The Other Side of 'Deep Throat': He Spied on My Friends
I'll never know for sure, but it's possible that I was once on, ahem, extremely intimate terms with W. Mark Felt, the leak artist formerly known as Deep Throat who has now passed away.
Journalists and many others lionizing the former FBI official -- rightly -- for his contribution in helping to bring down Richard Nixon, should not overlook the fact that Felt was one of the architects of the bureau's notorious COINTELPRO domestic spying-and-burglary campaign. He was convicted in 1980 of authorizing nine illegal entries in New Jersey in 1972 and 1973 -- the very period during which he was famously meeting Bob Woodward in a parking garage. Only a pardon, courtesy of Ronald Reagan, kept him out of jail for a long term.
So the man knew a thing or two about illegal break-ins. COINTELPRO was the Patriot Act on steroids. And that's where I come in.
Back in the bad old/good old days of the early 1970s, a fellow named Stew Albert used to write, off and on, for a rather legendary magazine that I helped edit in New York City, before I went straight, called Crawdaddy. (We had plenty of other contributors, including Joseph Heller, P.J. O'Rourke, Tom Waits, Richard Price, William Burroughs, and Tony Kornheiser, to name a few.) Stew was a proudly left-wing guy, but from the fun-loving ex-Yippie side of the antiwar spectrum (he helped found the Yippies), as opposed to the violent Weatherman sector. By 1973, he had a bad ticker, and was pretty much retired from the high-stress forms of political activity.
Stew had both the good and bad fortune to live in an isolated area of the Catskills, sharing a humble cabin on a hilltop near Hurley, N.Y., with his wife Judy Gumbo (as she was known, and also a well-known politico). Occasionally I spent a weekend with them there, or stopped by on the way to somewhere else.
In those days, at least one famous left-wing fugitive seemed to be on the loose at all times, ranging from Patty Hearst to Abbie Hoffman. Given their location, and backgrounds, Stew and Judy were, at least on paper -- or in the fertile minds of Mark Felt's FBI agents -- plausible candidates to, perhaps, shelter at least one of the runaways. So they'd joke about their phone being tapped, or spotting spooks hiding behind trees in the woods, or expecting to find a listening device installed somewhere in their house.
Well, as we used to say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't watching you. Turns out all of those fears were justified, and then some, thanks to Mr. Deep Throat and the program he helped organize.
Our fears first spiked when someone broke into the Crawdaddy office on lower Fifth Avenue one night. The intruder busted the gate protecting our rear entrance, and opened a few drawers, but nothing of true value or embarrassment was missing. You might say, in the parlance of the time, that we were only "Felt up." Unfortunately, we had very little to hide, beyond Bruce Springsteen's home phone number.
Then, I got a call from Stew on a Sunday morning, Dec. 11, 1975. He had come out to his old car, parked in front of a friend's house in Greenwich Village -- the friend was William Kunstler, another Crawdaddy contributor -- and noticed the band of grime on his rear bumper was brushed away in one spot. Investigating, he reached under the bumper -- and found a crude homing device, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, with a cute little antenna sticking out. He had no idea how long it had been there or who, exactly, had been following them.
I rushed to the scene. Naturally, Crawdaddy's editor, Peter Knobler, called a photographer, and we published a story about the episode the following month, which drew national attention. Pardon my French, but I recall that we called the story, "Bug Up My Ass!"
With this rather firm evidence in hand, the couple launched a lawsuit against the government. During the course of it, FBI documents were released, and we all learned that, indeed, G-men had hidden in the woods watching them -- and worse, had broken into their cabin at least half a dozen times. The feds also monitored all their mail at the local post office, and opened some of it. Of course, in my editorial duties, I had sent them many letters: Remember snail mail? They also perused the couple's bank records. What incriminating evidence did they find? Zip. Nada.
One of the agents, according to the documents, had the wonderful name of George T. Twaddle.
Oh, one more thing: A listening device had been planted in their bedroom. I used that bedroom at least once while I visited them -- with a girlfriend, no less.
