Mark Felt ("Deep Throat"), 1913-2008

The news arrived late today of the death at age 95 of Mark Felt, the former #2 man at the FBI who was revealed a few years ago to have been "Deep Throat," Bob Woodward's legendary source for his Watergate reporting. It's only fitting to link to the Washington Post obituary, co-credited to Woodward himself, although the New York Times obit is actually more enlightening. My tribute to Felt is actually more of a confession: a confession of what a complete Watergate nerd I am. (One measure of it: I'm apparently one of the few people who actually read The Secret Man, Woodward's quick-turnaround fill-in-the-blanks book about his relationship with Felt.) I've confessed it here before actually, but never to quite this extent.

Have you heard about those kids in Mississippi who were so obsessed with Raiders of the Lost Ark they spent seven years doing a shot-for-shot remake with their friends? (Want to get more meta? Scott Rudin is making a movie--scripted by Dan Clowes!--of those kids making their movie of the movie.) Well, I celebrated the unmasking of Deep Throat in 2005 by doing my own little remake: I dragged a couple of friends across D.C. and Northern Virginia to reenact some of my favorite scenes from that perfect little movie, All the President's Men. True, those kids spent seven years recreating every shot in the movie, while I just spent most of a day redoing a few stills. But they were children, which makes it all sweet and heroic, while I was a grown-up, home for my 20th high school reunion, which is closer to pathetic.

The catalyst for the whole escapade was that Woodward had finally revealed the true location of the parking garage where he met Deep Throat, which turns out to be right in downtown Rosslyn, Va., across the Potomac from D.C. So with an iconic shot of Hal Holbrooke in hand, we ventured over the Key Bridge for the photo I'll share with you today:

My Photoshop matching skills could use some work, but I can at least say that my friend Lee (thanks, Lee!), unlike Holbrooke,  was standing in the real garage... --Tom

P.S. What we didn't know was the actual parking spot where they met: Spot 32D, at least according to this obsessive site. But we were more interested in matching the movie still anyway, and doesn't everybody still think Deep Throat looked more like Hal Holbrooke than Mark Felt, with those funny, gigantic glasses, anyway?

Comments

[Lynn on December 19, 2008 at 12:30 PM]

Cool