Bradlee:
Deep Throat
‘is a great hero’

Mitchell: Looking back now, Watergate sort of gets softened and shaded in people's memories, at least those, especially those who were younger, who didn't live through it.

How mean and ugly was it?  You know, we now see some of these post-Watergate people as pundits and commentators and it seems to be sort of a moral equivalency.  How does that make you feel?

Bradlee: It makes me sick to hear Gordon Liddy talk about morality in government.  I mean, he hasn't been out of jail all that long.  I mean, it's just — it makes me sick.  And why people, why the press goes to him to get quotes about the morality of it all surprises me.  Chuck Colson, the same way.

Mitchell: Well, Pat Buchanan said, repeatedly, in interviews in the last 24 hours, that Mark Felt was a traitor and that he was responsible for the loss of Vietnam and the, “holocaust in Cambodia,” because by bringing down Richard Nixon...

Bradlee: Mark Felt was?

Mitchell: That Mark Felt, by bringing down Richard Nixon cost this country Vietnam and Cambodia.

Bradlee: Well, that's wrong on so many levels.  I mean, Richard Nixon brought down Richard Nixon.  There wasn't anybody else involved.

And I must say that the tape, the Nixon tape about Mark Felt, just fascinates me.  The first thing he says is, “Is he a Jew?”  What the hell does that have to do with it?

Mitchell: Which turned out not to be true but...

Bradlee: No.

Mitchell: It was their false conclusion in any case.

Bradlee: But actually, Haldeman told him that he wasn't — yeah.  Haldeman said he was a Catholic and that's not true either, I understand.

Mitchell: When you think about whistleblowers, is Mark Felt the sort of classic whistleblower?

Bradlee: Well, you know, a whistleblower, that sounds sort of sneaky, and...

Mitchell: Well, going into garages at night and sending signals...

Bradlee: Yeah, the garage.

Mitchell: ...in the Washington Post classifieds.  That's sneaky.

Bradlee: Well, I don't know about the garage, how they chose the garage.  It worked out well in the movie.  I don't know.  But I think whistleblower, the right kind of whistleblowing is a patriotic act.  I have no trouble with that.

Mitchell: Did the whole mystique of Deep Throat become glamorized and perhaps more part of the mythology because of the nickname?

Bradlee: It's becoming that now and, yeah, the nickname — I mean, think of the nickname.  I mean, this wasn't table talk.  You couldn't talk about that when I was growing up, and to have that, you know, that sexual connotation become popular.

Mitchell: And who came up with the nickname?

Bradlee: Howard Simons came up with the nickname.  He was the former managing editor of the Post, who was a joyous man and who saw humor everywhere, and I think — you know — I mean, it's right now that the legend is being perpetuated.  The legend was going to die one of  these days, sooner or later, even though the movie is on television all the time, and I mean, I have people stop me in the streets the next day, that say, “Oh, I saw you on television last night.”

Mitchell: You told them it was really Jason Robards.

Bradlee: Well, I didn't.

Mitchell: Are you, in a sense, relieved that it's out?

Bradlee: I hadn't thought about it.  I'll be glad when the pace of all this rash of publicity is over, but no, I mean, I think that it's interesting and I think it's good for the news business.  It's good for the Post.

Mitchell: How is it good for the news business?

Bradlee: Because we behaved responsibly, and for a long time kept our word; all those good virtues.

Mitchell: And how surprising was it that it would be released in this fashion?

Bradlee: Totally, to me.  I had no idea it was coming and, you know, you don't think of Vanity Fair as the place where that kind a story is — or at least I don't.

Mitchell: So what was it like around here yesterday?

Bradlee: It was just your local madhouse.  Len Downie, my successor, and his successor, the managing editor, were off at some conference, you know, on the Eastern shore, it took them a while to get back.  But, you know, we got going.

Mitchell: And did you tell Sally, or did Sally hear it on her own?

Bradlee: I've forgotten.  I think I probably about, in the middle of the morning, told her that it was gonna break; yeah.  I think I did.

Mitchell: Any other thoughts on lessons for, maybe young journalists who've been struggling, with the over-reliance on anonymous sources, and all of the media issues we've had to grapple with?  We've had some real set-backs lately.

Bradlee: Yeah.  I think that the kids will appreciate that it has come to an end, and that it's a great example of how an important but minor part of democracy works — free press, all that stuff.  Good civics lessons.

Mitchell: Is there an application to the fact that we've got journalists who, right now, may be soon jailed, not only for stories they wrote but stories they didn't even write?

Bradlee: Yeah; that's interesting.  I mean, I hope it has some application, because I think that's a scandal.  But I think it would decrease the appetite to get the press a little bit — temporarily.  Newspaper popularity is very cyclical and it — you know, if they go down, they'll come up.  If they get up, they'll go down.

Mitchell: Has it been fun?

Bradlee: Terrific.

Mitchell: Thank you, Ben Bradlee.

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