The Secret Man by Bob Woodward and Mark Felt -- a review by Elleanore Vance

1972 was a busy year for Katharine Graham and her Washington Post. Betty Medsgar was still writing about the burglary of an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and the documents it had uncovered. Then with the first Watergate story published in August, Woodward and Bernstein were household names by December, as was the mysterious informant known as Deep Throat.

Growing up in the 90's, the true identity of Deep Throat was as mysterious and unknowable as  the true identity of California's Golden State Killer, BTK, or the Green River Killer. One of Life's Great Unanswerable Questions. I personally only knew of Deep Throat in a Pop Culture, Robert-Redford-in-a-Parking-Garage kind of way.

By the end of high school, I had a good deal more context thanks to Mr. Lewis and Ms. Cottril's American History class. But that was context and maybe a suspect or two. Fast forward a touch to May 31, 2005 when Vanity Fair released an article on its website containing a bombshell by attorney John D. O'Connor: W. Mark Felt had been Deep Throat all those years ago.

This book, which was lovingly crafted by Bob Woodward, fills the gaps between 1972 and 2005; standing as a memoir to a friendship(?). Within these pages, Woodward tells us how he and Felt met and became acquainted, Watergate and the Aftermath thereof. And finally we learn the reason for this final reveal.

Taken as a companion to All the President's Men,  and even Betty Medsgar's The Burglary (in which Felt featured significantly),  it reads as the story of a fallen Titan. Once he had been the third most powerful man in the FBI, maybe the fifth most powerful man in the United States, at the same time. We have seen him use and abuse his power; his position. In this book we see him defeated by that which claims us all in the end: time. In turns heartwarming, infuriating and heartbreaking, this is a prime example of knowledge being lost to the sands of time.

If you are interested in Watergate, American icons, or memoirs, I suggest you give The Secret Man a go. Also, if you haven't read my review of All the President's Men, you can find that here. (My review of The Burglary is upcoming.)

⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5