This was all standard fare for many FBI agents at the time, when they weren't infiltrating, or even starting, lefty political groups. "There was no instruction to me," Felt later told Congress, "nor do I believe there is any instruction in the Inspector's manuals, that inspectors should be on the alert to see that constitutional values are being protected."
Stew (who recently passed away) and Judy managed to win a cash settlement from the government, though I forget the figure and the details. Still, I doubt if Judy is joining in the chorus of hero worship today for W. Mark Felt, who has good reason to prefer going down in the history books as Deep Throat, not Deep Doodoo.
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher. His ninth and most recent book, on Iraq and the media, is titled "So Wrong for So Long."
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I meant to write "hundreds of thousands.
Someone may have lost his chance to grab hundreds, if not millions of dollars, thanks to the FBI. Imagine what them historical/vintage tracking & listening devices would fetch at auction??????
Why couldn't it have been me? Er, on second thought, I was too young then, and why would the feds bother with me? LOL!
Nice trip down memory lane, on the long war between the commies and the capitalists. Who won?
Stew Albert guided me with my bar mitzvah. I never learned what he thought of Mark Felt (I first learned of Mark Felt when his role as Deep Throat got exposed).
Apparently, when Nixon learned of Mark Felt's position, he said "They let a Jew into that position?!"
I guess that the overall point is that no one is one-dimensional.
I appreciated this article, thanks for posting it.
However, I am a bit perturbed that the author felt that he needed to distinguish between the Yippies and the Weathermen.
I've read a few issues of Crawdaddy, and their coverage of then-contemporary events was commendable. However, I also feel that the lasting legacy of the Weathermen is not their bombing campaign, but their publications, especially their well-researched book Prarie Fire. They saw a need and filled it, long before Howard Zinn saw the same.
It could be argued that Stew Albert's work on Crawdaddy is likewise more of a long-lasting accomplishment than the public antics of his fellow travellers Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. (The latter also wrote books, although not as serious as Prarie Fire or Crawdaddy's political pieces.)
There was obvious distinctions between the Weathermen and the Yippies, but I think both had their virtues as well as faults, and I don't think one can imply being more innocent-i
Yeah, I remember that "Crawdaddy". Sadly I don't remember why it was called "Crawdaddy". Will enlightenment of such ensue?
Transforming America will be difficult by the number of skeletons. COINTELPRO is a documented scourge and many suffered due to policies of the man's--man, in the girdle (Hoover). Felt's involvment with that program contributed to the mountain of skeletons. Hopefully he came to realize the error of his ways before death.
"COINTELPRO was the Patriot Act on steroids." I'd beg to differ on that one. Seems the reverse. Nothing personal. Sounds like you & yours had some good fun back in the way back. Here's to you!
"The intruder busted the gate protecting our rear entrance, and opened a few drawers" isn't that what they're all about? Mailer would help you get that bit.
I do need to add an agreement WITH you in the case (and some similar) of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Those killings were an offshoot of Cointelpro.
Those was one of the cases that came to my mind concerning COINTELPRO. Lots of bullets going in and none comng out, murder Chicago PD style and they still have not, at the very least, apologized.
That was one of the cases that came to my mind concerning COINTELPRO. Lots of bullets going in and none comng out, murder Chicago PD style and they still have not, at the very least, apologized.
Mr Felt's career is by & large a typical career for an FBI agent. That's the reason why you get no street cred as a progressive by having an FBI file or being a subject of interest to the FBI. Everybody progressive or neo-con & everybody between the left & right gets investigated by the FBI. Getting an FBI file is a rite of passage for both leftist & rightist youth.
Aside from a handful of whistle blowers, the defense/law enforcement establishment works for those in power who oppress us. If the taxpayer funds these thugs, he deserves a Federal bug under his bed.
