WASHINGTON - Former FBI deputy director Mark Felt was hailed as a hero and denounced as a villain Wednesday after shedding a 30-year mantle of secrecy to reveal himself as "Deep Throat," the Watergate source who helped bring down president Richard Nixon.
Felt`s family and The Washington Post, which spearheaded press coverage of the Watergate cover-up, confirmed that Felt was the mysterious source whose only prior physical manifestation was a shadowy figure in the 1976 movie "All The President`s Men."
"I`m the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt, now 91, told Vanity Fair in an article published Tuesday.
Family members told reporters outside Felt`s home in Santa Rosa, California that he was relieved to finally speak out.
Bob Woodward, the Post reporter whose clandestine meetings with the world`s most celebrated anonymous source in an underground garage helped unravel the Watergate cover-up, at first declined to confirm the source`s identity.
Woodward and fellow Post reporter Carl Bernstein had always maintained that they would only reveal Deep Throat`s real name after the source`s death.
But the two reporters changed their stance following the family`s statement.
"Mark Felt was Deep Throat and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage," they said in a joint statement.
"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," they said.
Deep Throat met with Woodward several times to help break stories about the involvement of Nixon administration officials in the June 17, 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
The burglars, who were seeking to plant listening devices to spy on the Democrats during an election campaign, were tried and found guilty.
With public pressure mounting over his deceit, Nixon became the first US president to resign in August 1974.
Reading a family statement, Felt`s grandson, Nick Jones, described his grandfather as "a great American hero who went well and above the call of duty at much risk to himself."
"We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way, as well," Jones said.
But not everyone did -- especially former Nixon aides.
G. Gordon Liddy, a Nixon operative who served four and a half years in prison for engineering the Watergate break-in, said Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession," while former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan bluntly labelled him a "traitor."
Chuck Colson, the head of White House communications in 1972, said Felt could have helped America avoid a wrenching political crisis, the ripple effect of which was felt in the country for decades.
"Mark Felt could have stopped Watergate," said Colson, who served time in jail and is now an evangelical Christian broadcaster. "He was in a position of that kind of influence. Instead, he goes out and basically undermines the administration."
Felt`s disclosure received a more positive reception in the press, with several leading US dailies on Wednesday hailing Deep Throat as a prime example of how anonymous sources can keep government abuse in check.
Jones said his grandfather had previously expressed deep reservations about revealing his secret, over concerns that his actions would not have been deemed appropriate for an FBI official.
"But as he recently told my mother, `I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal. But now they think he`s a hero,`" Jones said.
Felt`s family had no idea about his secret until 2002, when Felt`s close friend and frequent social companion, Yvette La Garde, told his daughter Joan that Felt had confided to being Woodward`s source.
The Vanity Fair article said Joan confronted her father, who initially denied it, but after she explained La Garde`s disclosure, he responded: "Since that`s the case, well, yes I am."
He finally gave in to family pressure to go public when his daughter persuaded him that the story could bring some financial benefit that would help pay for his grandchildren`s education.
Felt`s name was no stranger to the perennial Washington dinner-party game of identifying Woodward`s source.
The list of likely suspects had included former Nixon White House aide Diane Sawyer, who is now a television presenter; Nixon`s chief of staff, Alexander Haig; and the FBI director at the time, Patrick Gray.
Some even argued that Deep Throat was in fact several people, or merely a literary invention.
With the secret finally out, The New York Times said Watergate aficionados would mourn the end to a 30-year cottage industry of Deep Throat speculation.
"It`s a little like discovering that Superman`s secret identity was, well -- Clark Kent," the newspaper said.

06/01/2005 14:11 GMT