Composite character theory
Prior to Felt's revelation and Woodward's confirmation, part of the reason historians and other scholars had so much difficulty in identifying the real Deep Throat is that no single person seemed to truly fit the character described in All the President's Men. This had caused some scholars and commentators to come to the conclusion that Deep Throat could not possibly be a single person, and must be a composite of several sources. Woodward and Bernstein consistently denied the theory.
From a literary business perspective, this theory was further supported by David Obst, the agent who originally marketed the draft for All the President's Men, who stated that the initial typescript of the book contained absolutely no reference to Deep Throat. Obst believed that Deep Throat was invented by Woodward and Bernstein for dramatic purposes. It also led to speculation that the authors played at condensing history in the same way Hollywood scriptwriters do.
Ed Gray, the son of L. Patrick Gray III, stated in In Nixon's Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate that his examination of Woodward's interview notes pertaining to Deep Throat at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin provided "convincing evidence that 'Deep Throat' was indeed a fabrication". According to Gray, the file contained notes regarding four interviews that were attributed to either Felt, "X", or "my friend", and a fifth interview dated March 24, 1973, that was unattributed. He said he discovered that he had already seen the paper in 2006 after Woodward released interview files with people who were not Deep Throat. Gray wrote that he contacted Stephen Mielke, the archivist who oversees the Woodward-Bernstein collection at the University of Texas, who said that a carbon copy of the paper contained a note in Woodward's handwriting attributing the interview to Donald Santarelli, an official with the Department of Justice during the Watergate era. Gray wrote that he contacted Santarelli who confirmed that the March 24 meeting was with him. Other interview notes attributed to "X" were interpreted by Gray as containing content that could not have been known by Felt.
Regarding Gray's allegations, Woodward wrote that the March 24 notes were obviously not from an interview with Felt because Felt is referred to by name twice in quotes from the source and that he never stated or wrote that he met with Deep Throat on that date. According to Woodward, Mielke said the page was likely misfiled under Felt due to a lack of source.
Other suspected candidates
Fred Fielding
Another leading candidate was White House Associate Counsel Fred F. Fielding. In April 2003 Fielding was presented as a potential candidate as a result of a detailed review of source material by William Gaines and his journalism students, as part of a class at the University of Illinois journalism school. Fielding was the assistant to John Dean and as such had access to the files relating to the affair. Gaines believed that statements by Woodward ruled out Deep Throat's being in the FBI and that Deep Throat often had information before the FBI did. H. R. Haldeman himself suspected Fielding as being Deep Throat.
Dean had been one of the most dedicated hunters of Deep Throat. Both he and Leonard Garment dismissed Fielding as a possibility, reporting that he had been cleared by Woodward in 1980 when Fielding was applying for an important position in the Reagan administration. However, this assertion, which comes from Fielding, has not been corroborated.
One reason that many experts believed that Deep Throat was Fielding and not Felt was due to Woodward's apparent denial in an interview that "Deep Throat" worked in the intelligence community:
LUKAS: Do you resent the implication by some critics that your sources on Watergate – among them the fabled Deep Throat – may have been people in the intelligence community?
WOODWARD: I resent it because it's untrue.
Other credible candidates
Any candidate who died before the Felt admission ceased to fit Woodward's criteria at that time since Woodward had stated that he was free to reveal Deep Throat's identity once the person had died.
John Ehrlichman: Nixon advisor. Died in 1999.
Ron Ziegler: press secretary. Died in 2003.
William E. Colby: head of the CIA. Died in 1996.
Charles W. Bates: FBI executive whom Mann mentioned but considered less likely than Felt.
William C. Sullivan: former head of the FBI intelligence operations, fired by J. Edgar Hoover in 1971. Died in 1977.
L. Patrick Gray: acting FBI director who lived only four blocks away from Woodward, accused by a CBS documentary. Died in 2005.
Robert Kunkel: FBI Washington Bureau Chief whom Mann considered less likely than Felt, as he moved to St. Louis partway through the investigation.
Cord Meyer: CIA agent suggested in Mark Riebling's Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA. However, Woodward stated that "Deep Throat" was not part of the intelligence community. Died in 2001.
Raymond Price: Nixon speechwriter.
Secret Service technicians: Richard Cohen argued it was whoever in the Secret Service maintained Nixon's secret taping devices.
Richard Ober, the chief of the CIA's domestic spying program called Operation CHAOS.
Less credible candidates
William Rehnquist: Late Chief Justice of the United States, had a position in the Department of Justice early in the Nixon administration, working for Attorney General John N. Mitchell. More than five months before the Watergate break-in, he was appointed to the Supreme Court and it would have been almost impossible for him to have had access to much of the information attributed to "Deep Throat". In February 2005, Dean reported that "Deep Throat" was ailing, and Rehnquist was known to be suffering from cancer, which caused his death later that year. The report caused a resurgence of speculation that Rehnquist was "Deep Throat". However, Woodward later stated that the notion that "Deep Throat" was ailing had been a misunderstanding.
Henry Kissinger: Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, was out of the country on some of the dates Woodward reported to have met with "Deep Throat".
George H. W. Bush: Was nominated in February 2005 by Adrian Havill – author of a 1993 biography of Woodward and Bernstein, Deep Truth (ISBN 1-55972-172-3) – following the unveiling of Woodward's notes at the University of Texas. Havill had argued in his biography that "Deep Throat" was a composite figure, but stated in a letter to Poynter Online that based on more recent events and research, he now believed "Deep Throat" was George H. W. Bush.
General Alexander Haig: Authors Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin speculated in their 1991 book Silent Coup: The Removal of a President that Haig may have been "Deep Throat". Died in 2010.
