Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
Article IndexBY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, the FBI invites the public to take a look inside the career of one of its heroic anti-heroes, the bureau insider better known as "Deep Throat."Mark Felt joined the FBI in January 1942 and rose through the ranks under the ambitious but eccentric regime of J. Edgar Hoover. Felt became acting associate director in May 1972, after the death of Hoover and the subsequent resignation of his close companion Clyde Tolson, who had held the number two post.
On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested during a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. While largely treated as unimportant by the political and media establishment, two local reporters at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, energetically pursued the case.
They were able to link the burglars to President Richard Nixon and his top advisors, through the Committee to re-elect the President. During the investigation of Nixon's misuse of government agencies for political ends, Woodward turned to a secret source inside the government, dubbed "Deep Throat" after a porn movie of the era.
The two reporters recounted messages using a flower-pot and late-night meetings in a parking garage. Through it all, though, they withheld the name of their high-level contact. Although occasionally mentioned in speculation over the years, Felt always denied any link. He finally uncloaked himself in a May 2005 article in Vanity Fair, 3.5 years before his death at age 95.
In many ways, Felt was the oddest of whistleblowers. He achieved prominence under Hoover, who pushed the idea that Dr. Martin Luther King was a communist and anti-Vietnam War activists were terrorists, and engaged in his own domestic spying. But Felt considered that Nixon had crossed the line by using the FBI and CIA to undermine the Constitution.
To provide a sense of the man, the FBI has posted documents from Felt's personnel file on its website here: http://vault.fbi.gov/mark-felt
For instance, a 1963 performance rating praised Felt's "outstanding abilities." It noted he had been promoted after demonstrating "superior and analytical ability and unusually fine initiative."
In April 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal, the FBI's then-Director L Patrick Gray sent Felt a letter praising the "dedication and loyalty you have exhibited during this past year," and nominated him for a public service award.
By Scott Zamost and Kyra Phillips, CNN Special Investigations Unit
January 27, 2011
Washington (CNN) -- An FBI employee shared confidential information with his girlfriend, who was a news reporter, then later threatened to release a sex tape the two had made.
A supervisor watched pornographic videos in his office during work hours while "satisfying himself."
And an employee in a "leadership position" misused a government database to check on two friends who were exotic dancers and allowed them into an FBI office after hours.
These are among confidential summaries of FBI disciplinary reports obtained by CNN, which describe misconduct by agency supervisors, agents and other employees over the last three years.