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May 31, 2005
The Post Confirms it: Felt was Deep Throat
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
More Felt/Deep Throat Speculation
A quick spasm of research reveals a few items--including excerpts fromt the Watergate tapes-- that seem to butress the idea that Mark Felt is Deep Throat.
Exhibit One is a 1974 article in Washingtonian magazine by Jack Limpert...Felt was a Deep Throat suspect even then:
Read the February 28 and March 13 Presidential transcripts and then try someone like Mark Felt on for size. A Hoover loyalist and number-two man to Pat Gray, he had every reason and resource for leaking the Watergate story and destroying Nixon. Why would someone like Felt pick Woodward and Bernstein? Why not?
Speaking of transcripts of the Watergate tapes, here's one dated October 19, 1972, in which Haldeman lets Nixon know that they think Felt is leaking information harmful to them:
Nixon: Well, if they've got a leak down at the FBI, why the hell can't Gray tell us what the hell is left? You know what I mean?...
Haldeman: We know what's left, and we know who leaked it.
Nixon: Somebody in the FBI?
Haldeman: Yes, sir. Mark Felt. 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 who knows about this and he feels strongly that we better not do anything because--
Nixon: Do anything? Never.
Haldeman: If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything ...
Nixon: What would you do with Felt?
Haldeman: Well, I asked Dean ...
Nixon: You know what I'd do with him, the bastard? Well that's all I want to hear about it.
Haldeman: I think he wants to be in the top spot.
Nixon: That's a hell of a way for him to get to the top.
Haldeman: You can figure a lot of--maybe he thought--first of all, he has to figure that if you stay in as president there's a possibility or probability Gray will stay on. If McGovern comes in, then you know Gray's going to be out ...
Nixon: Is he Catholic?
Haldeman: (unintelligible) Jewish.
President Nixon: Christ, put a Jew in there?
Haldeman: Well, that could explain it too.
(Not PC, Richard, not PC!)
Here's another excerpt of a conversation in the Oval Office from February 28, 1973. This time it is John Dean and RIchard discussing the possibility that Felt is leaking...and alsolaying out a rationale for why he wouldn't ever want anyone to know.
Dean: Now, about White House staff and reporters and the like, and, now, the only, the only person that knows--is aware of it--is Mark Felt, and we've talked about Mark Felt, and uh--I guess, uh--
Nixon: What does it do to him, though? Let's face it. You know, suppose that Felt comes out and unwraps the whole thing. What does it do to him?
Dean: He can't do it. It just--
Nixon: But my point is: Who's going to hire him?
Dean: That's right.
Nixon: Let's face it.
Dean: He can't. He's--
Nixon: If he--the guy that does that can go out and, uh, you mean he's a--of course, he couldn't do it unless he had a guarantee from somebody like Time magazine saying, "Look, we'll give you a job for life." Then what do they do? They put him in a job for life, and everybody would treat him like a pariah. He's in a very dangerous situation. These guys you know--the informers, look what it did to [Whittaker] Chambers. ... They finished him.
Dean: Uh huh. Well, I think I, there's no--
Nixon: Either way, either way, the, the, the informer is not wanted in our society. Either way, that's the one thing people do sort of line up against. They--
Dean: That's right.
Nixon: They say, "Well, that son-of-a-bitch informed. I don't want him around." We wouldn't want him around, would we?
One other piece of info. In 1992 Atlantic Monthly published an article by James Mann, a former colleague of Woodward's at the Washington Post, laying out the case that Felt was actually Deep Throat.
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
Deep Throat Revealed
Hot Stuff: Vanity Fair is reporting in it's current issue that a man named Mark Felt, who was the #2 guy at the FBI during the Nixon Administration,has admitted to his family and friends that he is Deep Throat. The articile reports that Felt, age 91, kept his role secret, because he was very conflicted over whether it was an honorable or dishonorable thing to do. I just read the article and find it both fascinating and convincing. I can't wait to hear what (if anything) Woodward has to say, not to mention the legion of others who have written on this subject. Can it possibly be true that one of the most fascinating political/journalistic mysteries of my lifetime has finally been solved? (FOr the record, I have always believed it was John Dean, but after reading this article I am ready to change my mind.)
