Published June 9, 2005 in issue 0423 of The Hook

BY LISA PROVENCE

The lips of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have long been sealed about the identity of Deep Throat, the source whose tattling brought down the Nixon White House.

(Well, actually Woodward told his wife, and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee knew, too.)

Despite their silence, over in Waynesboro, J. Todd Foster, managing editor of the News Virginian, also knew the identity of Deep Throat, and had come tantalizingly close to getting the scoop of a generation three years ago.

Last week, his role in the Deep Throat saga splashed across the front page of the New York Times, and since then, Foster estimates he's gotten about 150 calls from news organizations.

In 2002, relatives of W. Mark Felt approached Foster, then a contributor to People magazine. Foster was certain the former FBI man was Deep Throat, but the family wanted money to tell the story, and People does not pay for stories.

So Foster approached a friend at HarperCollins about doing a book. That project was dumped when Felt's dementia and memory problems became obvious to a friend of Foster who interviewed Felt.

"If we came out and said Mark Felt was Deep Throat-- and he clearly is-- and Bob Woodward didn't confirm it... it would ruin our credibility," says Foster.

"The problem all along was checkbook journalism and [Felt's] memory," he adds. "Bob Woodward was the only one who could prove Mark Felt is Deep Throat, and if he said he was not the guy, we had no fallback."

Foster describes himself as a working managing editor who doesn't stay behind a desk. He'd been out on assignment all day May 31 when the story broke. Around 7pm, he turned on the TV to catch Seinfeld. "I flipped on CNN and saw Mark Felt's picture," he says. "I thought he'd died and Bob Woodward finally made good on his promise" to reveal Deep Throat.

The editor cranked out a first-person account of his role in not outing Deep Throat that appeared in the June 1 News Virginian. That story had the New York Times-- and other publications-- calling.

Many journalists were chagrined that a monthly broke the story and that an attorney wrote it. Foster calls the Vanity Fair story "thin," but says he doesn't feel as bad as he thought he would at being scooped. "I got emails from all over that applauded my integrity," he says.

And Foster found that being a small-town editor can be as challenging as working in the big leagues. "My friends used to accuse me of slumming, but I did it for the quality of life," explains Foster of his move to Waynesboro.

Besides, he hated living in D.C. But who needs it? Even from Augusta County, he has managed to be part of the national news scene.

Waynesboro News Virginian managing editor J. Todd Foster knew Mark Felt was Deep Throat three years ago-- but he couldn't get Bob Woodward to confirm it.
PHOTO COURTESY J. TODD FOSTER

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