I realize I am a bit late to this party, but as I came back from a week away from home, the 'net and most importantly DailyKos, I wanted to do my part to help explain why I believe there is no way Deep Throat is George HW Bush.
I watched CNN and MSNBC shows last week talking about Deep Throat from the comfort of a hotel room and I was dying to find out information I didn't already know. I was away from my books about the subject, and I was really wondering what the peeps at Kos were saying. We found out last week that Deep Throat was apparently ill and possibly near death, which would absolve Bob Woodward from 30+ years of secrecy about the biggest undercover source in American history.
Lots more under the fold.
Kos user Shumard asked about a "chummy letter" in response
to my short comment and quote from a Woodward book in which I attempted to describe how Bush 41 is not Deep Throat. So, there's the brief back story, and at any rate, here I am with the full text as written in the book
Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate by Bob Woodward. I cannot be certain this includes the entirety of Bush's letter to Woodward, all I can be certain is that the text quoted below is my transcription of pages 220-223 from
Shadow in which Woodward talks about the letter.
In early 1998, I talked with Jean Becker, Bush's chief of staff who had been a newspaper reporter, about interviewing the former president for this book. She suggested that I write Bush a letter, explaining as precisely as possible what I was attempting to do.
I sent the letter January 27, 1998, just as the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was breaking. Three weeks later I received a three-page "Dear Bob" letter from Bush, dated February 12. It was in an envelope with only his post office box number as a return address, PERSONAL was written over the back seal, apparently in his hand, with two pieces of Scotch tape over the seal.
President Bush wrote "I know that you and my trusted Jean Becker have been going back and forth, trading calls, chatting. Now I have your letter of January 27th. Let me be very frank--I am disinclined to have the conversation that you suggest. There are several reasons for this position.
"First, I do not think you and I had a very pleasant relationship."
We in fact had no relationship. Bush had declined numerous requests I made to interview him throughout more than two decades. I was not surprised that he had never agreed to be interviewed by me, since I was looking for behind-the-scenes accounts of decision making--a style of reporting he disliked. I also felt that if he had agreed to be interviewed, he would not be particularly helpful. But I did want to give him a chance to respond and to add whatever he chose. He no doubt knew that I talked to many of his senior aides and cabinet members.
Bush continued in his letter. "You were the aggressive investigative reporter, I the office holder who knew that his every move, his every experience in business, or personal life or politics no matter how long ago would come under intrusive scrutiny. In the old days this would not have influenced me. That aggressive adversarial relationship went with the territory. Today, happily retired and trying to stay away from the Beltway media, it does influence me.
"Back then experts would tell me, `You better talk to him/her, they'll write the story anyway and you better get your side of it told accurately.' But now at 73 and having been through some ups and downs with the Washington press I am inclined to stay out of the story, out of the interview business. Instead I favor letting the writers themselves make the call, letting the chips fall where they may without my spin.
"Perhaps I am being unduly influenced by today's frenzy, a frenzy of sleaze and alleged tawdry behavior, but for me my reluctance is deeper than that.
"When I read books by today's new school journalists I see my name in direct quotes, words in my mouth I never uttered. I talked to our publisher at Knopf about this method. `Literary License,' says he. But I don't like it.
"Watergate was your watershed. For you it was an earthshaking event that made you....For me Watergate was a major event, for as you correctly point out, I was chairman of the GOP during those tumultuous times. I am sure I learned from Watergate, but it did not have the major effect that your letter seems to imply. Watergate had absolutely nothing to do with how I conducted myself during the Iraqi crisis."
(In my letter to Bush, I had said that I thought Watergate had taught him an important lesson, to narrow the gap between his statements and actions. In other words, to speak as close to the truth as possible, and I wrote he had done that in his public statement about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait: "This will not stand.")
Bush continued, "I think Watergate and the Vietnam War are the two things that moved Beltway journalism into this aggressive, intrusive, `take no prisoners' kind of reporting that I can now say I find offensive.
"The new young cynical breed wants to emulate you. But many of them to do that question the word and the integrity of all in politics. It is almost like their code is `You are guilty until proved innocent.' I gave a speech on the media in New York last fall and that is all I think I should say on the subject.
"Having said the above the bottom line is I really don't want to get into any of this with any reporter or writer any more than I want to discuss the current scandal about which I would inevitably be asked to comment.