Diane Sawyer: Was hired by White House press secretary Ron Ziegler to serve in the Richard Nixon Administration. On his deathbed, Nixon supporter Baruch Korff wrongly claimed that Sawyer was Deep Throat.
Ben Stein: A Nixon speechwriter and the son of Nixon economic advisor Herbert Stein; later an actor, political commentator, and game show host.
Gerald R. Ford: Suggestion that Ford may have been Deep Throat as he was next in line for the presidency.
Pat Buchanan: Served as special assistant to the President, was nominated as a potential candidate by Dean in his June 2002 book Unmasking Deep Throat. Buchanan repeatedly denied the claim, stating in a Time magazine article on the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in that "The last time I cooperated with The Washington Post...was in 1952, when I was a paperboy delivering the damn thing in Northwest Washington." Buchanan was very interested in the mystery, however, and had a number of theories. He was most sympathetic to the idea of a composite Deep Throat.
Richard Nixon himself: There was some suggestion that Nixon had used back-channels to communicate with Woodward in a bizarre attempt to showcase his persecution by the media which backfired horrifically. This theory was largely discredited.
J. Fred Buzhardt: White House counsel to President Nixon.
G. Gordon Liddy: Member of the White House Plumbers. Largely dismissed.
Pop culture references
Audio dramas
3Sol used the name Deep Throat to lure Tyler Steele to his attempted assassination in Big Finish's Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 1.
Films
Hal Holbrook portrayed Deep Throat in the film adaptation of All the President's Men (1976), in which he uttered the catchphrase, "Follow the money".
In the comedy film Dick (1999), Deep Throat is revealed as being two teenage Washingtonian girls, portrayed by Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, who worked as Nixon's dog walkers.
In the Nickelodeon animated film Hey Arnold!: The Movie (2002), Helga Pataki takes on a similar role under the guise of Deep Voice. She is a shadowy character who aids Arnold and Gerald in trying to save the neighborhood from the evil developer Alphonse Perrier du von Scheck through a series of anonymous phone calls and cryptic advice. At the end of the film, her identity is revealed, and she finally confesses her love to Arnold and successfully saves the neighborhood.
In C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004), a mockumentary set in an alternate universe where the Confederate States are able to not only win the American Civil War but also annex the United States in its entirety, extend slavery to the north and retain the practice permanently. On the online timeline of the film (containing aspects of the story not mentioned in the movie), it is revealed that C.S.A.'s Richard Nixon became Confederate President at the same time his real-life counterpart became American President and resigned at the same time due to the same scandal. The person who leaks Watergate in the C.S.A. world is apparently a different person though and is called "Dark Throat". The website (written in character as if it was from the alternate universe) states that the identity of Dark Throat has not yet been revealed. The most popular theory is that one of the White House slaves over heard Nixon and took revenge on his or her enslavement by leaking the information to turn Nixon in. The website notes that if that was indeed the case, the secrecy over Dark Throat is for his or her protection as the Confederate States punishes slaves who turn against their masters with the death penalty.
In the spy thriller film Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017), Liam Neeson portrays Mark Felt.
Games
In the video game Metal Gear Solid (1998), the cyborg ninja informant Gray Fox goes by the name Deepthroat until revealing his identity to be Frank Jaeger.
Similarly, in the sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), the name is briefly assumed by Olga Gurlukovich, until the protagonist Raiden realizes her connection to Gray Fox of the previous game, at which point she uses the less explicit name "Mr. X", instead.
Literature
In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel The Truth (2000), in a reference to or parody of Deep Throat, the talking dog Gaspode takes on the role of Deep Bone, acting as an informant to the novel's protagonist William de Worde regarding the attempted framing of Patrician Vetinari.
Television
In the 1976 Welcome Back, Kotter episode "Sweatgate Scandal", Principal Mike Woodman reveals himself to be Deep Throat when James Buchanan High School's cafeteria's liver is stolen.
Phil the bartender in Murphy Brown knew all of Washington, DC's secrets, including the identity of Deep Throat. In episode "Frank's Appendectomy", as part of a practical joke, Murphy is led to believe by Frank and Phil a man Frank had been consorting with was the real Deep Throat (he wasn't).
In the 1994 The Simpsons episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Waylon Smithers played a similar role to Deep Throat's when covertly helping the Simpson children find a way to depose the newly elected mayor of Springfield, Sideshow Bob (he even paraphrased one of Deep Throat's statements).
In the 1997 Frasier season 4 episode, "Three Days of the Condo", Frasier meets a secretive informant in an underground parking garage who supplies him with information.
In the Fairly OddParents 2004 episode "Channel Chasers", Tootie uses the "Deep Toot" undercover persona to help out Mr. and Mrs. Turner against Vicky.
In the Family Guy 2006 episode "Deep Throats", Kermit the Frog plays a similar role to provide evidence of Mayor Adam West's corruption to Brian and Stewie.
The X-Files featured an informant who was identified by the name "Deep Throat". This "Deep Throat" leaked secret government information to the series character Agent Mulder in a manner similar to the meetings described by Woodward. The character never identified himself as "Deep Throat" – the name was used by other characters when referring to him. It was never specifically mentioned whether he was initially intended to be the same Deep Throat from Watergate; eventually, the character was revealed to be a government official named Ronald Pakula.
In season 1 of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Perry White has a government contact called Sore Throat.
In the Robot Chicken episode "Drippy Pony", there is a sketch where a shadowed man approaches a man in a parking garage. The man asks him if he is Deep Throat, but the shadowed man replies that he is Rim Job, and tells the man to go up to Level P2.
In the Arthur episode "Buster the Myth Maker", Brain acts as an informant under the pseudonym Deep Float.
In episode 10 of season 10 of American Horror Story, Eisenhower's wife is said to be Deep Throat.
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