Mike Moser "I Say" Published June 3, 2005

Deep Throat: Hero or traitor?

Around the first week in August 1974, I wrote an editorial column for the Central Alabama Independent Advertiser calling for the president of the United States to resign.

The Advertiser was my first newspaper job, starting there in 1972 and rising to editor within the first year. The country was spinning as a result of the end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in and resulting coverup, and other activities of a little known organization called the Committee to Reelect the President.

The column was never published. While I anguished over whether publishing the piece was the right thing to do, Richard Milhous Nixon resigned. The date was Aug. 8, 1974.

Less than a year later I was summoned to the Hall School of Journalism at Troy State University where I received the first Hector Award given to an Alabama journalist for investigative reporting. It was heady stuff for an upstart, and I found myself in the company of Rheta Grimsley Johnson of the Monroe County Advocate (Harper Lee's hometown newspaper) and Rick Bragg who was writing for the Talledega Daily Home and the Anniston Star.

Rheta went on to become the columnist to replace Lewis Grizzard at the Atlanta Constitution. Rick went on to win the Pulitzer Prize while Southern editor for the New York Times.

Keynote speaker at the awards presentation was Patrick Buchanan who, less than a year earlier, had been employed as Richard Nixon's speechwriter.

Because my head was swimming with being enshrined in the Hall School of Journalism at the age of 23, I don't remember a lot of what Buchanan said that day, but I do remember distinctly how bitter this man was who formerly served as confidant to one of the most powerful men in the world.

I even remarked to a reporter sitting beside me about how angry Buchanan appeared to be. "Patrick is in the bitter business," is all the reporter said.

For years I dabbled with the personal theory that Buchanan might very well have been "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information and direction that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and led to Nixon's resignation.

The theory was well-rooted, I believed. I theorized that Buchanan's bitterness might be attributed to the dark days of scandal fed by felonious acts and coverups. I reasoned that Buchanan, being a banner-waving moral majority proponent and head cheerleader for the "traditional American values" could never in his heart sanction such dark and devious actions in the Nixon White House.

Boy was I wrong.

Tuesday afternoon W. Mark Felt announced that he was Deep Throat. For 30 years he kept his secret, even from family.

Felt had been the number two man in the FBI which put him in the position to know what investigators probing the activities of spying and retaliations against real and perceived enemies of the Nixon administration had learned. He became frustrated when the White House was successful in throttling down the Watergate probe and resorted to assisting two upstart reporters in their quest for the truth.

Going to his boss, FBI interim director L. Patrick Gray, was out of the question. Gray was in Nixon's pocket. The Nixon adminstration's power and influence reached into every office of the judiciary.

I was wrong about Buchanan. And I am disappointed in Chuck Colson, former Nixon chief counsel.

This week both men lashed out at Felt and branded him a traitor. Both men today move in the circles of morality and traditional American values.

I could forgive Buchanan and Colson for their roles in Watergate. After all, they were loyal to the president, regardless of how dark that loyalty turned out to be. I find it hard to forgive them for the position they take 30 years later.

Ultimately more than 30 government and Republican officials were convicted of charges ranging from perjury to burglary, wiretapping to obstruction of justice. Colson, himself, pleaded no contest to obstruction.

Branding Felt a traitor simply tells me the two have never accepted their respective responsibilities in the Watergate scandal.

Unrepentant.

Buchanan was never charged with anything but is still a bitter man over the demise of his former boss.

I am not sure I will ever understand how those two can reconcile Watergate with the morals and values promoted by the Christian right.

History will judge Felt for what he did and I am confidant history will be fair and just, unlike the Nixon administration. I am also confidant that history has already judged Buchanan and Colson for their roles in one of the country's darkest moments.

· · ·
Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.