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2005
Election Night Gem
I was screening tapes of election nights past at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York this week, as part of the research for a new book. Among several gems I found was a priceless moment from the CBS election night coverage in 1956, the first election night broadcast hosted by a not yet world famous Walter Cronkite.
As Cronkite updates the returns in the Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential race, he holds an earphone to his ear just like Garry Owens used to do in Saturday Night Live. Behind him, many young men in suits stand on a catwalk, apparently working on some kind of giant tote board that we really can�t see. Then Cronkite transitions to the next segment. �Now let's go over to our Univac Corner and DOuglas Edwards� says Cronkite. Cut to a shot of Douglas Edward sitting in front of several giant magnetic tape drives, with a huge Univac computer console to his left. But Edwards isn�t quite ready to speak to us. In fact, he�s on the phone. Nor does he hang up when the camera comes to him. There is a slight pause as he listens, and replies �Yeah. � Then he hangs up the phone with a very gentle�almost intimate�� bye.� Only then does he turn to camera and say in his TV voice: �Just checking on time, Walter, I get two minutes to tell you about the latest Univac projections on the Presidential race�.�
In this early use of computer projections, the networks don�t quite have the language down. Edwards refers to the computer projections as �guesses,� which, while accurate enough, would probably drive modern TV managers crazy.
Later on in the broadcast, I kid you not, it looks as if a janitor walks in behind Walter as he is talking and empties the trash!
TV aint what it used to be!
Posted by rickbeyer at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Bay-State Geography Trivia
What famous California city was named after a town in Massachusetts? And what western city could have been called Boston if an 1845 coin-toss had gone the other way?
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:52 AM | Comments (3)
May 23, 2005
Adams vs. Jefferson
I listened to the audio version. It was good.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2005
Jeffferson and God
I came across this quote from Thomas Jefferson the other day that I really like.
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
What a calm, commonsense sentiment. The exact same thought also applies to marriage. Tomorrow we celebrate a year of gay marriage in Boston, and if the social fabric has been rent asunder, I must have missed it.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
History in the News: Yalta and Indians
President Bush recent comments that the 1945 Yalta Treaty contributed to "one of the greatest wrongs of history" has riled up historians and bloggers alike.
But the Boston Globe reports an even more fascinating "history in the news" tidbit this morning. It turns out that a 1675 state law that bans Indians from entering Boston (unless they have the permission of the Governor) is still on the books. Because of that, a group of minority journalists (Unity: Journalists of Color) may not hold a convention here.
Dan Lewerenz, president of the Native American Journalists Association, says: "We know its not going to be enforced, but in theory, the police could arrest us when we arrive at the airport." There's a wild thought.
State reps are falling all over themselves to see if they can repeal the law before the jouarnlist�s group makes a final decision.
Here's the actual law:
"We find that still there still remains ground of Fear, that unless more effectual Care care be taken, we may be exposed to mischief by some of that Barbarous Crew, or any Strangers not of our Nation, by their coming into, or residing in the Town of Boston. . . . Secondly, That there be a Guard appointed at the end of the said Town towards Roxbury, to hinder the coming in of any Indian, until Application be first made to the Governor, or Council if fitting, and to be . . . remanded back with the same Guard, not to be suffered to lodge in Town, unless in Prison."
I wonder who dug this up: most likely someone with an interest in keeping the convention from coming to Boston.
"Barbarous Crew," by the way, is a great name for a rock band.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
This Day in History: The Old Man's Vote
The old man had never voted.
He was 75 years old, and he had never voted. Not once had he cast a ballot. Not in a presidential election, or in a school board race, not ever...
He had been very involved in public service during his long life. Founded youth groups, worked in community organizations, done some writing. He had lots of friends, many children and grand children. But he had never voted in an election.
Now there are many reasons not to vote, some good, some bad. In the old man’s case, let’s just say the time was never right for it.
But then, in his 75th year, he did something he had never done before. He got up on election day, went to the local polling place with some friends, and cast his ballot. 75 years old and he was voting for the first time ever.
And he felt great about it. The act of voting made him feel more powerful, made him feel more in control of his own destiny. When he got home, he couldn’t stop talking about it.
Now if the story ended here, it would be a simple, heartwarming tale of a man who late in life discovered what a wonderful feeling it is to exercise your right to vote. But this story is much more than that—for two reasons.
