Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Keeping a secret safe

Friday, June 3, 2005 | 4:53 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 4-5, 2005

Mark Felt. I knew he was Deep Throat.

OK, OK. I am just kidding. Like almost everyone else on the planet who wondered about such things, I didn't have a clue. But that doesn't mean I didn't care.

I think most people who had reached adulthood when President Richard Nixon resigned wondered aloud or otherwise whether or not they would ever know who -- or what combination of who's -- was responsible for breathing life into perhaps the most remarkable investigative reporting job in our nation's history. For years I played the same games as many other Americans, trying to guess who put Woodward and Bernstein on the scent of the Watergate scandal.

And then, I just forgot about it. Or, at least, I put my curiosity in a place that allowed me to focus on the rest of life, never knowing whether or not Deep Throat would be outed before it was my time to move on.

And now, like everyone else, I know. The surprise, of course, is that the name Mark Felt to most Americans is a surprise. Maybe even a disappointment for those among us who were convinced that the name attached to the undoing of Richard Nixon was at least comparable to the likes of Diane Sawyer or former Nixon chief of staff Alexander Haig. But, Felt, who but those who played inside the Beltway ever heard of him?

I did. Years ago the Sun wrote a seven-part series entitled, "In Defense of the F.B.I." In 1977, Attorney General Griffin Bell indicted former FBI Special Agent John Kearney for using questionable investigative techniques at a time in our country when domestic subversives were blowing people up in post offices and other public buildings. The Weathermen Underground didn't care how many innocents they killed, they wanted to make a point. Kearney and others were ordered to stop them. The Sun pointed out why the Attorney General was wrong and why Kearney and others were doing what their oaths of office required of them. Felt also fell victim. He was convicted of similar charges in 1980.

Unless he tells us, we can only guess what motivated Felt to share his thoughts with the Washington Post. Based on his career with the FBI, I believe he thought then and still thinks he was protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.

I know there are some who are speaking out about violations of some kind of loyalty oath to the president, but they are wrong. The oath is to God and it is to protect the Constitution, not any one person. If Felt believed the president was subverting this democracy, he was right to act, especially the way he did it.

It seems unlikely, I know, but according to the experts, Watergate happened physically at an apartment complex in Washington, D.C. But it was birthed in Las Vegas, Nevada. To be more specific, it was a safe in my father's office that started the whole mess.

The whys and hows are not as important today -- other than to emphasize the fact that Las Vegas really is the epicenter of the world -- but the fact that the White House "Plumbers" set their sights on Hank Greenspun's office, with Watergate just a sideshow that went bad is most telling.

And now that the world finally knows who Deep Throat is, perhaps the final mystery still involves that safe which still reposes in the Sun publisher's office.

When E. Howard Hunt, one of the two burglars in charge -- the other being G. Gordon Liddy -- was released from prison I had dinner with him. He told me the whole story. He also told me all about his co-conspirators in his plans to burglarize my father's safe. He didn't have to tell me how powerful they were and how connected they were to government at all levels. I already knew that. I should say I had already felt that.

The story of Watergate is an age-old story about political power, paranoia, corruption. Deep Throat's story always seemed to me to be one about personal courage and some darned good reporting.

We know who the reporters were and now we know about the man of great personal courage.

Perhaps, one day, we may tell the rest of the story. It reposes in a safe in the office next door.