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Watergate reminds of
need for unnamed sources

THE ISSUE Former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt has acknowledged being the "Deep Throat" source during the Watergate scandal.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT by W. Mark Felt that he was the Washington Post's "Deep Throat" Watergate source comes at a time when the use of such sources is at risk. Felt's role in exposing wrongdoing in the Nixon White House should be uppermost in the minds of U.S. Supreme Court justices as they consider the Bush administration's attempt to send two reporters to prison for refusing to name their sources.

Felt performed an incalculable public service in meeting clandestinely with Post reporter Bob Woodward in a parking garage on many occasions over a two-year period to confirm information that Woodward and Carl Bernstein had gathered and to lead them in fruitful directions. Their reports led to numerous criminal prosecutions and a move in Congress to impeach the president, until Nixon resigned in August 1974.

Felt was the No. 2 official in the FBI and had direct knowledge of a coverup by the administration about involvement in an attempt to bug Democratic Party offices in the Watergate office building during the 1972 presidential campaign. Former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan has called Felt a "snake" and other former Nixon White House officials, some of whom served prison sentences for Watergate-related crimes, are joining in the assault on Felt's integrity.

They maintain that Felt should have taken his concerns about the coverup to higher-ups. However, newly appointed FBI Director L. Patrick Gray was a Nixon loyalist involved in the coverup. Attorney General John Mitchell had headed Nixon's re-election committee, which was at the heart of the scandal. Mitchell would serve 18 months in prison for Watergate crimes.

Felt was not pure during those years. He was angry about being passed over in the naming of Gray to succeed J. Edgar Hoover to head the FBI. Felt was convicted in 1980 for illegal break-ins by FBI agents in searches for members of the terroristic antiwar group the Weather Underground. While the conviction was on appeal, then-President Reagan pardoned him.

Whatever his motives were, Felt played an important -- perhaps vital -- role in bringing the corruption to light. Public officials continue to confide in reporters about government activities that deserve public exposure but would be met with retaliation if the whistleblower's name were divulged.

The Supreme Court is considering a case in which reporters for the New York Times and Time magazine have refused to appear before a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press. Plame was outed by conservative syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett has joined attorneys general from 33 other states in asking the high court to balance competing interests in deciding whether to protect journalists from naming their sources. A recollection of Watergate illustrates the need for protection of the free flow of information.

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