Watergate's Deep Throat slips away

19 December 2008

W. Mark Felt Sr., the associate director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal, and also the anonymous source recognized as "Deep Throat" who provided significant leaks to Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, even as the scandal unraveled, died yesterday. He was 95.

Felt died at a hospice near his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he had been living since August.

According to his daughter Joan Felt her father ate a big breakfast before remarking that he was tired and going to sleep.

"He slipped away," she said.

As the second-highest official in the FBI under longtime director J Edgar Hoover and interim director L Patrick Gray, Felt secretly guided Woodward as he and his colleague Carl Bernstein worked on the story of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office buildings.

According to a Washington Post obituary, Felt insisted on remaining completely anonymous, or on "deep background," and consequently got dubbed "Deep Throat" by a Post writer who took inspiration from the title of a pornographic movie of the time.