Yesterday, Rep. John Conyers lauded Mark Felt as a man of courage and lambasted today’s press and politicians for their compliance and complacency.
He’s right, to a point. It was indeed thanks to “Deep Throat” and two perseverant reporters that Watergate was untangled and civil liberties not completely undone. And, our press and politicians could learn a lot from Woodward and Bernstein.
Felt was the number two man at the FBI – the Assistant FBI Director in charge of the Inspection Division from 1964 to 1971. This was a position created by J. Edgar Hoover – a position that inserted W. Mark Felt between Hoover and his assistant director, William Sullivan, whom Hoover was at odds with because of Sullivan’s propensity to side with Assistant Attorney General Mardian in the Justice Department – a department that Hoover – and Felt – had little use for.
Felt’s job, according to the Church Report, was to ensure that Bureau programs were being operated efficiently, not constitutionally: "There was no instruction to me," Felt stated, "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."
Part of Felt’s duties in this appointed position was to direct counter intelligence programs (COINTELPRO) created to repress political dissent. Programs were created to infiltrate and discredit the Civil Rights Movement, the American Indian Movement, as well as dissident student groups. Felt admitted to a grand jury that his program had authorized illegal break-ins and burglaries against friends and relatives of Weather Underground fugitives. For this he was convicted, but pardoned by President Regan before he was to begin serving his sentence.
So then, why the moral conscience in the Watergate break-ins?
It would appear – as some news sources are reporting – that Felt was not being courageous, but rather was trying to protect the domain of the FBI and his own position in it.
That something good came out of it all is coincidental. Similar to the unlikely discovery of a latent terrorist because of activities related to the Patriot Act.
We don’t need political appointees today concerned with their turf. What we need from them is real courage, real ability to question, and real determination to be a government of the people.
---Written in conjunction with Jennifer Hicks.