Mark Felt - Later Years

Later Years

Felt published his memoir The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside in 1979. It was co-written with Hoover biographer Ralph de Toledano, though the latter's name appears only in the copyright notice. Toledano in 2005 wrote that the volume was "largely written by me since his original manuscript read like The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." Toledano said:

Felt swore to me that he was not Deep Throat, that he had never leaked information to the Woodward-Bernstein team or anyone else. The book was published and bombed.

Library Journal wrote in their review that "at one time Felt was assumed to be Watergate's 'Deep Throat'; in this interesting but hardly sensational memoir, he makes it clear that that honor, if honor it be, lies elsewhere." The memoir was a strong defense of Hoover and his tenure as Director and condemned the reaction to criticisms of the Bureau made in the 1970s by the Church Committee and civil libertarians. He also denounced the treatment of Bureau agents as criminals and said the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act of 1974 only served to interfere with government work and helped criminals. (The flavor of his criticisms is apparent with the very first words of the book: "The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact", Justice Robert H. Jackson's comment in his dissent to Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)). The New York Times Book Review was highly critical of the book, saying Felt "seeks to perpetuate a view of Hoover and the F.B.I. that is no longer seriously peddled even on the backs of cereal boxes" and contains "a disturbing number of factual errors", sentiments echoed by Curt Gentry who said Felt was "the keeper of the Hoover flame."

In 1990, Felt moved to Santa Rosa, California, from Alexandria, Virginia, his home since the 1970s. In 1992, he bought a house in Santa Rosa and after that lived with his daughter Joan Felt. He suffered a stroke before 1999, reported Ronald Kessler in his book The Bureau. According to Kessler's book, in the summer of 1999, Woodward showed up unexpectedly at the home of Felt's daughter and took him to lunch. Joan Felt, who was taking care of him at her home, told Kessler her father greeted Woodward like an old friend, and their mysterious meeting appeared to be more of a celebration than an interview.

"Woodward just showed up at the door and said he was in the area," Joan Felt was quoted as saying in Kessler's book, which was published in 2002. "He came in a white limousine, which parked at a schoolyard about ten blocks away. He walked to the house. He asked if it was okay to have a martini with my father at lunch, and I said it would be fine."

After Woodward left the house to get the limousine, which was parked almost three-quarters of a mile east at Comstock Junior High School, Joan Felt caught up with him to give him further instructions about what her father could eat for lunch. They walked together to the limo, and Joan Felt rode back with Woodward to pick up her father.

Kessler said in his book that the measures Woodward took to conceal his meeting with Felt lent "credence" to the notion that Felt was Deep Throat. After Woodward confirmed that Felt was Deep Throat, the New York Post said on June 3, 2005, "There are plenty of people claiming they knew Deep Throat was actually former FBI man Mark Felt ... On May 3, 2002, PAGE SIX reported that Ronald Kessler, author of The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, says that all the evidence points to former top FBI official W. Mark Felt."