Читать книгу The Best of "The Way I See It" and Other Political Writings (1989-2010) - Jamala Rogers - Страница 9

June, 2005

Mark Felt broke his silence after 30 years to reveal that he was Deep Throat. Felt was the mysterious and anonymous source of vital information that allegedly led to the demise of President Richard Nixon. For at least the current generation, they barely have a memory of Nixon, let alone the details of Watergate. As I look deeper down the throat of the high- ranking FBI official, I believe he has a lot more ’fessing up to do.

Felt was Deputy Director of the FBI at the time when President Nixon had authorized a break-in of the offices of the Democratic Party in the Watergate building. Along with just general snooping to see what goodies could be used against the Democrats, they also did some wiretapping. The White House dirty deeds came to light when writers Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein wrote All the President’s Men. All hell broke loose and the rest is history.

But just like the motives for Felt’s family coming forward had little to do with honor and honesty, the career agent’s motive for revealing information also needs to be scrutinized. The family now admits they did it for the money. According to insiders, Felt’s motivation to expose the White House’s criminal side, was suspect as well. He was angry that he had not been selected to succeed as Director one of the biggest criminals in the history of the FBI, the infamous J. Edgar Hoover. Felt also believed that there was too much hanky-panky going on between the agency and the White House to conduct objective and independent investigations. How hypocritical it is to pull the cover off Nixon when Mark Felt had spent a career violating people’s constitutional rights, including through covert and criminal means. Felt’s career with the FBI began in 1942 and ended in 1974, the same year that a disgraced Nixon resigned. This means that Felt served the agency during two of the darkest periods of injustice by the highest law enforcement agency in the land.

The first of those times was the McCarthy Period, when witch hunts were carried out by the FBI. The personal lives of people from actors to activists were invaded as people were brought up on charges of being Communists. The manufactured “Red Scare” ruined careers and lives. Where was Felt’s sense of integrity then?

Fast forward to the tumultuous 1960s when the anti-war movement was growing and the Black Power movement took over where the Civil Rights Movement left off. Hoover’s creation of the COINTELPRO was designed to rid our society of the radicals, regardless of their color. But black radicals, particularly groups like the Black Panther Party, felt the brunt of the program. They were jailed under false charges, exiled, beaten and killed.

Felt and his buddy, Ed Miller, were convicted for their terrorizing of the Weather Underground, a white anti-war group. They broke into the homes of members, their families and friends, causing emotional and legal havoc in their lives.Guess who came to their assistance with a pardon? None other than President Ronald Reagan, who granted them a full pardon in 1980 because they had “acted on high principle.” Yet, this kind of normal intervention by the White House became despicable to Felt only after he was passed over to be the Bureau’s Big Bully.

If Felt wants to go to his grave with a clean conscience, he needs to expose the whole cancer in the FBI, not just a skin melanoma. The use of a government agency to illegally acquire information for the sole purpose of retaliation and manipulation of domestic political adversaries is no higher principle. It is morally corrupt and unconstitutional.