...right from the beginning:
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The Final Word on Deep Throat (So Far)
Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Aug. 9, 1999, at 2:41 PM PT
Today is the 25th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation speech. (To watch Nixon saying, "Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow," click here. You can hear it over and over by clicking repeatedly.) Chatterbox decided to celebrate Nixon Resignation Day by phoning W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official whom Richard Nixon and Nora Ephron and various other people believe to have been Deep Throat. Chatterbox, strongly influenced by a 1992 James Mann piece in the Atlantic Monthly (which is finally online; click here to read it) has himself been fairly pro-Felt lately, and subscribes to Mann's thesis that if it wasn't Felt, it was someone else at the FBI. (See "Deep Throat: The Game Is Afoot"; "Another Bulletin From the Deep Throat Desk"; "Deep Throat Revealed (One Last Time)"; and "Deep Throat Revealed (Again).")
Earlier today, when Chatterbox first attempted to phone Felt (now an octogenarian living in California with his daughter Joan), he got an answering machine. "If you'd like to leave a message for Joan, Rob, Nick, or Deep Throat," it said, "you may do so after the beep." Naturally, Chatterbox got a little excited when he heard this. But when Chatterbox phoned back a little later, Joan Felt said it was a gag message that she had put on her phone last night after having a bottle of wine with some friends, and that this morning she'd thought better of it and taken it off. Joan said she really has no idea whether her father is Deep Throat, but that he's told her he isn't. "He hasn't revealed it to anybody if it's true," she said. Hmm, Chatterbox thought. A non-denial denial from the daughter.
Then Mark Felt came on the line. Chatterbox schmoozed Felt a bit. Does he get asked a lot by reporters whether he's Deep Throat?
Yes. A couple of times so far this week.
Are you Deep Throat?
The answer to that is yes and no. I'm the person that they're talking about.
I was involved very deeply in all that ... went on. But I'm not guilty of disclosure, leaking it to the press, or anything like that.
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<link> http://slate.msn.com/id/1003363/