February 21, 1973: FBI Realizes Watergate Reporters Have Inside Source

An internal FBI memo shows that the bureau suspects one of its own as being a source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for Watergate-related information. The memo reads in part: “As you know, Woodward and Bernstein have written numerous articles about Watergate [in which] they have frequently set forth information which they attribute to Federal investigators, Department of Justice sources and FBI sources.… [T]here is no question but that they have access to sources either in the FBI or the Department of Justice.” The memo says that the FBI’s acting director, L. Patrick Gray, has ordered an analysis of the reporters’ most recent article to determine its source and to locate the FBI leaker. The memo is signed by W. Mark Felt, the FBI’s deputy director and Woodward’s infamous source, nicknamed in the Post newsroom “Deep Throat” (see May 31, 2005). Woodward, who will read the memo for the first time in 1992, will realize as he pores over the document that Felt used the memo to cover his own tracks, not only by initiating the leak inquiry but by casting suspicion, however briefly, on US Attorney Donald Campbell. [Woodward, 2005, pp. 7-11]