work. He served six Presidents with distinction during a half century of kaleidoscopic change, from World War II through the long Cold War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He has served on the battlefields of Europe and in the councils of NATO, at the UN and CIA, as Ambassador and aide to Presidents. This extraordinary adventurer and intellectual has offered his diplomatic, linguistic, and tactical skills to the cause of world peace and individual liberty. America honors this steadfast defender of our interests and ideals, this true champion of freedom.

Biography

Vernon Walters, Legend of Diplomacy, Dies at 85

He was at Nixons' side during Caracas riot

February 14, 2002

The Nixon Foundation was deeply saddened to learn of the death of a great American and friend of President and Mrs. Nixon, Lt. Gen. Vernon A. Walters.

Below are obituaries of Gen. Walters from the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies.

Walters Served Seven Presidents

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Retired Lt. Gen. Vernon A. Walters,

an aide to seven presidents and a

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Gen. Vernon A. Walters center, interprets during meeting between Special Assistant to President Truman Averell Harriman and Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, 1951.

Vernon Walters, center, interprets during meeting between Special Assistant to President Truman Averell Harriman and Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, 1951.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Germany, has died. He was 85.

Walters died Sunday of undisclosed causes at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

The internationally decorated Army veteran had a long career in public service. He helped shape the Marshall Plan after World War II, served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency during Watergate, briefed Henry Kissinger on the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War and became a member of the NATO Standing Group.

"He rose to excellence in every profession he entered -- soldier, intelligence officer, diplomat," CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday.

"With his remarkable knowledge of the world, and his passion to see it changed for the better, he will remain for us an example of what the very best in our field must always be," Tenet said.

Walters remained involved in government service into the early 1990s. Asked in an interview with The Associated Press in 1991 what kept him going after 50 years of service, the longtime Cold Warrior replied: "My perception that the United States was the only real chance freedom had to survive in the world."

Longtime friend Gen. Alexander Haig called Walters "a man of towering integrity" and "one of the most remarkable public servants I have ever known."

Born in New York City, Walters' family moved to Europe when he was 6. There he learned in French, Spanish, Italian and German. He later became fluent in Portuguese, Chinese and Russian.

Walters' linguistic skills and photographic memory opened doors for him during his 35-year military career and later diplomatic work.

His translation of one speech by President Nixon drew the attention of French President Charles De Gaulle.

"He said to the President, 'Nixon, you gave a magnificent speech, but your interpreter was eloquent,'" Haig said.

In the 1991 interview, Walters said one of his most memorable moments was a 1957 tour with then-Vice President Nixon to South America.

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Gen. Vernon Walters with President Richard M. Nixon

Walters and RN at a press conference in Venezuela

While driving past anti-U.S. protesters in Caracas, Venezuela, Nixon's car was attacked by a shower of stones. One of the projectiles smashed Walters' window, spraying him with glass and cutting him in the mouth.

According to Walters, Nixon told him, "Spit that glass out -- you are going to have a lot more talking to do in Spanish for me today."

Walters also worked for President Eisenhower as a staff assistant, arranged trips abroad for President Kennedy and served President Reagan as a diplomatic troubleshooter.

As an aide to President Truman, he was the note-taker when the president fired Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

He was in Tehran in 1953 when the CIA staged a coup in support of the shah of Iran and in Brazil when a group of generals staged a coup in 1964.

During secret negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam, he had the task of smuggling Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, into Paris.

Walters was deputy director of the CIA from 1972 to 1976 and acting director for a period in 1973.

From 1981 to 1985, he was ambassador at large in the Reagan administration, visiting more than 100 countries. He was ambassador to the United Nations from 1985 to 1988 and then ambassador to Germany until 1991.

Walters, who never married, is to be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery early next month.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[John Simkin]

This is the best article I have discovered on the Mark Felt story:

Cliff Kincaid, Was Mark Felt Really Deep Throat? (3rd June, 2005)

History professor Joan Hoff of Montana State University, an expert on the Watergate scandal, finds it interesting that Bob Woodward is claiming that he had a close relationship with former FBI official Mark Felt, now identified as Deep Throat, when Felt suffers from serious health problems, including dementia, and can’t deny it. “It’s just like when he said he interviewed (former CIA director Bill) Casey when Casey was comatose,” she says.

