Customer Reviews

In Search of Deep Throat : The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time

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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is must-read for any serious political junkie. Garment provides a pretty compelling argument for the identity of the most mysterious informant of the century. It's well-written and provides several interesting insights to the Watergate scandal and players.

Having come of age in the era of Nixon and Watergate, I thoroughly enjoyed this jauntily (and often painfully) personal reflection upon the key events of the Nixon presidency as well as its long prologue and aftermath. Whether or not Garment "got it right this time", the book has great value owing to the insight it brings to the elements that allowed "Watergate" to occur, both the elements that lived inside the mind and character of Richard Nixon and those elements intrinsic to the times in which his administration took place. Everyone will form an individual perception as to whether Garment's culprit was the real Deep Throat, but the quality of his investigation and the uniqueness of his perspective lend a lot of credibility to his conclusion.

In Search of Deep Throat is at once both interesting and not very good. Garment is not really a writer. The book would have been better if written by a reporter. Instead, like the lawyer that he is, Garment feels compelled to establish the facts of the case first, so he devotes too much space to outlining what happened in Watergate. The book really shouldn't need to do this because Watergate could and has been the subject of entire books. If the reader doesn't know about Watergate already, he or she has no reason to be interested in Deep Throat's identity.

The second problem is with Garment's treatment of suspects that he rules out. He repeatedly makes reference to theories or theorists who speculate that X was Deep Throat, without identifying who forwarded such theories and how they were forwarded. The book would be far more interesting if it catalogued various Deep Throat theories in greater detail. Perhaps even worse, Garment discounts various candidates apparently based on their temperament, their apparent loyalty to Nixon, their presumed aversion to the type of sneakiness perpetrated by Deep Throat or some other very superficial reason.

It gets worse. Garment rules someone out based on his wife's first glance at the suspect's wife. He settles on John Sears (this is not letting the cat out of the bag - Garment identifies Sears within the first few pages) in part because it makes sense to his wife. I was hoping that the case for Sears would be stronger than the case against others. This was not to be. At one point, Garment lays out a relatively compelling case that Sen. Robert F. Bennett was Deep Throat. He then concludes that Bennett was not basically, I guess, because he doesn't smoke and drink. Patrick Gray is ruled out because...why? I'm not sure.

Garment's Sears theory is dependent in part on Sears secretly actually being two sources in All the President's Men. Garment thinks Sears is a Bernstein source because the material supplied by this source sounds like Sears to Garment. That presumption was why Garment hadn't really thought about Sears as Deep Throat before. Then it occurred to him that Woodward and Bernstein did not always reveal their sources to each other, so Sears could have been a source for both. Other than that, Garment's basic case for Sears is that his mannerisms seem compatible to those attributed to Deep Throat in All the President's Men.

There are a few big problems with this. The first is that Woodward revealed Deep Throat's identity to Bernstein. Even if Woodward didn't know that Sears was a source for Bernstein, Bernstein would know that Sears was Deep Throat. Why would Bernstein allow him to be turned into two characters for the book he co-wrote? The other problem is that Bernstein's source interacted with Bernstein in a completely different way than Deep Throat did with Woodward. Deep Throat was extremely secretive - Bernstein's source was not nearly so. Why would the same person insist on cloak-and-dagger tactics to communicate with Woodward while at the same time apparently taking phone calls from Bernstein?

If there is an answer to that question, it is not in the book. The book would be more interesting anyway with more concrete evidence, such as evidence that Sears was or was not in one place or another on one date or another. Phone records, testimony, etc. are all missing. Garment basically makes his case based almost entirely on his assessment of different personalities. The topic itself is inherently interesting enough to have inspired me to read the book quickly, but in the end I still don't feel like I know who Deep Throat is.

For some reason he devotes a whole chapter to Nixon's rise back to power which in comparison to the other chapters seems somewhat out of place. The highlight of Garment's book is when he recalls Woodward & Bernstein's classic All The President's Men. While he goes through the shortlist of who is suspected of being Deepthroat and disecting the characteristics of DT to the people he actually knew was very interesting to the say the least. But when Garment states that DT might actually be a composite of several people in the administration, I started to lose interest. I still read it twice though. Very Good.

