Breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down former US president Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
Within hours, the paper confirmed his claim.
"It's the last secret" of the story, said Ben Bradlee, the paper's top editor at the time the riveting political drama played out three decades ago.
It tumbled out in stages on Tuesday -- first when a lawyer quoted Felt in a magazine article as having said he was the source; then when the former FBI man's family issued a statement hailing him as a "great American hero." Finally the Post's confirmation resolved one of the most enduring mysteries in American politics and journalism.
The scandal that brought Nixon's resignation began with a burglary and attempted tapping of phones in Democratic offices at the Watergate office building during his 1972 re-election campaign. It went on to include disclosures of covert Nixon administration spying on and retaliating against a host of perceived enemies. But the most devastating disclosure was Nixon's own role in trying to cover-up his administration's involvement.
"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt, the former No. 2 man at the FBI, was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine.
John Dean, counsel in Nixon's White House and the government's leading informant in the Watergate investigation, said Felt's admission raises more questions than it answers. Among them, how Felt gained access to the information he gave the Post, said Dean, who served four months in prison for his role in the scandal.
"How in the world could Felt have done it alone?" Dean asked in an interview with reporters on Tuesday. He said he couldn't see how Felt, then in charge of the FBI's day-to-day operations, could have had time to meet reporters in garages at night and leave secret messages to arrange meetings.
Felt kept his secret even from his family for almost three decades before his declaration.
Felt, now 91, lives in Santa Rosa, California, and is said to be in poor mental and physical health because of a stroke. His family did not immediately make him available for comment, asking the news media to respect his privacy "in view of his age and health."
A grandson, Nick Jones, read a statement.
"The family believes that my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice," it said. "We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well."
In a statement issued later, Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was `Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in the Washington Post about Watergate."
Among other things, Deep Throat urged the reporters to follow the money trail -- from the financing of burglars who broke into the Democratic National Committee offices to the financing of Nixon's re-election campaign.
The reporters and Bradlee had kept the identity of Deep Throat secret at his request, saying his name would be revealed upon his death. But then Felt revealed it himself.
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