To begin with, the old man lived in South Africa. And the reason he had never exercised the right to vote was because his country had never given him that right. He had gone from boyhood to old age, but because he was black, he had never been considered good enough to vote, had never been permitted to enter a polling place and cast his ballot.
But on this April day of 1994, that was a thing of the past. Now the laws of the land were different. People’s thinking was different. And this old man, born less than a year after the end of World War One, was finally able to vote.
Imagine the rush of emotion. The powerful feelings that must have swept through him, simply because he was now able to perform this simple act of self-expression that all democracy is built upon. What a glorious feeling it must have been.
But I said he underwent two experiences that most of us will never know. And the second is perhaps more astounding than the first. Because you see, when the old man voted, for the very first time, he voted for himself. For president. In the knowledge that millions of others, also voting for the first time in their lives that day, would cast their ballots the same way. Thus making this old man, Nelson Mandela, the first African President of South Africa, a country that had never allowed Africans to vote until that day.
Nelson Mandela was inaugurated 11 years ago today, on May 11, 1994.
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
This Means War!
Wars can start for the strangest of reasons…
On this day in 1857, a bloody uprising in India known to history as “the Mutiny” was triggered by the introduction new kind of rifle. Loading the Enfield rifle required soldiers to bite the end off of a grease-covered paper cartridge. Word spread among Indian troops serving in the British army that the grease contained fat from pigs and cows, meaning that biting the cartridge was a sacrilege to both Hindus and Moslems. Indian sepoys rose up and killed their British officers, who they thought were trying to turn them into religious outcasts, and thousands died in the fighting that ensued.
When conditions are right for war, the most trivial event can set off a conflict: three men being thrown out a window; a sea captain’s ear being cut off; a pig being shot; even a soccer game. (These are all stories featured in my forthcoming book.) It’s the same as a forest that has gone too long without rain…a single match can spark an all-consuming conflagration. A lesson we should strive to remember.
Posted by rickbeyer at 07:38 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2005
The First Computer Bug: A real bug!
Whenever I come across a particularly fascinating story, I like to file it away for future reference. This is is a gem that some people know about, but many others do not. After it came up in conversation last week, I thought I would post it.
The very first computer bug was, in fact, a bug: a fried moth discovered blocking the contacts on a relay in a Mark II computer at Harvard in 1945. With an eye to posterity, perhaps, the woman who found it pasted it into the computer log. Her name was Grace Murray Hopper, and her tale is a fascinating one in its own right. For more on all of this, check the Image of the week page.
Posted by rickbeyer at 01:23 PM | Comments (2)
May 02, 2005
Sneak Peak
The publisher has sent some sample layout pages for the new book. It is always exciting to see stuff start to come together in its final form, and I’ve posted one to provide a sneak peak. Truly anal readers will notice several subtle differences in the layout from the first book.
Enjoy!
Posted by rickbeyer at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Gallipoli
This April marked the 90th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli...here's a thoughtful and fascinating note about that from a friend in Australia:
We have just celebrated ANZAC Day here in Aus and NZ. It is the celebration of the battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish peninsula, the dardinelles where in WW1 the allied forces including many thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops landed, and died, on the peninsula in the wrong place and badly organized by the English, including Winston Churchill.In Australian language 'it was a total stuffup by the poms.'Turkey has kept an area on the peninsula as a memorial to all of the dead. Bill Easton, my husband's father was a signalman at Gallipoli and survived.
The good thing is that, these days, thousands of backpackers, young aussies and nzers, turn up at Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25 to seewhere the incredible, but futile, sacrifice of those young soldiers took place.
During this terrible massacre the Turks and the ANZAC's met and struck a truce for a ceasefire while they buried the dead. Quite amazing but they also threw food into each other's trenches. It was when we ceased to be just convicts, or colonials, and realized we were as goodas them, 'the poms.
This year we were all interested in the different speeches by the Australian and NZ dignitaries. NZ, of course think for themselves, not in Iraq, rather unusual in these times. Our Australian Prime Minister, in bed with George Bush and Tony Blair, was very low key and diplomatic but the NZers were not. They were very candid in their speeches on the battle and disaster, alluding to the ineptitude of the English war council, prime minister and generals and praising the Turks for their courage and sacrifice defending their own land. The Turks were at the ceremony as well. How good was that?
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)