In this interesting book, Leonard Garment lays out his reasons for an odd answer to the question, "Who was Deep Throat?" The best parts of the book are where he explains why we should care: "Deep Throat" evidently acted to prevent what he saw as a serious threat to our Constitutional form of government. He became concerned about the abuses of power and persecution of political adversaries that eventually led to Nixon's downfall.

That Garment portrays Deep Throat's presumed motives so clearly and cogently is interesting. So is his choice to keep the topic alive when it seems to be drifting out of most people's thinking. Then consider what is missing from his denial that he is, in fact, Deep Throat: he couldn't be, he claims, because he talked so much and so openly to reporters, including Woodward and Bernstein, that he would have been suspected immediately by Nixon's "Plumbers" if he had been the source in question. (So he WAS one of their sources! This sounds like Clinton denying one sex scandal by admitting another! ) What he does NOT say is the first thing you'd expect if he could say it: "Woodward and Bernstein say they met with Deep Throat on these days, and on several of those days I was out of town." Also, Woodward and Bernstein have said many times that they agreed to reveal Deep Throat's identity only when he dies -- implying that Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein expect him to die before they do. This is evidence against John Sears and in favor of an older man.

Finally, Woodward and Bernstein have said that Hal Holbrook, who played Deep Throat in the movie of "All the President's Men," bore a fair resemblance to the actual person. John Sears doesn't look like him. Leonard Garment does.

So if you're interested in the dark side of the Nixon administration and the reasons this mysterious Washington insider and close Nixon associate, whoever he was, had for doing what he did, read this book -- carefully. At the very least, it's an intriguing and well documented (if somewhat dryly and unevenly written) account of what might have led Deep Throat to conclude that the Constitution was in peril, impelling him to help undermine Nixon's presidency. At most, it may be the best explanation we'll ever get directly from Deep Throat himself. With all due respects to Mr. Garment's denial, the latter is the way I'm betting.

If the three of them are telling the truth, only Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Deep Throat himself know the identity of Deep Throat. However, trying to guess who he is (and Woodward and Bernstein have admitted it is a he) has become a cottage industry and fun game to play. It does seem that there are a finite number of possible suspects and trying to ferret out who he is should be possible if Woodward and Bernstein are telling the truth.

And this book should be read for the fun of it, not for any deep serious purpose. Leonard Garment was on at least in the Nixon Whitehouse to some degree and does bring some insight to the game. But is the person he identifies as Deep Throat really the guy? Well, that person denies it. But since he wants his identity secret, wouldn't he deny it if identified? In this game there is no allee-allee-in-free. We aren't going to find out for sure who he is until after Deep Throat dies - if WE outlive him.

But I like Garment's arguments and the insights he offers to why he things these folks aren't Deep Throat and why the one he selected is. Maybe it is someone who isn't on the list at all. Maybe it is someone no one has really heard of who had his own mole in the Whitehouse. Who knows? (Well, the four mentioned above do.)

So, if you are interested in this subject and like fun books, this is a good choice. If you want to know definitively who Deep Throat is, well, you will have to wait. In the meantime, let's have some fun!

This is an amazing and brilliant book and his theory about the identity of "Deep Throat" is almost certainly correct.I think everyone with the slightest interest in politics should immediately buy this book, and my feelings on this matter are in no way influenced by the fact that the author is my father.

The fact that no one has figured out who Deep Throat is, after 27 years of amateur sleuthing, suggests that no definitive evidence exist (remember how quickly the author of "Primary Colors" was unmasked? And that was just a novel). Garment doesn't have anything new, but he combines all the clues that exist (there aren't many) and produces a plausible guess. Is he right? I don't know, and I suspect neither does he. But the point of the book is not to find out who Deep Throat is, but to relive the scummy underbelly of Watergate, following the leaks and counterleaks, attempts to unmask and conceal sources, and so on. This is a fun book to read, even if Deep Throat's identity (Garment's guess, unfortunately, is not particularly exciting) remains unknown.

