FBI Tried to Prevent Deep Throat Leak...No, the other Deep Throat
By Drew GrantJune 22nd, 2009, 3:00 pmComments (1)
Tricky Dick may have sent his goons to prevent Mark Felt from talking anonymously to Woodward and Bernstein, but did you know about the other Deep Throat that the FBI was trying to seize two years earlier in 1972?
Agents from Honolulu to Miami seized copies of the film, arranged for negatives to be analysed in laboratories and interviewed actors, producers and even messengers who ferried reels to cinemas.
What's ironic is that the Watergate scandal broke within months, while news of the federal government trying to ban porn took another 30 years to get out. Also ironic: Felt, the other Deep Throat, was Deputy Director of the FBI during the 1972 investigation into the film, meaning that we no longer need to speculate about where he got his nom de plume.
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Commentarium (1 Comment)
You wouldn't need to speculate if you had read All the President's Men. The pseudonym came from the movie, of course, but had nothing to do with any FBI investigation of the movie. Bob Woodward's source spoke on "deep background," meaning not only could he not be named, but nothing he gave them could be used unless confirmed elsewhere. Howard Simons, the Post's managing editor, coined the sobriquet.
Now you say something