PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 24, No. 23, June 16, 2005

Journalism professor outlines wrong conclusion on Deep Throat

By Craig Chamberlain, News Editor
217-333-2894; cdchambe@uiuc.edu


The identity of “Deep Throat” is no longer a mystery. The famously anonymous Watergate source was revealed on May 31 by Vanity Fair magazine to be W. Mark Felt, deputy director of the FBI at the time of the scandal in the early 1970s.

His identity was confirmed that day by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who used his information in their stories.

As the news broke, UI journalism professor Bill Gaines received dozens of calls from reporters, since he had led four years of investigative journalism classes in a project to identify Deep Throat. Their confident conclusion, however – announced and well publicized two years ago – was not Felt but Fred Fielding, a lawyer who was first assistant to John Dean, chief counsel to President Richard Nixon, at the time of the Watergate break-in in 1972.

“We were wrong,” Gaines says in the opening words of an article he posted at deepthroatuncovered.com several days after the Felt story broke. Gaines goes on in his article to explain why Felt and everyone at the FBI were eliminated from consideration, why the class settled on Fielding after a thorough process of elimination, and how Gaines plans to follow up in the wake of the Felt announcement.

The Web site was set up two years ago to describe the work and conclusions of Gaines’ students. Even after the Felt story, it remains a valuable resource for those interested in the history of Watergate and the players involved.

“Did we learn from the experience?” Gaines asks at the end of the article. “We probably learned more from being wrong than if we were right.”

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