'Deep Throat's' Boss Breaks Silence
June 24, 2005 — -- It has been several weeks since W. Mark Felt Jr. was revealed as "Deep Throat," the long-speculated about anonymous source who helped the Washington Post report the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.
Now, after 32 years, the man who was Deep Throat's boss, former FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, breaks his silence in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.
Watch the entire interview with Gray on "This Week" Sunday on ABC. Check local listings for times.
In the interview, Gray speaks candidly about Watergate, explains why he destroyed the documents in E. Howard Hunt's safe and discusses his feelings about his former deputy and the former president.
"[Felt] was a really a formidable character, and as it turned out, a formidable foe as far as I was concerned," Gray told Stephanopoulos, and he agreed that Felt is a skilled liar. "Yes, because he told me time and again he was not Deep Throat."
Gray also talks about whether he thinks Felt is a traitor and if he believes, 32 years later, that he was right to destroy the Hunt (the former CIA spy whose "plumbers" bugged the Democratic Party's Watergate headquarters in 1972) documents. And on the eve of the release of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's new book, "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat," he also talks about his opinions of Woodward and his partner, Carl Bernstein.
When asked why he maintained his silence for so long, Gray said, "I think my reasons lie in the fact that when I spoke to reporters, they very often didn't really get the facts of the situation and settled more on opinion, and I finally decided this was a futile process."
So why does he want to go public now? "Because, Mr. Stephanopoulos, as you can tell I'm very old, and Mark Felt, who was my trusted No. 2 man, has come out, identifying himself as Deep Throat," he said.
"This was a tremendous surprise to me, and you talk about shock in Iraq and awe in Iraq. I could not have been more shocked and more disappointed in a man whom I had trusted, and I felt totally at a loss as to understand why he did not come to me and tell me what his problems were."
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