"Another reason for `just saying no' is that I do not want to try to direct history. I am not writing a memoir. With Brent [Scowcroft] I have co-authored a book on several significant changes that took place in the world when I was president. Incidentally some of what we have written will agree with what you have written in The Commanders--some will not.
"Barbara's memoir gave our family history and did it well. That's enough for me now. Oh there may be a handful of additional interviews, but if they re-live ancient history and reopen old wounds I'm sorry but I want no part of it.
"I told the truth on Iran-contra, but I have been plagued by a press determination to prove otherwise. I listen to revisionistic leftists flail away against our action in Panama. I see respected columnists criticize me for not `getting' Saddam Hussein, going in, finding him, killing him. They, of course, are free to do their thing; and I am free to do mine. Mine is to stay the hell out of Dodge and do as the old Chinese mandarin adage says `Stand on sidelines hands in sleeves.'
"I hope you do not find this letter personally offensive. Out of office now, away from Washington, out of national politics I have a freedom now that I treasure. I am turned off by what you appropriately call a `climate of scandal and mistrust.' I am deeply offended by much of what I read, having tried to show respect for the offices I was proud to hold. But I know that comments by me would not help change things, indeed would probably be seen as piling on by a poor loser. So, Bob, we better leave things as they are.
"I suppose it might have a ring of hypocrisy if I, unwilling to pitch in, wish you well on your new project; but I do."
The letter was signed, "Sincerely, George Bush."
I recognized the voice from Bush's diaries, Bush's political skills were interpersonal--the chummy heads of state club he managed so well and loved even more. Struggle, name-calling, digging into a motivation or person's life deeply offended him. He generally didn't make noise or protest. He had built his career as the patron of other Republican presidents, turning setbacks into opportunities. Nixon had rescued him from defeat in 1970, after he had lost the Texas Senate race, appointing him UN Ambassador. Ford had made him director of central intelligence, his first major executive post and one with mystique. Reagan had selected him to be vice president after he had lost the nomination.
Bush had played by the accepted rules of the Republican Party and gentlemanly restraint had served him well. But the same qualities that had helped Bush reach the presidency hurt him once he became president. He had not acquired the political skills that many politicians develop through struggle and adversity. As a new president, he was not as well equipped as he should have been to handle the inevitable scandals. The investigations and conflicts were distasteful to him. The controversies almost dazed him. In the presidency and the years afterwards, he never seemed to reach a state of peace, relaxation or happiness. He stayed the hell out of Dodge, but the emotional inner life of his presidency was at times consumed with anger and private warfare with the various inheritances left by Watergate.
I sent Bush one more request for an interview, but then I backed off entirely. The First Amendment includes a right not to speak.
This leads me to several conclusions. While Woodward might not have included the entire letter in the book, it is clear that they were not "chummy." Other passages in the book infer that Bush and Woodward did not get along well at all, despite a managed leak Bush managed to get to Woodward during Iran-Contra.
To me, Woodward's comments recently about the ill health of Deep Throat also contradict if not flat out refute the possibility that it is Bush 41. We've recently seen Bush 41 appear in advertisements for tsunami aid, and at the Super Bowl. As recently as Saturday the 12th of February, Bush made a public appearance bringing the basketball out at a sellout crowd of over 13,000 at Reed Arena at Texas A&M University, (home of his presidential library) for the Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma State basketball game. He looked as healthy as you'd expect any 80 year old to look.
I hope this provides some explanation on how Deep Throat could not be George H.W. Bush. I am in no way a supporter of the man, I just happen to be a bit of a politics/history buff and I still live in College Station, Texas, where I graduated in December 2004 with a BA in American Studies with an emphasis on Society and Government. I feel that living in close proximity to Bush 41 and seeing him fairly often in the local news (as boring as he is, his stature makes the local news media go crazy with excitement when he does the most mundane thing) lends me credibility in this matter. Bush has, as he explained in his letter to Woodward, kept a fairly low profile. Here in College Station, he attends the occasional Texas A&M athletic event and doesn't really make a whole lot of public appearances. It may sound a bit contradictory to say our media fawns over him and he doesn't do public appearances, but this is both a very conservative city and a very smallish city. It doesn't take much to make the local newscasts.
thanks for your time, and any typoes in the quoted section are purely my own and are not meant to portray any mistakes in Woodward's book.