Len Colodny, co-author of Silent Coup, about the “removal” of President Nixon, finds the identification of Mark Felt as Deep Throat to be rather remarkable: “A Deep Throat who can’t talk.”

The fact is, as AIM founder Reed Irvine documented, Woodward has been known to make things up. Woodward’s Casey “interview” is a case in point. As Reed noted, “In his 1987 book, Veil, Woodward claimed he had interviewed William J. Casey, the CIA director, after Casey had brain surgery and could not speak intelligibly. Woodward didn’t know that, and he made up an interview in which Casey is supposed to have spoken 19 intelligible words. It was clear that this was a falsification not only because of Casey’s condition, but because his hospital room was guarded and Woodward was never admitted to it.”

Hoff believes the identification of Deep Throat is part of “an orchestrated publicity stunt on the part of the Post and Woodward” because Woodward plans to publish his own book on Felt. “Lo and behold,” says Hoff, “Felt’s family decides he’s Deep Throat and Felt can’t say whether he is or not, and we get the big story.”

In fact, despite his serious health problems, Felt can still utter a few words. He was captured on film outside his home yesterday saying that he enjoyed the publicity and that, “I’ll arrange to write a book or something, and collect all the money I can.” A New York Times account indicates that members of the Felt family have been envious of the money that will be made from the Deep Throat disclosures and that they were trying to pursue their own book deal independent of Woodward after he rebuffed their pleas for a collaborative effort.

Felt seems to have been a source of some kind for Woodward. But was he the source known as Deep Throat? Hoff isn’t the only one who has some doubts.

Colodny says that what is known about Felt “doesn’t match what Woodward wrote in his book. He describes Deep Throat as someone he had known for a long time and had many discussions about power in Washington and so on. There’s not a shred of evidence that Felt is that person.”

In the June 2 Post, Woodward describes for the first time the details of his “friendship” with Felt. They are said to have met accidentally when Woodward, then a young Navy Lieutenant, was delivering Navy documents to the White House in 1970. Hoff points out that Felt, because of his severe memory problems, can’t deny any of this and the account “is based only and exclusively on Woodward’s word.”

But there are other reasons to doubt that Felt is Deep Throat.

Colodny and Hoff point to the claim in the Woodward/Bernstein book, All the President’s Men, that Deep Throat provided the Post reporters exclusive information about the “deliberate erasures,” as “Throat” told Woodward in November of 1973, on the White House tapes. “There’s no reason to believe that Felt had access to that information because it was closely held in the White House,” says Colodny, “and Felt had left the FBI in April - six months earlier.”

Hoff agrees. “It’s conceivable that as the second in command at the FBI, the deputy director, he could have gotten information from somebody about this,” she said. “But I don’t think he gave them this information. I think it was somebody in the White House. At that point, the White House was so embattled over the tapes and the possible subpoena (of them), there were only 3 or 4 people who had access to those tapes.”

That means, apparently, that either Felt is not Deep Throat or that he had his own Deep Throat.

But if Felt did somehow have access to that information and provided it to Woodward, important questions are raised.

“The guy is deputy director of the FBI,” Colodny says. “Why is he not protecting the tapes? Why is he not arresting the people who are doing this? Why doesn’t he go to (Watergate Judge John) Sirica’s court, which is hearing this? He’s a sworn law enforcement officer. He knows there’s a crime being committed. But instead of doing something about it, he goes in a garage and talks to Woodward.”

Hoff makes the same basic point. “He is the top law enforcement officer in the country because there’s only an acting director (of the FBI) at that point,” says Hoff. “Why didn’t he go to Sirica or a grand jury and blow the story open?”

If Felt was concerned about the hostility between the FBI and President Nixon, Hoff counters, “This is the very story that he could have killed the Nixon Administration with. Why in God’s name would a top law enforcement officer meet in a garage with a rookie reporter and give him this information? It makes no sense.”

Hoff predicts that the story will rebound to the discredit of Woodward. It’s another flashy story, she concedes, “but I think they made a mistake in choosing Felt.”

Last February 4, when the University of Texas in Austin opened the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Watergate papers (for which it had paid them $5 million), Hoff participated in a symposium with Woodward and suggested that he put Deep Throat on videotape. Hoff wrote that she told Woodward that “he should video tape that individual as soon as possible so the public could be sure of the authenticity of the man Woodward would ultimately reveal as Deep Throat when the person could not deny it.”

