Her father had been dodging reporters all week, but had seemed totally comfortable with this one. That night her father was ebullient about the lunch, recounting how “Bob” and he had downed martinis. These names, over the years, had become part of a parlor game among historians: Who in the top echelons of government had mustered the courage to leak secrets to the press? Who had sought to expose the Nixon administration’s conspiracy to obstruct justice through its massive campaign of political espionage and its subsequent cover-up? Who, indeed, had helped bring about the most serious constitutional crisis since the 1868 impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson-and, in the process, changed the fate of the nation? Joan figured that similar phone calls were probably being placed to a handful of other Deep Throat candidates. during the Watergate years-was “Deep Throat,” the legendary inside informant who, on the condition of anonymity, had systematically passed along clues about White House misdeeds to two young reporters. The journalists had all been asking whether her father-the number-two man in the F.B.I. This was, after all, the 25th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon, disgraced in the scandal known as Watergate, and hounded from office in 1974. Woodward’s name did not register with Joan, and she assumed he was no different from a number of other reporters, who had called that week. Mark Felt, who lived with her in her suburban Santa Rosa home. Upon answering it, she was met by a courteous, 50-ish man, who introduced himself as a journalist from The Washington Post. She stopped when she heard an unexpected knock at the front door. On a sunny California morning in August 1999, Joan Felt, a busy college Spanish professor and single mother, was completing chores before leaving for class.
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