I lived for a brief time in a house that was under active FBI surveillance and had a few dates with a woman who lived there and was of particular interest to the feds. I was also called as a defense witness in a case over a campus political demonstration, and I wrote for various publications from time to time, so I was at least a footnote here and there. However, when the whole thing came undone, I never asked for my file because it would have been embarrassing to see how thin it likely was, since I would have mostly been listed under "also present was ... ". But if they were watching me and my friends, there's a whole long list of people they were watching, and I have always figured that the evidence they gathered was filed in that big warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," more lost than it had been before they bothered to find it.
Thank you for your interesting article, Mr. Mitchell.
I have never been left wing. I believe in the fiscal ideals of the right: self-sufficiency, less government and less taxes. Despite that, I spent over a year supporting Barack Obama, a centrist, to the surprise of those who didn't bother reading his platform.
But I detest snakes in the grass, and Deep Throat was a cowardly snake in the grass. Now we see that he was a two-headed snake in the grass.
Many ooed, ahed and praised him, when this rat fessed up, without second thoughts about the morality of his shadowy, secretive activities.
Sadly, snakes in the grass now encroach daily life. Their proliferation has overshadowed their bad behaviour, and their bad behaviour is no longer recognized as that.
Is there anyone on these boards who has not come across work snakes who complain to management about others behind their backs? How many on these boards have had to deal with anonymous complaints or comments on performance reviews? How many in management have listened to these cowards, without suggesting they first bring their complaints forward, together with those about whom they are complaining. It's just a variation on the sordid tale.
It is not that the Watergate burglars should not have been caught; it is that this hypocrite didn't have the guts to come clean. Now we know one of the reasons why he lurked in the grass.
Excellent commentary, Mr. Mitchell. The way the media talks about the man, you would think he was Santa Claus, or even worse "just following orders."
Why does anyone believe Felt truly was the one and only "deep throat"? Woodward has proven himself an adept dissembler, especially when selling another book. It was all too convenient that Felt had to be coached to corroborate Woodward and his mental decline prevented cross examination, let alone an interview by another reporter not involved with Woodward. Has anyone else independently corroborated Felt's role? Not only should Felt's record be looked at thoroughly, we should carefully determine whether he should receive any of the "deep throat" accolades at all. It doesn't make sense.
I still say, "Deep Throat, M. Felt" was a disgruntled employee. Wanted the top spot and was overlooked continually by Hoover, hence, thought he could bring down Nixon all on his own and some would say he did, but I do believe his influence was more fiction than fact, but it made for interesting reading.
A lot of people on the left, myself included, had long ago concluded that deep throat was an FBI source working with the approval of the FBI. The best guess is that Hoover and his successor, Patrick Gray, did not like the C.I.A. going out of its mandate to involved itself in domestic affairs and used deep throat to back them off..
"I do believe his influence was more fiction than fact"
????
How do you come to that conclusion?
If fiction gains the desired results then who is to say fiction isn't fact? Please see the Bush administration papers. Even Rubin and Hoffman maintained - supposedly at some point - create the myth and the reality will follow. I again point you to gwb and pals.
And I believe in the tooth fairy, but proving such can be burdensome, don't you think?
Thank you, Greg. I too had my run-ins with the FBI in the sixties and early seventies, was basically kidnapped for six hours by them, beaten up, threatened, told that they would be "watching me" and never charged with a crime let alone officially "arrested". They were our nation's KGB, the secret police - back then, and of course they are today.
Even the information leaked to or confirmed for Woodward and Bernstein came from an illegal infiltration of the White House. J. Edgar Hoover had people on the White House housekeeping staff working for him, and he used the information thus derived to blackmail several Presidents.
When Hoover died, Felt inherited the White House information. When he was past over as Hoover's successor, he used his information for revenge, not blackmail. He had no high-minded concern for the President's disdain for the rule of law, as he shared the disdain.
I find this ongoing abuse of the agency's power and the resulting compromising of Presidential authority as big a scandal as Watergate itself, if not bigger. Felt is no hero. More like the American counterpart of the KGB.
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