Of course, this should have been done years ago. The Felt family has affirmed the Deep Throat designation but it’s now clear that they had a financial interest in doing so as well. And the questions about the conspiracy behind the Watergate conspiracy will be shunted aside and will remain unanswered.

[Douglas Caddy]

I find it interesting that Mr. Caddy is involved in this aspect of the Crime/Investigation in light of his apparent involvement representing the "Burglars" at the onset of the Watergate investigation.

See PG 10 of this PDF from the Nat'l Archives describing the FBI's early efforts:

Memorandum, L. M. Walters to Mr. Felt, "Subject: Watergate," May 23, 1973 - File # 139-4089-2261x

Is this simply a coincidence that several of these men are suspected conspirators in the assassination as well?

Chris

PS I think the Wallace's print that was identified in the TSBD is one of the most important leads to surface in the last 43 years. What was he doing there if he wasn't a "shooter"?

In regard to the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 prepared by L. M. Walters for Mark Felt that mentions my name in several places, I would merely point out that my role in Watergate is explained in prior posts in the Forum that draw upon my manuscript published in The Advocate magazine of August 16, 2005.

In brief, I was retained as an attorney in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972 by Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy to represent them in the case and to represent the five persons arrested within the Democratic Party's national headquarters.

My manuscript and the article that accompanied it in The Advocate can be read in their entirety using links provided in the Forum or provided by Google after typing in Douglas Caddy.

However, it may appropriate for me at this time to provide some additional information, especially since Mr. Newton ties my representation of these individuals to the JFK assassination.

(1) At the time the assassination occurred, I was enrolled in New York University Law School. I also was employed in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, located at 22 West 55th St, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I received a phone call within minutes of the shooting of President Kennedy from a friend on Wall Street, who had read about it on the AP wires, and immediately informed Lt.-Gov. Wilson and Gov. Rockefeller's staff, none of whom had heard what had happened.

(2) The Walters' memorandum to Mark Felt of 5/23/1973, prepared in response to a directive of the prior day from Felt, is interesting in what is left out of the FBI document. This is the fact that it was Mark Felt who was Deep Throat and who was supplying Woodward and Bernstein with the inside information of the FBI's investigation. Felt's role is described in Woodward's book published last year, The Secret Man.

Not only is Mark Felt's role as Deep Throat left out of the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 but also omitted is the evidence that Felt was the primary cause of the Watergate coverup.

The evidence is as follows: I was retained by Hunt and Liddy on June 17, the day of the burglary. On June 28, 11 days later, while I was in the U.S. Court House working on my clients' case, I was served with a subpoena to appear Forthwith before the federal grand jury. Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Campbell physically pulled me by my arm into the grand jury room. Over the next three weeks I was to testify five times before the grand jury. I refused to answer a number of questions that I believed violated the attorney-client privilege but did so ultimately after being held in contempt of court by Judge Sirica and the contempt citation being affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

All of these events so early in the case were reported by Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post. These events had the effect of convincing my clients that they could not receive a fair trial if I as their attorney were being so badly treated. So they embarked on the coverup.

Operating behind the scenes and as an instigator of my being served with a subpoena on June 28, 1972, was Mark Felt. The role of the FBI towards me, under Felt's direction, is described in a two-part article in The Advocate of Feb. 23 and March 9, 1977 titled, Revelations of a Gay Informant: I Spied for the FBI. The article is part-interview with and part-reporting concerning the gay informant, Carl Robert 'Butch' Merritt. Merritt had been employed by the FBI, under Felt's direction, and by the Washington, D.C. police, to infiltrate and spy on the New Left, which was then engaged in vocal dissent against the Vietnam war. (Felt was subsequently indicted and convicted for some of his activities against the New Left. More on this later.)

The following is excerpted from the 1977 Advocate article:

Two days after the Watergate burglary, Carl Shoffler (one of Merritt's former police contacts) turned up with Sgt. Paul Leeper (these officers had been two of the three to have arrested the burglars) with what Merritt recalls as an offer of ˜the biggest, most important assignment" he'd ever had.

The officers, Merritt said, asked if he knew one of the Watergate attorneys. ˜They said he was gay." Merritt did not. They asked if I could get to know him. I asked them why. We'd like you to get as close as possible, they said, to find out all you can about his private life, even what he eats. Merritt says he explained that even if the attorney was gay, it wouldn't be likely that he could arrange to meet him. They said I would be paid quite well, that they weren't talking about dimes and quarters, that they were talking about ˜really big money".

