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Professor, students identify 'Deep Throat'
UPI ^ | 4/22/03

Posted on 04/22/2003 9:41:47 PM PDT by kattracks

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- For a journalism class at the University of Illinois ay Urbana-Champaign the identity of "Deep Throat" is no longer a mystery.

After four years of work, involving more than 60 students over eight semesters, professor Bill Gaines said Tuesday they've identified the anonymous source who helped two Washington Post reporters expose the Watergate scandal.

At a news conference at the Watergate Hotel, Gaines and two students from his spring 2002 class, Thomas Rybarczyk and Kelly Soderlund, identified Fred Fielding as "Deep Throat."

Fielding, a lawyer, was first assistant to John Dean, chief counsel to President Richard Nixon, at a time of the Watergate break-in in 1972.

"Everything that we have, we show there's a document," Gaines said. Unlike many previous speculations on the source's identity, "it's not interpretation, it's not guesswork," he said.

Fielding fits all the personal characteristics of "Deep Throat," as described by Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, through their newspaper stories, their book "All the President's Men" and the movie of the same title.

Fielding did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment by United Press International.

But Gaines and his students also can prove that Fielding was one of very few people who knew about several "important, closely held revelations" at the time when "Deep Throat" was passing them on to Woodward, he said.

With other pieces of information, the students can't prove that Fielding knew, but can show he had access to the information and therefore could have known.

"There's very little that we do not connect with him," Gaines said, and nothing that shows Fielding couldn't have known everything that "Deep Throat."

"He was in a position to observe the cover-up without being accused of taking part in the conspiracy himself," Gaines said.

Among his positions since the Nixon administration, Fielding was the chief counsel to President Ronald Reagan for five years, served as a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team, and currently is a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks.

He is "among the most respected minds in government," Gaines said.

Gaines, who won two Pulitzer Prizes as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, said the project began in 1999 as a classroom exercise in investigative journalism. He also said the mystique of "Deep Throat" would motivate students and get them interested in history.



TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: deepthroat; fredfielding; watergate
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1 posted on 04/22/2003 9:41:47 PM PDT by kattracks
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To: kattracks
Naaaaaa! I still think it's Haig.

Cheers !!!
2 posted on 04/22/2003 9:45:57 PM PDT by dk/coro
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To: kattracks
Interesting
3 posted on 04/22/2003 9:47:12 PM PDT by tiki
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To: kattracks
I seem to recall, their 1st best guess awhile back was Pat Buchanan. Buchanan had never answered questions about it.
4 posted on 04/22/2003 9:48:52 PM PDT by stylin19a (2 wrongs don't make a right.....but 3 rights make a left)
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To: kattracks
Fielding, a lawyer

Didn't he moonlight at Night Court?

5 posted on 04/22/2003 9:49:41 PM PDT by petuniasevan (I had a lovely evening. Unfortunately, this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx)
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To: kattracks
Is this important any more?
6 posted on 04/22/2003 9:51:30 PM PDT by blastdad51 (Proud father of an Enduring Freedom vet, and friend of a soldier lost in Afghanistan)
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To: kattracks
Linda Lovelace.
7 posted on 04/22/2003 9:52:54 PM PDT by TheBigB (**FOX NEWS ALERT Saddam Hussein is dead. Unless he's alive. THIS HAS BEEN A FOX NEWS ALERT**)
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To: kattracks; Liz; Howlin; Mudboy Slim
Notable Quotes
Tue Apr 22, 8:40 AM ET

HOLLYWOOD (Reuters) - They really said it -- notable quotes from the news:

"Some men are uncomfortable, just tabling the subject, and some are very quiet about it. You never know which way to go. Is it easier to just bring it up and get it out of the way, or is that not the right thing to do with someone else, since that's going to freak them out?"

-- MONICA LEWINSKY, formerly involved with BILL CLINTON and now hostess of the reality dating show "Mr. Personality," discussing her past with USA Today.

