WASHINGTON, Nov. 28, 2007
Nixon Papers Illuminate Deep Throat Link
White House Files Reveal President Nixed Bid To Make Mark Felt Head Of FBI
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Play CBS Video Video Secret Nixon Papers Released Just as the Bush administration pushes for peace in the Middle East, newly-released documents from the Nixon White House illustrate why a lasting peace has been so elusive. Wyatt Andrews reports.
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Joan Felt and her father W. Mark Felt appear in front of their home Tuesday, May 31, 2005. (AP)
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Mark Felt's devastating leaks as The Washington Post's secret Watergate source helped undermine Nixon's presidency. (CBS/AP)
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Interactive The Nixon Presidency Explore the era of triumphant diplomatic breakthroughs and the drama of Watergate.
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Interactive Deep Throat Naming names in a historic scandal
The National Archives released more than 10,000 pages of documents from the Nixon presidency on Wednesday and among them are the urgings of past and present FBI agents and other interested citizens to appoint Felt, then the No. 2 FBI official, as director. Associates described his "outstanding loyalty."
Nixon did not take the advice.
Ultimately, Felt's devastating leaks as The Washington Post's secret Watergate source helped undermine Nixon's presidency.
The documents, also shedding light on foreign and national security policy from the Nixon years, show increasing urgency in U.S. attempts to pacify the Middle East and alarm over Israel's apparent progress in developing nuclear weapons.
In a memo section starkly titled "WHAT WE WANT," national security adviser Henry Kissinger told Nixon that America's best play was to keep the Israeli bomb secret, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.
The files also show a wish to "manipulate relations with Saudis" to help broker peace and U.S. officials are seen weighing whether to support a Kurdish rebellion in Iraq.Read Kissinger's memo to Nixon
To combat the terrorist threat in the Mideast, the U.S. must focus on "political dialogue," said a March 1973 directive now echoed in this week's Mideast summit.
Nixon, soon to be consumed by the Watergate investigation, passed over career agents including Felt when he selected loyalist L. Patrick Gray as FBI chief after the J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, just weeks before the Watergate break-in. Gray resigned the next year because of allegations he had destroyed Watergate documents.
Felt's supporters weighed in, with letters, telegrams and cards that have been in Nixon's White House files all these years.
"He has the integrity, the ability, the experience and the image to insure that our FBI will continue to deserve and maintain world esteem," Harold L. Child Jr., legal attache to the embassy in Japan and a 30-year FBI veteran, told Nixon in an April 1973 letter.
Efton A. Stanfield, a former FBI special agent who was then an executive of the electrical contractors' association, asked Nixon in a telegram to turn to the career professional to replace Gray.
"Mr. Felt is a man of outstanding loyalty, character, reputation, habits," he said. The "fidelity, bravery, and integrity of Mr. Felt are unquestioned."
Felt himself was the lead agent in a telegram sent to the White House by a group of agents asking that a highly qualified professional be nominated. The police chief in Kodiak, Alaska, made the case for Felt, and so did ordinary citizens.
Writing from Brooklyn, N.Y., Viena K. Neaville told Nixon that choosing Felt would be good for him because, "You would be spared the tremendous aggravation to which you are subjected by so many factions."
Nixon was spared no grief. He eventually chose William Ruckelshaus, who served at FBI only briefly.
Deep Throat's identity remained a mystery until Felt stepped forward in 2005 to acknowledged his clandestine role in bringing down Nixon.
Bob Woodward of The Washington Post said he first spoke with Felt about Watergate two days after the break-in.
Also in the files:
"You were particularly kind to remember me with this impressive gift, as well as your family photographs, and I am delighted to have them for my collection of special mementos," Nixon wrote.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Add a Comment See all 14 Comments
- To the editors at CBS:
So long as your stories include typos like this: "...among them are the urgings of past and PRESIDENT FBI agents..." (caps mine)
you''''re going to have a hard time convincing me to take them seriously.
You''''re a major news organization, for crying out loud. Where are your editors?
Posted by creeper00 at 05:47 PM : Nov 28, 2007
Proofreaders is the job title you are looking for.
Proofreader - To read copy or proof for purposes of error detection and correction. - Reply to this comment
- To quote many of the libs when a scandal from the clinton administration is brought up "OLD NEWS,NOT RELEVENT". So now cbs is bringing up Nixon. What a hoot.
Just when are the clintons going to release those documents so we can see what went on between bubba and the missus. How about all that "transparancy" in government hill keeps talking about.
Let''s look into project Echelon from the clinton administration. Let''s talk about chuckie schumer illegaly getting Webb''s tax records.
Let''s talk about the clinton administration and the thousands of FBI documents they had pulled on Americans.
Watergate was nothing compared to what has gone on since.
Nothing.
As Lynard Sknyrd says "Watergated doesn''t bother me...." - Reply to this comment
- Nancy_Naive,,,, Bush makes Nixon look like an angel, he''s always been corrupt.
- Reply to this comment
- badaxmofo,,,,, Do you think Fox News will tell you about Giulani''s other breaking news on Rudy ???
--- He used city money to pay for his expenses with his Love Nest rondevouxs. - Reply to this comment
- Badaxmofo,,,,, Think Rudy Giulani should be Waterborded to get the truth now that he''s busted helping the mastermind of 9/11 get away ?????
Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city''s skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir''s own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack%u2014a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0748,barrett,78478,6.html - Reply to this comment
- Too bad Richard Nixon was such a paranoid M.F. He could''ve gone down in history as one of the greatest Presidents.
After all, Nixon DID establish U.S. relationships with the U.S.S.R. and Red China. - Reply to this comment
- We''''ve beaten this horse to death long after it allready died this is just hogwash to try to make Bush look good...
Posted by crzmeat at 05:11 PM : Nov 28, 2007
Hogwarsh is right...
Sounds like Mr. Felt was a real prize himself, even if he did bring down the crook. - Reply to this comment
- I think Cheney is like a Nixon from a parallel universe - all of the power of the Presidency but without the lace and frills.
- Reply to this comment
- Nixon and Bush share one common trait. Both men are deceptive and misguided. Nixon was brilliant, Bush is ordinary in intellect and a coward who portrays himself strong and heroic by sending young men and women into harm''s way for a conflict of choice to satisfy his masters. Nixon was the lesser of two evils, but at least he understood geopolitics unlike Bush who seems incapable of understanding the world around him. Nixon was disgraced because he was caught. Bush is a national tragedy and is a war criminal within the meaning of the term as defined under International Law.
- Reply to this comment
- To the editors at CBS:
So long as your stories include typos like this: "...among them are the urgings of past and PRESIDENT FBI agents..." (caps mine)
you''re going to have a hard time convincing me to take them seriously.
You''re a major news organization, for crying out loud. Where are your editors? - Reply to this comment
- In short, Felt was motivated by a desire to get even with Nixon. Hardly a commendable attribute. Don''t get me wrong, what Nixon did was wrong and he should''ve been exposed.
- Reply to this comment
- We''ve beaten this horse to death long after it allready died this is just hogwash to try to make Bush look good...
- Reply to this comment
- To combat the terrorist threat in the Mideast, the U.S. must focus on "political dialogue," said a March 1973 directive now echoed in this week''s Mideast summit.
Wow! And it only took George Bush 7 years and a Trillion Dollars to find out the same thing the Nixon Administration KNEW. - Reply to this comment
- It is funny but at least Nixon was smart and not an idiot. His only problem was he surrounded himself with fear and hate mongers. He could have been great but in the end he was a disgrace to America.
- Reply to this comment
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