Gary Aldrich: The Mark Felt Four

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Gary Aldrich (archive)
June 8, 2005

The FBI is in the news again, and yet again, the news isn’t good. The legendary crime-fighting, spy-catching agency that J. Edgar Hoover founded can’t get a break.

First it was revealed that Mark Felt, the number two executive to Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, was “Deep Throat,” and that Felt was all but passing out official FBI FD-302’s, which are reports of interrogations with key witnesses in the Watergate case. The basis of my allegation includes written statements I have read from former FBI agents who actually worked on the case. One of these had developed an important witness, only to see the witness’ name and her blockbusting facts – that could only have come from hot-off-the press FBI documents – appear in The Washington Post. Years later, he is angry to learn that the promises of confidentiality to a frightened White House insider were broken mere hours after the interview by a high-ranking Bureau official who should have known better.
In a recent article in the Albany Times Union written by Brendan Lyons, it’s revealed that a former agent, Paul V. Daly, learned sometime in 1978 that Felt was in fact “Deep Throat” and that three FBI Headquarters and Field Office officials gave Felt regular briefings, even though they apparently knew Felt had entered into an unholy alliance with the Post, supplying raw FBI data. In any important case, supervisors in FBI Headquarters are responsible for monitoring and sometimes directing the investigations, then briefing higher-ups including the director. In order to do that, they must furnish HQ with written documents which are later introduced into evidence in a court of law. Until then, the documents are considered “raw” – that is, untested.

For those reasons as well as the ethical and legal implications, it is unconscionable for FBI officials to unilaterally furnish raw FBI documents to the media.

But, the “real” director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, had just died and had been replaced by an “outsider” favored by President Nixon. Hoover had been the director for decades and had served under 8 presidents. The FBI without Hoover was like chicken without Perdue to many high-ranking Bureau officials who had fashioned their entire persona around a Hoover-led agency.

In fact, all high Bureau officials’ career tracks were based on Hoover’s unique and harsh management style. These guys wanted a chance at the top slot as director of the FBI. If one of them made it, the other three might tag along as top executives. But their careers were in grave jeopardy because everyone knew that the new guy coming in, chosen by the president, would get wide latitude to make changes at the top.

This would be especially threatening to the Hoover-ites, because it was a well-known perception in Washington that Hoover’s FBI was considered “too powerful and independent.” It was also widely reported that the White House wanted somebody who could “de-Hooverize” the FBI. L. Patrick Gray, a by-the-book retired Navy officer, was seen as that man. Thus the career hopes of Mark Felt and his close associates were dashed, even as Felt was moved into the second seat to serve as Gray’s assistant. The naive Gray should have known that Hoover-trained Felt and his cronies would accept no consolation prizes.

They would be lurking and waiting to pounce on the acting director's very first missteps. Meanwhile, as part of their plan for revenge, they apparently rationalized a secret cabal to funnel key information about the Watergate investigation to The Washington Post.

In hindsight, it could be claimed by Nixon-haters that their motivations were noble – that they believed that the Nixon Administration would shut down any FBI investigation that threatened his power. In reality, the federal investigation had taken on a life of its own and could not be stopped by Nixon or anyone else. Hundreds of FBI agents were assigned to the case, and there is no way a corrupt politician could have silenced all of them. Not every FBI agent’s life is completely centered and controlled by the mere fact he or she is an FBI agent. As one highly successful former agent once told me, “Hey, I was looking for a job when I found that one at the Bureau. I did that job and then I moved on, and up.”

If the motives of Felt’s cabal were pure, why didn’t a single one of them ever step forward to announce that it was they, the fabulous Felt Four, who had saved the nation? I believe the answer is, they never spoke about it because they were merely trying to save their threatened careers. In other words, they could not move on, so they refused to let go.

Let’s review what was happening in our country during the Nixon presidency: entire cities were being burned to the ground, and banks and universities bombed, while hard-Left Marxist radicals like Bernadine Doran called for “Revolution!” even as they stuffed cash into their pockets that had been funneled to them by the Soviet Union. This environment would seem to supply little justification for the selling-out by these four FBI executives, even if they did believe they were forcing an FBI investigation of monumental proportions into the public eye so that it could not be quashed by an “abusive” president.

Claims that “there was only one thing that Mark Felt could do” seem especially hollow when you consider that there was always a legal way available to this cabal. There is a third branch of government on Capitol Hill called the U.S. Congress, who at that very time was gleefully sharpening their knives, salivating at the chance to impeach a detested president.

Are we to believe that these politically-savvy top FBI officials believed that not only was the White House compromised, but also the U.S. Congress? If they actually believed that, then I would say that they were very dangerous men in very high posts who were in a position to do serious damage to this country.

The Felt Four were not heroes – they were politically- and selfishly-motivated, out-of-control bureaucrats who believed they had a right to break the very laws they were paid to enforce. In hindsight, President Nixon was correct in passing over Mark Felt for the position of FBI Director. For that we owe Nixon and his men a debt of gratitude, because if there is something worse than a corrupt politician, it is a corrupt bureaucrat with a badge and arrest powers.

Especially grateful may be the majority of the former and present Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who do take their oath of office seriously.

Gary Aldrich is the president of The Patrick Henry Center, a Townhall.com member group.
©2005 Gary W. Aldrich
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