Watergate; Deep Throat's motives.

[jonathan7]

Well, Mark Felt died this week; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5372512.ece

 

So what are your thoughts on Mark Felt's motives - concerns for the nation over Nixon's presidency and where he was taking it, or revenge for being snubbed as FBI chief?

 

The biggest joke I find, is that he's accused of being "He was a traitor to the nation. He betrayed his trust and violated his oath and he engaged in a shameful act" By Pat Buchanan (one of his detractors); what amuses me about what Pat says is - what Nixon did was bad enough to force him to resign, so seems moronic to me to say that Mark Felt was a traitor to the nation, considering what Pat's boss did (badly advised or not, Nixon still made the choice).

[Jae Onasi]

Mark Felt, no matter what the motive was, did the right thing. He might have done it to get the job of FBI chief thinking that Agnew (who was VP at the time) might appoint him to the job once Nixon was gone. He might have had a crisis of conscience. He might have been thinking down the road about what might happen to him and/or his job if he didn't act.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if we see some kind of memoir come out about this, rather like what Ford arranged to have done after his passing. We may see more of his motives after that, though I would expect something like that to paint Felt in a positive light rather than "I was gunning for the Bureau chief post".

[Q]

I agree with Jae that his motives were probably mixed (who's aren't?), but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of justice and/or patriotism in that mix.