The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat

by Bob Woodward Narrated by Boyd Gaines

Overview

In Washington, D.C., where little stays secret for long, the identity of Deep Throat -- the mysterious source who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break open the Watergate scandal in 1972 -- remained hidden for 33 years. Now, Woodward tells the story of his long, complex relationship with W. Mark Felt, the enigmatic former No. 2 man in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who helped end the presidency of Richard Nixon.
The Secret Man chronicles the story in intimate detail, from Woodward's first, chance encounter with Felt in the Nixon White House, to their covert, middle-of-the-night meetings in an underground parking garage, to the aftermath of Watergate and decades beyond, until Felt finally stepped forward at age 91 to unmask himself as Deep Throat.
The Secret Man is an intense 33-year journey, providing a one-of-a-kind study of trust, deception, pressures, alliances, doubts and a lifetime of secrets. Woodward has spent more than three decades asking himself why Mark Felt became Deep Throat. Now the world can see what happened and why, bringing to a close one of the last chapters of Watergate.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

At long last, the secret inside story of Watergate and Deep Throat is revealed -- by the famed Washington Post duo of Woodward and Bernstein, who broke the story that brought down a president.

Bill Emmott

If you have promised an informant that his identity will remain a secret, how could you look yourself in the mirror if you then break that promise? The mirrors in the houses of Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and the others who kept the secret of Deep Throat for so long are safely still in regular use. As The Secret Man shows, history has been the loser from such fealty, for it has been deprived of a full, personal explanation by Mark Felt. But that was his choice. And both morality and journalism can be counted as winners.
— The Washington Post

Christopher Hitchens

… the penultimate chapter, in which [Woodward] explains his adamant position on the protection of sources, is a passage that one hopes will be taught in schools.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Now that the Watergate scandal source, Deep Throat, has decided to step forward (or at least Mark Felt's family has), this audiobook serves as the final chapter of the saga Woodward and Carl Bernstein began with All the President's Men. Boyd Gaines has a tough job as reader. Retelling a tale that was so memorably and, as it turns out, accurately portrayed by Robert Redford and Hal Holbrook on film is a daunting task. But Gaines rises to the occasion with aplomb. His rendition of Woodward is authoritative yet humble and delivered with a confident crispness. His take on Felt's voice is also strong, and it is interesting to hear Felt's digression into the less complimentary mannerisms of old age. Gaines's version of the older, forgetful Felt sounds a bit like his Richard Nixon, with a pinch of John Wayne thrown in the mix. Overall, The Secret Man is a historically informative and enjoyable listening experience that also speaks to the current issue of journalism and the protection of sources. Simultaneous release with the S&S hardcover. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

From the Publisher

"Provocative. . . . Reaffirms the vital role that confidential sources play in keeping the public informed." — The New York Times

"The Secret Man is one of the best [of the Watergate books] at illuminating the backstage battle to bring President Nixon's team to account. . . . Eye-opening." — The Boston Globe

"The best short discussion of the distinction — between the reporter as private eye and the reporter as stenographer — that has ever been published. The chapter on the protection of sources is a passage that one hopes will be taught in schools." — The New York Times Book Review

"Long live the use of confidential news sources. . . . An inside look at the give-and-take involved in the often-dicey relationships between journalists and their sources." — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A filling-in of many of the final blanks left in the most explosive political/journalism story ever." — Lincoln Journal Star

"A provocative, even stirring contribution." — Baltimore Sun

DEC 05/JAN 06 - AudioFile

There's plenty of fascinating Deep Throat trivia in this audiobook--for example, at one point, Nixon sends a congratulatory bottle of champagne to ex-FBI agent Mark Felt, unaware that he is the man who brought down the presidency. But what keeps the listener riveted to this story is not the unmasking of an informer--it's the transformation of two men in a father-son-style relationship. Boyd Gaines's narration is particularly sensitive to this element, adding poignancy to Felt's deterioration and Woodward's reflections on his own aging. If ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN was a book about youth and the quest for truth, then Woodward's new book is, as he bills it, the antithesis--a story about aging and the quest for meaning. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170480678
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/06/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Secret Man

The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat

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By Bob Woodward

Simon & Schuster

Copyright © 2005 Bob Woodward
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-7432-8715-0

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Chapter One

In February 1992, as the 20th anniversary of the Watergate break-in approached, I went to the fortress-like J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. An imposing cement structure with large dark windows, the Hoover building sits appropriately about midway between the White House and the Capitol. It is as if Hoover, the founding director and the embodiment of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, is still present in Washington, D.C., playing off presidents against the Congress. I navigated the labyrinth of security and finally made my way to the documents room. I had come to examine some of the FBI's investigative Watergate files that had been opened to the public. Private cubicles are available in the classy, law-firm atmosphere, well lit, all done in high-quality wood paneling well above the standard government issue. The room is quiet. I was offered blue-lined paper to take notes.

The Watergate files contain hundreds of internal FBI memos, requests for action, investigative summaries, and Teletypes to headquarters from field offices which had conducted hundreds of interviews. There were the first summaries of information on the five burglars arrested in the Democrats' Watergate office building headquarters: their names, their backgrounds, their CIA connections, and their contacts with E. Howard Hunt Jr., the former CIA operative and White House consultant, and G. Gordon Liddy, the former FBI agent. The files teemed with notes, routing slips and queries bearing initials from senior Bureau officials, dates and intelligence classifications.

The outline of the Watergate cover-up was so clear in retrospect. White House counsel John W. Dean III, who later confessed to leading the illegal obstruction of justice on behalf of President Richard Nixon, "stated all requests for investigation by FBI at White House must be cleared through him," according to a summary dated six days after the June 17, 1972, break-in.

A memo on October 10, 1972, addressed The Washington Post story that Carl Bernstein and I had written that day. It was probably our most important story; it reported that the Watergate break-in was not an isolated event but "stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage" run by the White House and President Nixon's reelection committee. The two-page memo stated that the FBI had learned that Donald H. Segretti, who headed the efforts to harass Democratic presidential candidates, had been hired by Dwight L. Chapin, the president's appointments secretary, and paid by Herbert W. Kalmbach, the president's personal lawyer. Because there was no direct connection to the Watergate bugging, the memo said, the FBI had not pursued the matter.

I smiled. Here were two of the reasons the Watergate cover-up had worked at first: Dean's effectiveness in squelching further inquiry; and the seeming utter lack of imagination on the part of the FBI.

All of this was a pleasant, long, well-documented reminder of names, events and emotions as I sifted through the Bureau memos, as best I could tell almost a complete set of internal memos and investigative files. The files and memos provided a kind of intimacy with what had been four intense years of my life, as Carl Bernstein and I covered the story for The Washington Post and wrote two books about Watergate: All the President's Men, published in 1974, which was about our newspaper's investigation; and The Final Days, published in 1976, which chronicled the collapse of the Nixon presidency.

At the time of my visit I was 48 years old, but I was not there for a trip down memory lane. I was not hunting for more information in the rich history of Watergate; not looking for new avenues, leads, surprises, contradictions, unrevealed crimes or hidden meaning, although the amazements of Watergate rarely ceased.

Instead, I was really there in further pursuit of Deep Throat ...

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Secret Man by Bob Woodward Copyright © 2005 by Bob Woodward. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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