8 posted on 04/22/2003 9:59:20 PM PDT by Libloather (And it STILL isn’t safe enough to vote DemocRAT…)
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To: kattracks
I've long thought it was John Dean himself. Fielding is an interesting idea, but if so, I think he was channeling on Dean's behalf. Dean was the true rotten core of the whole scandal.
9 posted on 04/22/2003 10:00:18 PM PDT by spqrzilla9
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To: kattracks
Fielding fits all the personal characteristics of "Deep Throat,"..

Close, but no cigar. Maureen, "Mo, Dean was "Deepthroat". Think about it.

She had method, motive and opportunity. If it's true, that the break-in was to retrieve the "Hooker Book" in the DNC, Mo Dean has the most motive of anyone , save John Dean.

While on the subject, how could Wood'Stein have sold Ben Bradly, of the Wash Post, that the info they were getting on "Tricky Dick" was coming from a D.C. "call girl". Wood'Stein cooked up the pseudonym for "Mo" as perfect cover and "implied heavily" to Bradly that the information they were getting on Nixon was coming from "deep in the administration". Yeah right! It was coming from Mo Dean, to save John and herself, as well as make media stars out of Woodward and Bernstein.

No, Mo was "Deepthroat", in more ways than one.

10 posted on 04/22/2003 10:00:30 PM PDT by elbucko ("Speak softly and carry a Laser Target Designator")
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To: kattracks
Kuel article! Until Fielding or someone gives this conclusion factual confirmation, I'm sticking with G. Gordon Liddy (very Machiavellian).
11 posted on 04/22/2003 10:02:27 PM PDT by w_over_w (TAG line under construction . . . don't hold your breath.)
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: elbucko
No, Mo [Dean] was "Deepthroat", in more ways than one.

As for Woodward, Bernstein and the Washington Post; "Follow the money!"

13 posted on 04/22/2003 10:27:25 PM PDT by elbucko ("Speak softly and carry a Laser Target Designator")
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To: kattracks
It's Diane Sawyer, who previously worked for Nixon, but has since become a friend to Lesbians & Gays.

It's not Haig.


14 posted on 04/22/2003 10:30:20 PM PDT by I_Love_My_Husband
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To: Libloather
I did not even know that Monica had a past with USA Today!
15 posted on 04/22/2003 10:32:55 PM PDT by DennisR
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To: kattracks
Is Fred fielding any questions?
16 posted on 04/22/2003 10:33:36 PM PDT by Consort (Use only un-hyphenated words when posting.)
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To: kattracks
Someone sugguested deepthroat was leonard garnett.
Garnett then wrote a very convincing book
"In search of deepthroat"
He concluded deepthroat was john sears. Sears was tall, drank, smoked and access and managed reagan's 1980 campaign and therefore had reasons to want to keep his identity a secret.
I believe almost everything else in
a theory and book liddy has advocated
"a silent coup".
17 posted on 04/22/2003 10:37:45 PM PDT by genghis
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To: elbucko
Close, but no cigar. Maureen, "Mo, Dean was ‘Deepthroat.’"

I don’t know about that one, did Mo know Woodward earlier? Woodward and “Deepthroat” were old friends, remember?

18 posted on 04/22/2003 10:42:22 PM PDT by Sauce
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To: Sauce
Close, but no cigar. Maureen, "Mo, Dean was ‘Deepthroat.’"

”Deepthroat” and Woodward went to college together, find out who worked in the Whitehouse and went to college with Bobby, and bingo, you’ve got “Deepthroat.”

19 posted on 04/22/2003 10:47:14 PM PDT by Sauce
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To: kattracks
< tinfoil hat>Woodward & Bernstein made up 'Deep Throat' - thye had a bunch of unconfirmed rumors, so they invented 'Deep' and sold the whole thing to their editors.< /tinfoil hat>
20 posted on 04/22/2003 10:50:31 PM PDT by Keith in Iowa (404 tagline not found)
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