President called Felt a `traitor' in '73

President called Felt a `traitor' in '73

By William Neikirk and Mike Dorning Washington Bureau
Thu Jun 2, 9:40 AM ET

Nearly 15 months before his 1974 resignation, President Richard Nixon described W. Mark Felt as a traitor who should be required to take a lie detector test, according to previously undisclosed tapes of White House conversations stored at the National Archives.

Felt was identified this week as the Washington Post's Watergate source known as Deep Throat. While a national debate erupted over whether Felt is a hero or a villain, tapes previously disclosed showed that Nixon had concluded as early as October 1972 that Felt, then the deputy director of the FBI, was leaking damaging information on the Watergate scandal.

The newly disclosed tapes also show Nixon and his aides firmly believed Felt was leaking information to The New York Times and Time magazine on a variety of topics, including wiretaps of reporters and a White House-authorized burglary of the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who earlier had leaked the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's internal history of decision-making in the Vietnam War.

In a tape that was recorded May 12, 1973, Nixon brought up Felt's name in a telephone conversation with Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, saying that Felt apparently had "blown the whistle" on the administration's involvement in investigating Ellsberg.

Referring to Felt, Nixon told Haig, "Everybody is to know that he is a goddamn traitor and just watch him damned carefully." But he added that he was going to leave it to the "new man to clean house" at the FBI, a reference to the vacancy at the bureau after acting director L. Patrick Gray had stepped down two weeks before.

Nixon said he found out from Time's attorney three or four months before this May meeting that Felt had leaked information to the magazine. He said he told Gray at the time to investigate leaks Nixon said were coming from the FBI. Nixon said Gray protested that they could not be coming from the bureau.

"And I said we have it on very good authority that they're from Felt," Nixon said he told Gray. But when the acting FBI director said that the leaked information couldn't be coming from Felt, Nixon said, "I said, `Dammit . . . you ought to give him a lie detector test.' You know I was very tough."

Gray told Nixon that he could not give Felt a lie detector test and vouched for his deputy, as did Atty. Gen. Richard Kleindienst.

But Nixon said that Felt "has to go, of course" and added that "this guy ain't gonna be the big hero now."

In a meeting a day earlier, on May 11, 1973, Haig and Nixon expressed their frustration over their conviction that Felt had leaked damaging information but were wary of removing him from office.

"We've got to be careful as to when to cut his nuts off," Haig told the president. Nixon responded, "He's bad."

A year earlier, in the hours after the May 15, 1972, assassination attempt against Alabama Gov. George Wallace, then a Democratic presidential candidate, Nixon counsel Charles Colson is heard on tape urging Felt to aggressively pursue theories that the gunman may have been tied to Nixon nemesis Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) (D-Mass.) or the anti-war movement.

Felt, who was directing the Wallace investigation, phoned Nixon in the Oval Office, evidently in response to a message he received from the White House. Colson took the call and relayed the ideas as rumors that the White House was hearing from news reporters.

Colson discussed the "reports" at length. He went so far as to ask that Felt direct FBI agents to question Arthur Bremer, the Wallace shooting suspect who eventually was convicted in the case, about the rumors and raise the issues "early" in their interrogation.

"Be sure you push that, Mark, just to be certain that they ask those kind of questions, you know, to get that kind of information," Colson said.

Felt told the presidential adviser, "We'll push it as hard as we can." But he expressed doubt, particularly on the idea of a Kennedy tie.

"I think that's probably a pretty wild rumor," Felt said.

Shortly after, Felt called to relay findings suggesting Bremer was mentally disturbed.

In an Oct. 19, 1972, conversation between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff until Haig took over in 1973, Haldeman said Felt was responsible for the leaks to The Washington Post. "He knows everything there is to know in the FBI," Haldeman said. "He has access to absolutely everything."

When told that Felt was the suspected leaker, Nixon said, "Why in the hell would he do that?"

The disclosure of Deep Throat's name solved one of the last mysteries of the Watergate era but triggered a debate about whether he is a hero or a villain.

To Nixon administration operatives such as Colson, who was convicted of obstructing justice in the Watergate investigation; G. Gordon Liddy, convicted in the Watergate conspiracy, and Nixon speechwriter Patrick Buchanan, Felt was no hero.

Buchanan said Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show, "There's nothing heroic about breaking faith with your people, breaking the law, sneaking around in garages . . . ," a reference to the location of Felt's clandestine meetings with Post reporter Bob Woodward.

To lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste, one of the assistant Watergate prosecutors, and former presidential aide Stephen Hess, Felt did the nation a great service by secretly leaking information on the excesses of an administration that, in Ben-Veniste's words, "truly threatened our government."

The revelation that Felt, now 91 and living in retirement in California, was Deep Throat also played directly into the culture wars of 2005, when Americans at opposite ends of the political spectrum are debating the war in Iraq, abuses of foreign detainees in U.S.-run prisons overseas and a host of divisive domestic issues.

President Bush, often labeled a "black-and-white thinker" by critics, dodged the question Wednesday of whether Felt was a hero. "It's hard for me to judge," Bush told reporters. "I'm learning more about the situation. It was a revelation that caught me by surprise, and I thought it very interesting."

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Felt provided information early

Felt's role

A. MOTIVATION

Following the death of longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in May 1972, President Richard Nixon appoints Assistant Atty. Gen. L. Patrick Gray III to the post. Hoover deputy Mark Felt had wanted the job and resented a person from outside the bureau leading the FBI. Felt's growing concern that the FBI was being politicized would fuel his role as a source (later known as Deep Throat) for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

B. PRESS CONTACT

On June 19, two days after the Watergate break-in, Felt informs Woodward that a connection exists between the burglars and a top CIA official.

C. FURTHER INFORMATION

At a secret meeting in a parking garage Oct. 8, Felt directs Woodward to examine the roles played by Nixon's top aides in the burglary and suggests Nixon himself was connected to the operation.

D. ENCOURAGEMENT

Following an error in a Post story in October 1972, Felt scolds Woodward for the mistake but encourages him to stick with the story.

Other meetings were believed to have taken place, but the details are not widely known.

WATERGATE EVENTS

1. June 17, 1972: Five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington.

2. June 19: Reports indicate a Republican security aide is among the Watergate burglars.

3. Nov. 7: President Nixon is reelected in a landslide.

4. Jan. 11-30, 1973: Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate burglary in a trial marked by repeated efforts to dig into the conspiracy by Judge John Sirica.

Five other men plead guilty.

5. April 30: White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resign. White House Counsel John Dean is fired.

6. May 18: The Senate Watergate committee begins nationally televised hearings.

7. Oct. 20: Nixon orders Atty. Gen. Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refuses and resigns as does his deputy, William Ruckelshaus. Acting Atty. Gen. Robert Bork fires Cox.

8. Nov. 17: Nixon declares "I am not a crook," maintaining his innocence.

9. July 24, 1974: The Supreme Court rules that Nixon must hand over to Watergate prosecutors the tape recordings of conversations made secretly in his office. He refuses.

10. July 27-30: The House Judiciary Committee approves three articles of impeachment against Nixon.

11. Aug. 9: Nixon resigns.

Sources: Washington Post, AP

Chicago Tribune

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wneikirk@tribune.com

mdorning@tribune.com