The identity of Deep Throat had been one of American journalism's most closely guarded secrets since 1972, known only to reporters Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and editor Ben Bradlee. Felt, the FBI's former associate director, confirmed the revelation through his family, closing one of the last great mysteries of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.
For 33 years, Deep Throat existed mostly as legend: a shadowy government insider meeting Bob Woodward in a parking garage after signaling a rendezvous by moving a flowerpot on his balcony. The mystique only deepened after the 1976 film 'All the President's Men' dramatized the clandestine meetings, turning an anonymous source into a cultural icon of investigative journalism.
Felt, who had been the FBI's second-in-command, harbored resentment at being passed over to lead the Bureau after J. Edgar Hoover's death, and he watched with alarm as the Nixon White House tried to interfere with the FBI's Watergate investigation. He fed Woodward crucial confirmations and leads without ever handing over documents, always insisting he was protecting the Bureau's independence rather than seeking to topple a president.
His family and a Vanity Fair article finally identified him at age 91, and Woodward and Bernstein confirmed it the same day. Felt later said he had mixed feelings about the role, at times calling himself a whistleblower and at times worrying he'd betrayed his oath, a moral ambiguity that mirrored the country's own complicated relationship with Watergate's legacy.