The Search for Deep Throat: John Dean's Picks

By Rebecca Winters Sunday, June 16, 2002
    • He helped topple a President and shake Americans' trust in their government, and yet after three decades the identity of Deep Throat is still one of Washington's great unsolved mysteries. This week in an e-book published by the online magazine Salon, former White House counsel John Dean delivers a list of four men he believes could have been the anonymous source who divulged key facts about the Watergate break-in and cover-up to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Dean, whose incriminating Senate testimony led President Nixon to call him a traitor, has twice before proffered theories on the shadowy source — naming Watergate prosecutor Earl Silbert and Nixon White House chief of staff Alexander Haig, both of whom denied it. In his latest attempt, Dean has narrowed in on Jonathan Rose, a Nixon White House attorney. Rose adamantly and, to Dean, persuasively denied the accusation, leaving Dean with a list of four finalists instead. Dean isn't the only one who won't let the mystery die. After three years of research, a University of Illinois journalism professor and his students released a seven-man list last week. Like Dean, they name two-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan and Nixon aide Steve Bull. The only sleuths who know for sure, Woodward and Bernstein, are keeping mum.

    To read more about Dean's search for Deep Throat, go to www.salon.com/deepthroat