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. |