It was always thought that the FBI through the attorney general had inherent authority in times of national security to do things like mail openings, to go into an apartment and look for writings or mails, not to convict anybody, but to get intelligence on a foreign power. If Osama bin Laden, one of his twenty-seven wives, was living in Brooklyn Heights, and is a hairdresser, according to David, it's a burglary if you go open her mail to find out where the next attack is coming from. What happened was, these so-called burglaries, let me give you what David is talking about with the burglary. I think he might be a tad off on this.įor years, Mark Felt led the forces in the Bureau that were against incursions on civil liberties, the wiretapping done by what they call the Sullivan Faction, Mark Felt led the good guys in trying to keep civil liberties protected within the Bureau. And, you know, David is a brilliant guy and I'm a big fan of his. Well, I've read many, many pages of documents about Mark Felt and about his wars within the Bureau. I think it's helpful that we do know this particular fact, because this has certainly been a long-standing mystery, and I think it adds to our knowledge of our public life, which is a positive thing. So I just think we ought to be cautious as to whether we know all the facts. Edgar Hoover's FBI.Īnd we know that from a lot of records, a lot of things, weird things were happening, things that we find, that we object to today in the light of history, the bugging of Martin Luther King and that sort of thing went on at the FBI. I just would caution that this was very much a cloak and dagger era in our political history, in which there were a lot of rough things going on, not only in the White House, as they were, but they were going on elsewhere in Washington and other agencies including J. And there are families and certainly one would want their family, the daughter and the grandchildren and others to believe that. I think there are many Americans who will believe he is a hero. I think we know the most important fact and that is who was Deep Throat, and that's been very helpful, and there's no question, to go to Mike Putzel's point, that Deep Throat was extraordinarily important, not just to corroborating but also to giving tips and guides to Bob Woodward in particular that did help with him his reporting and that reporting of course was a critical part of the whole Watergate saga. I don't think we yet know all the facts on this. This man was participating on the rough side of the FBI, and I think that to this day we don't know whether there were those in the FBI who may have had reasons to want to bring down the president or bring down the White House. But it's worth remembering that he was also pardoned by Ronald Reagan in 1981 for his participation in burglaries by the FBI against the Weathermen and others. And he may well have been a force for right and good. He may well have been doing this out of conscience. Mark Felt is a more complex man than he may seem on the surface. O'Connor has printed about why he did it, I'm not sure that we have all the facts yet. As much as I want to believe the story that Mr. I think that while we've unraveled the great mystery, it does open some additional doors. O'Connor deserves credit for having brought this to light and finally unraveling it. It certainly helps us unravel that one of the greatest mysteries that we've had in our political life over the last 30 years.
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