Deep Throat’s Other Legacy
By Colbert I. King
Felt’s devotion to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI caused him, I believe, to place the bureau ahead of the Constitution and his own faithfulness to the Bill of Rights.
Felt’s Watergate heroics notwithstanding, he was also on board when the FBI’s series of covert action programs against Americans was well underway. He was a high FBI official when the bureau, arrogating unto itself the role of judge, jury and vigilante, trampled with impunity on the rights of citizens. Felt was there when the FBI sought to get teachers fired, when it tried to stop people from speaking on campus, when it prevented the distribution of books and newspapers and when it disrupted peaceful demonstrations and antiwar marches. Those shameful activities are cited in stark detail in Book III of the April 1976 Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate.
In the name of protecting national security and preventing violence, the FBI tried to promote factionalism and violence between groups it regarded as domestic threats. It planted informants to spread false rumors, labeled innocent people as “snitches” and passed along derogatory information to the families and friends of investigative targets, sometimes through anonymous letters or telephone calls. These despicable actions were carried out under COINTELPRO, an FBI acronym for “counterintelligence program.”
Mark Felt knew all about it. …
[W]ithout talking to the prosecution, consulting the judge or conducting the customary Justice Department review, President Ronald Reagan, asserting that Felt and Miller were motivated by “high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation,” pardoned the two high-ranking FBI officials.
To be sure, Mark Felt’s role as “Deep Throat” earned him a place in history. So, however, did his complicity in COINTELPRO, the FBI’s dirty little secret war against Americans.
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