Over on Slate, Timothy Noah explains why William Rehnquist could not have been Deep Throat. But more interesting is the assertion that the "Deep Throat is dying" rumor may be bunk. This would not surprise me.
Like me, Noah thinks D.T. was Mark Felt or Fred Fielding. Like me, he thinks there was a Deep Throat, and he explained why some time ago in this article.
A couple of folks have written me with their concern or belief that one of these days, when one of the suspects dies, Bernstein and Woodward will just say, "It was him," and we'll be expected to take their word for it. One reader wrote that he doesn't believe there was a Deep Throat and won't believe a posthumous revelation without a hell of a lot of proof. At the same time, I received this from my pal, Mike Catron…
Some years back (probably 2002, which was the 30th anniversary year of the Watergate break-in), Woodward was live on a C-Span call-in show discussing Watergate. As you know, I do a lot of videotaping at conventions, but I've also done sit-down recollections with comics pros and relatives and done a bit of cinema verité on the little town in which I live. Anyway, I faxed or e-mailed C-Span during the program and, by golly, the host (it was probably Brian Lamb, but I don't remember for sure anymore) read my question to Woodward.
I suggested that, come the day Throat's identity is finally revealed, it's conceivable that certain folks might decide to cry "foul" and claim that the recently-departed figure, not able to defend himself any longer, was not Deep Throat at all, that Woodward had just chosen someone and smeared their memory, their service to their country, etc. And that there never really was a Deep Throat. I suggested that Woodward might want to head off such criticism by videotaping a discussion with Deep Throat to get the man's story in his own words. (I was ready to jokingly offer my services to record such a conversation, but I think I dropped that at the last minute).
Woodward's response? "Interesting."
So, did such a tape already exist by then? Or might my "conversation" with Woodward have prompted him to arrange such a taping? Either way, I hope so, on a number of levels. As much as you hope there's a manuscript in a lawyer's safe somewhere (I also think it likely that Woodward and Bernstein have already written the final book in their trilogy), I hope there'll be a DVD to accompany it.
Yeah. It's certainly conceivable that they said to Throat, "Look, we'll keep your secret 'til the day you die, like you want. We'll even let you deny it and call us liars and everything…but you have to give us a way of getting our good names back later. So sit for an interview that will let us prove it then, and we'll keep the secret." And whoever Throat was, it's certainly possible that he'd want some sort of statement out there to explain why he did what he did. So…yeah, there could be a tape. And a book. And a CD. And you've got to figure in the movie rights and a video game and the Deep Throat theme park where you get to meet Hal Holbrook in a garage…