Executive Times

 

 

 

 

 

2005 Book Reviews

 

The Secret Man by Bob Woodward

 

Rating: (Recommended)

 

 

 

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Motivation

 

It came as no surprise that shortly after W. Mark Felt and his family revealed that he was the famous Deep Throat of Watergate legend, Bob Woodward finished off a manuscript about Felt that he began years ago. The Secret Man tells the story of the relationship between Woodward, Bernstein and W. Mark Felt, who at the time of Watergate, was second-in-command at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As expected, Woodward tells the story from his front row perspective. What’s missing is insight into why Felt did what he did. At the time of Watergate, Felt was a reluctant source, as The Secret Man describes in detail. By the time Woodward tried for the last time, in 2000, to hear from Felt about why he did what he did, Felt’s memory had failed, and the secret resolving questions about his motivations remains unsolved, and will remain conjecture. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 7, pp. 85-90:

 

On October 19, I moved the flowerpot back, hoping to set a meeting that night in Rosslyn.

That same afternoon, as we would learn years later, Nixon met in his hideaway office in the Executive Office Building with Haldeman. The secret taping system cap­tured their discussion.

Haldeman reported that he had learned authoritatively from his own secret source, which he would not name for the president, that there was a leak in the FBI.

“Somebody next to Gray?” Nixon inquired.

“Mark Felt,” Haldeman said.

“Now why the hell would he do that?” the president asked.

“You can’t say anything about this, because it will screw up our source and there’s a real concern. Mitchell is the only one that knows this and he feels very strongly that we better not do anything because—”

“Do anything?” Nixon interrupted, adding incredulously, “Never?”

“If we move on him,” Haldeman warned, “he’ll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that’s to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything.”

Haldeman reported that he had asked John Dean what to do about Felt. “He says you can’t prosecute him, that he hasn’t committed a crime. . . . Dean’s concerned if you let him know now he’ll go out and go on network television.”

“You know what I’d do with him, the bastard,” Nixon said. “Well, that’s all I want to hear about it.”

Haldeman said that Felt wanted the top spot at the FBI.

“Is he Catholic?” the president asked.

“No, sir. He’s Jewish.”

“Christ, put a Jew in there?” Nixon replied.

“Well, that could explain it too,” Haldeman said.

Later Nixon asked, “What’s the conveyor belt for Felt?”

“The Post,” Haldeman answered.

Nixon pressed for the White House’s source, and Halde­man said the information came to them from some “legal guy,” presumably someone who worked at the Post. “He knows that the FBI is leaking to a reporter in his publica­tion,” Haldeman said.

“So say nothing. . .“ Nixon ordered.

This meant that we at the Post perhaps had our own Deep Throat problem, someone who was leaking informa­tion to the Justice Department and the White House about our sources. We never found out who might have been pro­viding information from the Post, but the White House ap­parently came very close to establishing that one of our sources was Felt.

That evening, October 19, I took all the precautions— two cabs, watchfulness, patience. When I arrived, it was 2:30 A.M. I was late but Felt was not there. I waited an hour. In the underlit cold garage I had some paranoid thoughts. Surely those mad enough to hire Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt might do something unthinkable. It was hard to assess the level of danger if indeed there was any. Surely Haldeman could learn that Carl and I were making inquiries. Had Felt been spotted? Had I been followed? It seemed irrational on my part, so I walked outside to look around. Steeling myself, I finally walked back down into the black. I looked around, spent some time stewing in my fear, calmed myself and finally left. I was terrified. I ran out and raced home.

I told Carl that Deep Throat had not shown up. We were worried. The following day, my New York Times had page 20 circled and the time indicated 3 A.M. I arrived early. Felt was already there. He said he had not been able to check the balcony but that everything about Watergate was heat­ing up even more. He didn’t have to tell me.

Though Carl and I did not in fact have it, I told Felt that we were going to publish a story the next week saying that Haldeman was the final and fifth person to control the se­cret fund.

“You’ve got to do it on your own,” Felt said.

I said that I expected him to warn me if we were wrong.

Felt said he would.

So he was essentially confirming Haldeman?

“I’m not,” he said. “You’ve got to do it on your own.”

It was a distinction that didn’t make sense to me. I was tired of this dancing around.

“You cannot use me as a source,” Felt said. “I won’t be a source on a Haldeman story.” He warned me to be careful. But he said he would try to keep us out of trouble.

Are we in trouble on Haldeman? I asked.

“I’ll keep you out,” Felt said ambiguously.

Well, I said, that meant he was confirming the Halde­man story.

Shifting direction once again, he said ominously that if I expected him to warn me off an inaccurate story that “would be a misconception of our friendship.”

On that terrible note, we shook hands and he left. I was persuaded that Haldeman was the correct name, but I was also convinced that Haldeman had frightening power.

Monday, October 23, I went over all this with Carl, who was uncomfortable. Did we have a confirmation?

Yes and no, I said. We both knew that in practical news­paper terms that meant no.

We went again to see Hugh Sloan, the treasurer who had kept the secret fund. Sloan, who had earlier worked in the Nixon White House for Haldeman, was also cagey about his former boss. Carl asked him if there would be anything wrong if we wrote that Haldeman was the fifth person.

“Let me put it this way, then,” Sloan said. “I have no problems if you write a story like that.” Sloan also said that he had told everything to the Watergate grand jury— answered all the questions accurately and fully.

After some memorable contortions with other sources, who seemed to confirm the story, we went with it. This was a different story. It named Haldeman as the fifth person to control the secret fund that had financed Watergate and other campaign spying and sabotage. We attributed it to Sloan’s grand jury testimony. That would give it a solid basis. No more citing unidentified sources. The headline to the Post’s lead story October 25, 1972: “Testimony Ties Top Nixon Aide to Secret Fund.” After all, Sloan had not only told us explicitly that it was Haldeman, he pledged that he had answered all the grand jury questions.

This was a case where one plus one didn’t add up to two, as we would soon find out. The next day Sloan’s attorney, James Stoner, said before the television cameras, “Our an­swer to that is an unequivocal no. We did not—Mr. Sloan did not implicate Mr. Haldeman in that testimony at all.”

All hell broke loose. Carl and I thought we might have to resign from the Post. Sloan finally told us that yes, in­deed, Haldeman had controlled the fund, but Sloan had never been asked about that by the grand jury. So, of course, he had not testified about it. It was a near disaster.

At the White House, as the tapes would later show, Nixon had been planning to challenge the television li­censes owned by the Washington Post Company. At 12:29 P.M. on the day the Haldeman story ran, Nixon met with Charles Colson.

Of the Post, the president said, “We’re going to screw them another way. They don’t really realize how rough I can play. . . . But when I start, I will kill them. There’s no ques­tion about it.”

 

Woodward tells the tale he has quite well on the pages of The Secret Man. The tale many readers would like to hear, about understanding Mark Felt’s motivations, remains untold, and probably untellable.

 

Steve Hopkins, October 25, 2005

 

 

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The recommendation rating for this book appeared

 in the November 2005 issue of Executive Times

 

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