Woodward and Bernstein on Imus

IMUS:  So the information that you got from him through all of the information you got, before Watergate and obviously after Watergate, all had to do with the Nixon administration?

WOODWARD:  Well, let’s see. 

IMUS:  In one way or another?

WOODWARD:  Yes, as best I can tell, because that was the administration in power.  Sure.  Yes.  I mean, Felt retired from the FBI in the summer of ‘73, and Nixon was still in office. 

IMUS:  Now, when Mr. Felt at that time was a fairly-when you first met him, was a high-ranking official at the FBI, subsequently became the number three guy at the FBI, and then-and then was the number two guy at the FBI. 

WOODWARD:  Right, yes.

IMUS:  And when L. Patrick Gray was appointed, he was essentially responsible for the day-to-day operation of the FBI.  Did Bradlee or did you and Carl sit around and think, man, this is-there’s something weird about that number two guy at the FBI leaking this information to us? 

WOODWARD:  Well, you know, it’s not-it’s not leaking.  And, you know, we’re going to put out a-the long version in a book of this, about this and the whole sequence, but sources are not born, they’re nurtured.  And this is somebody I met accidentally. 

We got to know each other basically because I was trying to figure out what to do with my life at that point after getting out of the Navy.  And he was kind of a career counselor-mentor.  And then when I went I into journalism, I said, “Well, that’s great, you can help me with stories.”

And he wasn’t too happy with that, but you press and you nurture, and you go back and back.  And he was a very, very reluctant source.  He was somebody who was not delivering specific information from bureau files.  And as best I can tell, I think in his own mind he was just giving us a kind of overall guidance, and not saying, oh, yes, there’s this 302 that says the following. 

IMUS:  So you-well, if you don’t describe what he was doing as leaking information, then what was he doing? 

WOODWARD:  Well, he was-he helped us immeasurably.  But, you know, there were so many other sources. 

Carl Bernstein just walked in here.  He wanted to (INAUDIBLE).

CARL BERNSTEIN:  Hey, Don.  Good morning.

IMUS:  Hi, Carl.  How are you? 

BERNSTEIN:  Good morning. 

IMUS:  I’m just asking-I’m asking Bob about what exactly Felt was doing, if he wasn’t leaking information.  He was providing some-providing guidance?  I mean, how would you characterize what he was doing? 

BERNSTEIN:  I think there’s a lot more guidance than actually giving of information.  I always stay away from the term “leak,” because usually it’s held to get information out of anybody, including people who are inclined to be willing to give it to you, that usually you still have to do some real pulling.  And this was the case. 

He was a very reluctant giver of information.  And also, that I asked Bob yesterday, “How many meetings and phone calls do you think there were in the whole time that we covered the story?”  And it’s fewer than 10. 

WOODWARD:  Or maybe-I mean, if you include phone calls, it may be a dozen.  But, you know, just an example from “All the President’s Men” to show how it worked, Carl and I learned from another reporter at “The Post” just a few days after Watergate there were these cryptic entries in two of the address books of the burglars, said H. Hunt or Howard Hunt-W.H., White House, with a phone number. 

Now, anyone can carry anyone’s phone number around.  If, you know, a burglar is caught with your phone number, that doesn’t mean you’re involved.  But it was a hard piece of evidence, and I called Felt and said, you know, “We want to be careful about guilt by association.”  And he said, “Look, don’t worry, Hunt’s involved.”

Now, that sort of backup allowed the story to be written, which was, you know, just a few days after Watergate, above the fold in “The Washington Post,” saying there is a White House connection to the burglary operation. 

IMUS:  So he didn’t look at what he was doing as being a violation of his oath of office in providing information that they were gathering as an official investigative arm of this investigation, the FBI  providing the newspaper with a-he just-I’m...

WOODWARD:  Well, it’s got all of the ambiguity...

IMUS:  It sounds...

WOODWARD:  ... and the approach, avoidance of human nature.  You know, I think he was distancing himself from-so he wouldn’t be in a position of, you know, this came in from a specific FBI  file, but...

BERNSTEIN:  The truth is, you know, we don’t know all of his motivations. 

IMUS:  Right.

BERNSTEIN:  And during the period, he was really never asked.  We-I think there was enough trouble when Bob had these brief meetings and conversations to deal with whatever information we were trying to get without going into a question of what was motivating him.  So it’s only later, much later, that we could really speculate, and never have got a complete answer to his motivation. 

IMUS:  Did all of the information that you all attribute to Deep Throat in your book actually come from him? 

WOODWARD:  Yes. 

BERNSTEIN:  Absolutely.