Woodward and FBI tipster forged friendship before Watergate

WASHINGTON -- A chance meeting at the White House between a young Navy courier and a veteran FBI official forged the friendship and trust that were critical to The Washington Post's coverage of the Watergate scandal.

Bob Woodward was the Navy lieutenant and W. Mark Felt the FBI official who met in a lower level of the West Wing in 1970. Two years later, Woodward and colleague Carl Bernstein were upstart reporters covering the Watergate scandal for the Post -- and Felt was the secretive source their editor dubbed "Deep Throat."

Their first conversation about Watergate took place by phone within days of the June 1972 break-in, Woodward wrote in an article for the Post's editions today. On Tuesday, Felt revealed in a Vanity Fair article that he was indeed the shadowy Nixon administration insider depicted in the best-selling book and hit movie "All the President's Men."

"He reminded me how he disliked phone calls at the office but said that the Watergate burglary case was going to 'heat up' for reasons he could not explain," Woodward wrote. "He then hung up abruptly."

Woodward described Felt as a mentor who offered fatherly advice on his post-Navy career well before the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters. After Woodward joined the Post staff in 1971, Felt provided information for some stories but insisted that Woodward keep their relationship secret.

Not until Watergate began to heat up did Felt insist on clandestine meetings at 2 a.m. in an underground garage just across the Key Bridge in Arlington, Va., arranged through secret signals involving a flower pot and a red flag.

"The relationship with him was a compact of trust," Woodward wrote. "Nothing about it was to be discussed or shared with anyone, he said."

Why did Felt leak information -- likely an illegal act -- in spite of the risk? Woodward surmised that Felt was protecting the FBI's integrity and independence as well as making Nixon and his aides answer for their actions.

"There is little doubt that Felt thought of the Nixon team as Nazis," Woodward wrote. "He had nothing but contempt for the Nixon White House and their efforts to manipulate the bureau for political reasons."

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