Watergate, 40 Years Later

So we’re up to another decadal anniversary of Watergate, with most of the usual themes being reprised, though with a few modifications from the last decadal reminiscence. First, we finally learned the identity of “Deep Throat” a few years ago—FBI agent Mark Felt—and that his motives were not so noble. Felt was a frustrated climber who was angry that Nixon passed him over to be FBI director, and thus sought revenge by leaking to Woodstein at the Post. There’s also been some great stories over the last week debunking what I’ve always called “the Standard Heroic Account” that places Woodward and Bernstein at the center of the story: without their intrepid reporting, Nixon might have got away with it! It turns out the sensational Woodstein stories advanced the investigation very little. The FBI was generally several steps ahead of the media in unraveling the story. Cont. Reading