"Mark Felt wants to cooperate because he's ambitious," Haldeman told Nixon four days after the Watergate break-in on what later became known as "the smoking gun tape," because it demonstrated presidential involvement in a White House cover-up.
One reason that the White House had confidence in Felt, according to Dean, was his sensitive handling of a potentially embarrassing case early in the Nixon presidency. As reported by Curt Gentry in a 1992 biography of Hoover, the FBI chief had heard of "a ring of homosexualists at the highest levels of the White House." Hoover told Nixon he was sending over Felt, one of his "most discreet executives," to investigate.
Graphic
Woodward's Notes Bob Woodward wrote these notes during the preliminary hearing for the Watergate burglars on June 17, 1972. On June 19, 1972, The Post published a front-page story that reports burglar James W. McCord's connections to the Republican Party.
Chronology
Mark Felt's career at the FBI and his role as an informant for The Washington Post.
The alleged "homosexualists" included Haldeman and fellow White House aide John D. Ehrlichman. After interviewing the suspects, Felt found no evidence to support the allegations and recommended that the case be closed. The investigation provided Felt with valuable contacts at the highest levels of the administration and with first-hand insights into how the White House was organized.
Nixon and Haldeman hoped to put a lid on the Watergate investigation by suggesting a CIA link to the burglary, putting it off-limits to the FBI. Contrary to their expectations, Felt persuaded Gray not to go along with the plan.
In the meantime, Felt had begun to talk off the record about the Watergate case to Woodward. He had first met Woodward, then a U.S. Navy courier, outside the White House Situation Room in 1970. After Woodward joined The Post in 1971, Felt became a valued source.
On June 19, two days after the break-in, Felt helped steer Woodward to his first big scoop in the Watergate investigation. After Woodward telephoned him at the FBI, a nervous-sounding Felt confirmed that a former White House consultant named E. Howard Hunt was a "prime suspect" in the case.
As the Watergate scandal heated up, Felt stopped taking telephone calls from Woodward, and insisted on conspiratorial meetings. If the reporter wanted to request a meeting, he would move a flowerpot to the back of his sixth-floor balcony.
At the same time Felt was meeting with Woodward, he was having to deal with complaints from the White House that the bureau was "leaking like a sieve." He did not want to reveal any information about the investigation that would compromise himself as the likely source.
Felt was walking a tightrope. A single misstep would result in his own destruction.
Under Scrutiny
"We know what's leaked and we know who leaked it," Haldeman told Nixon in a soft, almost painful, whisper on the afternoon of Oct. 19, 1972, that was picked up by hidden microphones. They were sitting in Nixon's hideaway in the Executive Office Building, across the alley from the White House.
