Question:

Bob Woodward recently said about the identity of Deep throat: "I'm glad it's still a mystery and unknown. I've been able to keep my promise... It's similar to people trying to guess who is going to win an election, who will win the Super Bowl, or who is going to challenge Tiger Woods. That's what people want to do."

The question: Is Deep Throat a Fictoid?

Answer:

"Deep Throat" is a fictoid.

Part of the "mystery" enjoyed by Woodward, is that there are no corroborative witness to the meetings between Woodward and Deep throat (no more than there was a corroborative witness to Woodward's putative death bed interview with CIA Director William Casey). Not even Woodward's co-author, Carl Bernstein, was present at any of these meetings supposedly took place in an empty underground parking garage.

Woodward never mentioned Deep Throat in any of the newspaper stories he wrote in the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974. In these stories he consistently attributes his information to multiple sources. Consider, for example, his (and Bernstein's) 1972 revelation that at least "50 people" who worked for the White House and the Nixon campaign were involved in spying and sabotage. In the Washington Post (October 10, 1972, p A1), he attributes the information to multiple "FBI reports." In 1974, in All The President's Men (p.135), he puts the exact same information in the mouth of Deep Throat. In the scene in the book, first, he tussles with Deep Throat on the floor of the underground garage at 3 AM, grabbing his arm, then Deep Throat tells him:"You can safely say that 50 people worked for the White House and the CRP to play games and spy and sabotage and gather information."

It is not even clear how he can claim directly to quote Deep Throat --- earlier in the book (p.71), Woodward says that he solemnly agreed "never to quote the man even as an anonymous source." Even if Woodward was not concerned with such a demonstrable breach of his agreement, the book's publisher, Simon &Schuster, and movie producer, Warner Bros. might have been concerned with the potential breach of contract exposure. however, that to sue, Deep Throat would have had to come forward and prove his identity, which an invented character is not in a position to do.

Deep Throat certainly did not exist in the early versions of the book, according to Woodward's own book agent. The agent, David Obst, explains "In the original draft of their book, Deep Throat was not mentioned. In the second draft he suddenly appeared and it was a better book for the addition, a much more exciting one." Certainly, Woodward wrestling Deep Throat in a spooky garage is a more exciting scene than Woodward and Bernstein gleaning information from documents.

If so, Deep Throat was conjured up between the first and final draft and took the place of the less exciting multiple sources and documents. This is not to suggest Woodward did not have many real sources for his Washington Post reporting. But fusing them into a single composite character is the same operation novelists perform. A composite character, since he does not exist (and cannot sue) is fiction.

Finally, the fact-or-fiction issue is best illuminated by Woodward himself. He writes (page 71) that Deep Throat's "identity was unknown to anyone else." How could Woodward know whether or not Deep Throat ever spoke to anyone else?

If Deep Throat was a real person, he could easily have contacted other reporters, or even friends, and told them much the same information that Woodward describes in such detail. There were, after all, a number of similar stories in the Los Angeles Times by Jack Nelson and other reporters -- published prior to Woodward and Bernstein's stories in the Washington Post.

For all Woodward knows, Deep Throat might have been the Anonymous Source for those reporters, or any number of other reporters, who would not know that he was Woodward's source as well. The only way Woodward could know with absolute certainty that Deep Throat could not possibly have spoken to anyone else is that Deep Throat is his own exclusive fictoid.