Merritt says that he refused the offer, but that police kept returning to him with the same request, as late as December 1972, months after the city's police claimed to have ended their Watergate investigation.

Police, Merritt says, also tried to recruit him to inform on the gay community. He says he refused these offers as well.

The police and the FBI, Merritt charges, began to harass him soon after he was dropped by the bureau. ˜They threatened my life, broke into my apartment at least three times, they tried to plant drugs on me, they tapped my phone," Merritt charges.

Jim Hougan, in his 1984 book Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, wrote about Merritt's allegations:

"If we are to believe the disaffected informant, [police officer] Shoffler told him to establish a homosexual relationship with Douglas Caddy, stating falsely that Caddy was gay and a supporter of Communist causes."

As I have written in a prior post in the Forum, it was Edward Miller, a former Assistant FBI Director, who arranged for me in 1984 to visit with Assistant Attorney General Stephen Trott in the U.S. Department of Justice about Billie Sol Estes' desire to come clean with what he knew about LBJ and the Kennedy assassination.

At the time Miller was employed under a 1984 Moody Foundation grant to formulate strategy to combat Terrorism, being so engaged many years before it became the worldwide threat.

Previously, Miller had been convicted along with Mark Felt for "black bag" activities that they had carried out against the New Left in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Their trial and convictions were protested at the time by rank-and-file FBI agents across the country. Not long after his first election as President, Ronald Reagan set aside the convictions of Miller and Felt and granted them Presidential pardons. Reagan, who personally was sympathetic to the plight of Miller and Felt, did so upon the recommendation of Assistant Attorney General Trott.

In 1984, Miller told me that Mark Felt desired to meet me. At the time I only knew of Felt's role with Miller in the "black bag" case and subsequent Presidential pardons. I was unaware of Felt's role in Watergate. When Miller did introduce me to Felt at a meeting that took place in Washington, I found the occasion disconcerting because it became obvious from Felt's attitude towards me that he knew something that I did not. This was cleared up with the revelation last year that Felt was Deep Throat all during the time that he had directed the FBI's investigation into Watergate.

This is why I maintain Mark Felt, in addition to being Deep Throat, also engaged in outrageous official FBI activities that spurred Hunt and Liddy to embark upon the Watergate coverup, the subsequent exposure of which brought lasting fame and fortune to Felt and to Woodward and Bernstein.

[Ashton Gray]

UPDATE This post was not really on-topic for this thread, so I've expanded it a bit and put it into its own thread, and hope that Mr. Caddy will be gracious enough to put any replies there instead of here, which I also have asked of him in a private message.

In regard to the FBI memorandum of 5/23/1973 prepared by L. M. Walters for Mark Felt that mentions my name in several places, I would merely point out that my role in Watergate is explained in prior posts in the Forum that draw upon my manuscript published in The Advocate magazine of August 16, 2005.

Hi, Mr. Caddy. I read your article with a great deal of interest, and while it and your posts that I've read here seem to focus mainly on those dramatic events following the fateful night of 16-17 June 1972, I wonder if you would be able to shed some light on parts of the backstory that are intriguing, but--well, "sketchy"--and that go to whether "Deep Throat" has any more substance than Marley's ghost, or a morsel of undigested cheese that might have given rise to such an apparition.

I'll try to be as specific as possible on some of the things I'm curious about, which the available literature doesn't seem to address in any measurable depth.

• When CIA veteran E. Howard Hunt was hired at the Mullen Company on 1 May 1970, pursuant to a recommendation from DCI Richard Helms, the Mullen company had been cooperating with CIA, including providing overseas cover for CIA agents, for at least seven years. The Stockholm, Sweden office of Mullen was "staffed, run, and paid for by CIA." According to the available record, at least eight people in the D.C. Mullen office, where you worked, had been "cleared and made witting of Agency ties."
  1. Were you cleared and witting of the Mullen company's involvement with CIA?
     
  2. If so, what was the nature and scope of your clearances?
     

• From my understanding of the record, not many months after Hunt arrived at Mullen--in or around November 1970--you moved from Mullen to Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen, and at about the same time, Hunt became a client a Gall Lane, and you were one of the attorneys working with Hunt. You've said you consulted with Hunt regarding probate and "other matters."
  1. What were the "other matters"?
     