Messers Garment and Dean both have written intelligent, insightful commentaries regarding who the hero was that may have stopped the nation's political slide into "might makes right" government of, by and for elected leaders.

Okay, perhaps it only ended up sending our government into a nation ruled by lawyers and corporations, but, at least it has not become subject to the whim of just one elected man or woman.

Funny thing is, both Garment and Dean seem to have overlooked the one most likely candidate. If you read both Garment and Dean's studies, then re-read All The President's Men, then consider the following, I think you can easily see why I am certain Deep Throat is George Herbert Walker Bush.

Height is correct. GHW Bush is a tall man.

Speaking in a lawyerlese fashion? Recall Bush's refusal to allow John Anderson in the New Hampshire debate in 1980 was based on compliance with the rules. Also recall Bush saying, regarding Iran-Contra, that he was 'not in the loop.' Both could conceivably be the stand of one who used such a phrase as, "...corroborating evidence."

And how many people do you know who could lose a run for senate, then go on to become first US representative to China, Chairman of the Republican Party (who told Pres. Nixon, 'You have to resign...') then head of the CIA, then vice president, then President and father of another.

Then, recall his statement during all the fuss about his son's election and the court battle: He said something and the manner in which he spoke reminded me so much of Deep Throats mannerisms and speech.

Understand, I voted for neither Bush for President. However, because I am convinced of the elder's patriotism and that he truly always did what he honestly felt was right for the USA, and because I believe he did help us remove an evil administration (by this I mostly mean those around Nixon that led him down a tragic path) and because I am sure he also spilled a lot of insider information regard Iran-Contra, I have immense respect for George Herbert Walker Bush.

Mark my words. When he passes on we will finally be officially told who was Deep Throat.

In the meantime, let's scrutinize Garment's and Dean's accounts and then read, for the umpteenth time, All The President's Men.

I have always found something interesting and entertaining about the whole Watergate and Deep Throat story. How this one grumpy guy helped to bring down a President has always been fascinating, probably because his identity is still a mystery. In certain circles this mystery ranks up their with Bigfoot on the scale of true believers verses critics. Thus when I came across this book I thought I would pick it up if nothing more then to fuel my curiosity. The author provides a book that gives the reader a brief insight into the author, the roll he played in the Nixon administration and what he has done since. He provides a nice overview of what happened during Watergate and then he gets into who he thinks was Deep Throat. He also provides a nice Where Are They Now appendix at the end of the book, which is I found almost as entertaining as many parts of the book.

As you can imagine, the author did not jump right into who he assumes was Deep Throat. He takes us through a number of people that he suspected, but decided that they did not fit the bill. In this area I was disappointed. He tried to cover a good number of people (as the initial population of who it could be Deep Throat is always large before some investigation is done), but many times he dismisses people on almost no evidence, at least not provided in the text. There were any number of suspects that were tossed aside with simple comments about how the author could not see this person sneaking around a parking garage late at night. Although this type of reasoning may work with your wife or friends, for me it was a bit light and almost called into question his investigative process as a whole. One last minor criticism, the author should have included a few pictures of some of the people he was talking about, sure we all know what Nixon and the A team looked like, but this story was more about the players in the background and I would have liked to put a face with the names.

I think I found the most value in the details of the players / suspects that he did provide the readers. The strongest part of the book, in my opinion, was the personality traits and interactions of the key players that he detailed. Unlike books that focus on the administration or the key players, this book looked at what were some of the second tier players and gave the reader a very nice feel for what they were like and what it was like working with them. Overall the book was entertaining and well written. I did have some issues with the overall investigative process and I felt that once the author detailed who he felt was Deep Throat, his explanation why lacked an overwhelming amount of evidence to truly prove to me that he was correct. It just seemed to me like he rushed the last and most important chapter of the book. The details of the people involved saved the rating I gave the book, if it was not for this detail I would have rated the book lower.