Mark Felt, key Watergate source, dies

Temporary plaque marks the spot in a Rosslyn, Va., parking garage where Woodward met with Felt, nicknamed “Deep Throat.”

Mark Felt, perhaps the most notorious confidential source in modern journalism, died Thursday, The Washington Post reported. He was 95.

Felt was decades into a high-powered career with the FBI in 1972 when he became “Deep Throat,” the covert tipster who steered Post reporter Bob Woodward toward the conspiracy behind a break-in of the Democratic party’s headquarters in the Watergate Office complex. Fallout from The Post‘s reporting eventually brought down President Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 rather than face impeachment.

Felt insisted on anonymity, and Woodward identified him to no one beyond his reporting partner, Carl Bernstein, and Post executive editor Ben Bradlee. Finally in 2005, Felt outed himself in a Vanity Fair article with the words, “I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat.”