  2. Did you have CIA clearances or other clearances from any intelligence branch or agency at any relevant time? If so, why?
     
  3. Did the probate matters include Dorothy Hunt's probate?
     
  4. What was Meade Emory's role?
     

• Please bear with me in establishing a brief history for these next questions, but still focusing on November 1970 and your move to Gall Lane: around the same time Robert Mardian approached G. Gordon Liddy and asked Liddy to take an undescribed position that Liddy says was "super-confidential." Liddy had already been granted "special clearances" by CIA a year earlier, in December 1969. Carrying forward to 1971: Hunt (your client) and Liddy had secure lines in Room 16 for communicating directly to Langley. In August 1971 Liddy was in regular communication with "State and CIA," including direct conversations with DCI Richard Helms, and during that month both Hunt (your client) and Liddy were provided with CIA documentation for phony IDs. Continuing into February 1972, Liddy and Hunt (your client) met with a "retired" CIA doctor to discuss indetectable means of assassination, then Liddy met on 22 February 1972 with undisclosed CIA officials in relation to the "special clearances" he was carrying. Within only about a week of that meeting, on or around 1 March 1972, you started doing unspecified "legal tasks" for G. Gordon Liddy leading up to the Watergate activities, so were involved in a legal relationship with both "commanders" of everything Watergate: Liddy and Hunt.
  1. What was the nature of the "legal tasks" you were doing for Liddy?
     
  2. Did you have any clearances, special or otherwise, from CIA or any other intelligence branch or agency at relevant times? If so, what was the nature and scope, and why?
     

• Taking you back in time, if I may, like some ghost of Christmas past, to E. Howard Hunt's move, in May 1970, from CIA Central to the CIA Mullen branch, he hadn't been "retired" from CIA for more than a month before a special Covert Security Approval was requested through CIA for him under "Project QK/ENCHANT." You were still at the Mullen branch with him.
  1. Did you have a clearance for QK/ENCHANT at any relevant time?
     
  2. Do you know anything about why the "retired" Howard Hunt almost immediately needed this special clearance?
     

I'm sorry for having had to include as much establishing information as I did, but it's scattered throughout so many different sources that I thought others here may not be entirely familiar with the context given above, and I didn't want you to have to spend the time explaining it. I'd rather you just be able to focus on the questions themselves, and any light you can shed would be of inexpressible value.

Thanks so much for your time.

Ashton Gray

Edited June 10, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[James Richards]

Just to add another dimension to this, in April of 1976, Rolling Stone published an article by Howard Kohn saying that Deep Throat was Robert Bennett and that he was acting on behalf of the CIA to protect the agency from media scrutiny.

Kohn cites his sources as an unnamed CIA operative and Watergate investigator.

In an interview with Bill O'Reilly in 1977, Frank Sturgis also claimed Deep Throat was Bennett.

FWIW.

James

[Ashton Gray]

Just to add another dimension to this, in April of 1976, Rolling Stone published an article by Howard Kohn saying that Deep Throat was Robert Bennett and that he was acting on behalf of the CIA to protect the agency from media scrutiny.

Kohn cites his sources as an unnamed CIA operative and Watergate investigator.

In an interview with Bill O'Reilly in 1977, Frank Sturgis also claimed Deep Throat was Bennett.

FWIW.

James

Thanks, James. I'm sorry to be slow responding to this, but I've been attempting to organize a series of articles to post here when I can find a few minutes between work demands, so I'm juggling kittens.

I'm going to try to locate a copy of the Kohn article. I'd like to see it. While it may have legs, I currently consider Woodward, with his Naval Intelligence background, to have been all the "Deep Throat" the world needed. I believe his stories likely were essentially written before the events unfolded (at least the way the world has been told the events unfolded), and Bernstein got to ride in the sidecar.

I hope you'll follow the series of articles I'm putting together on the purported "first break-in" and related events that Memorial Day weekend. I'd like to get your take on them.

Ashton Gray

[James Richards]

Hi Ashton,

As to the Rolling Stone article, I too have been searching for it. I have only managed to find references to it in newspaper stories of the day.

As to Sturgis, one would have to view anything he said with some suspicion. He was trying to link the break-in as a CIA plot to bring down Nixon as he was getting too close to the facts behind the Kennedy assassinaton. Big Frank also managed to slip in that Jack Ruby had visited Castro ten weeks before the killing.

Like I said, a grain of salt.

James