Those who still remember the famous Watergate scandal must know the name of one the most important participants who appeared to be in the centre of this scandal. As you have probably guessed, we are talking about Mark Felt known also as "Deep Throat", who held a post of the associated director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation when the mentioned Watergate scandal happened. According to officials’ reports, Mr. Felt managed to become one of the most popular anonymous sources in the whole history of the USA.

According to Washington Post, this extraordinary man passed away on the 18th of December at the age of 95. As it became known, Mr. Felt died at 1 p.m. at the hospice that situated not far from his own house in Santa Rosa, CA.

As his daughter Joan Felt told to the press, her father was fine that day and even was making jokes about his caregiver, then after the dinner he went to have a sleep and obviously passed away during his sleep.

"He slipped away," she said in her phone interview.

Below you may find few facts about the life of this great person.

As the second-highest official in the FBI under longtime director J. Edgar Hoover and interim director L. Patrick Gray, Felt detested the Nixon administration's attempt to subvert the bureau's investigation into the complex of crimes and coverups known as the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. 

He secretly guided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward as he and his colleague Carl Bernstein pursued the story of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office buildings and later revelations of the Nixon administration's campaign of spying and sabotage against its perceived political enemies. 

Felt insisted on remaining completely anonymous, or on "deep background." A Post editor dubbed him "Deep Throat," a bit of wordplay based on the title of a pornographic movie of the time. The source's existence, but not his identity, became known in Woodward and Bernstein's 1974 book, "All the President's Men," and in the subsequent movie version, in which actor Hal Holbrook played the charismatic but shadowy source. 

 Felt, a dashing figure with a full head of silver hair, an authoritative bearing and a reputation as a tough taskmaster, adamantly denied over the years he was Deep Throat, even though Nixon suspected him from the start. 

"It was not I and it is not I," Felt told Washingtonian magazine in 1974. Five times, Nixon ordered Gray to fire Felt, but Gray, convinced by Felt's denials, never did. 

Felt, a master of bureaucratic infighting and misdirection, seized upon a Post story that had not used him as a source. In a bold stroke, he denounced it in an internal memo and ordered an investigation into the leak. "Expedite," he commanded. The next day, in a notation on another memo that passed over his desk, he pointed to a prosecutor as the source of the leak. 

"I was impressed. My guy knew his stuff," Woodward wrote in "Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat" (2006). "The memo was an effective cover for him, the very best counterintelligence tradecraft. Not only had he initiated the leak inquiry, but Felt appeared to have discovered the leaker." 

It wasn't until May 30, 2005, that Felt's family revealed his identity in an article for Vanity Fair magazine. The article, written by San Francisco lawyer John D. O'Connor, did not make clear why Felt, who was suffering from dementia, admitted his identity after more than 30 years. Woodward confirmed the revelation, and secret was finally out.
Few could imagine such a straight-arrow career employee, known for enforcing the FBI's strict rules of behavior and demeanor, playing such a dangerous game. Although Deep Throat was a hero to the counterculture, civil rights advocates and Nixon's opponents, Felt was no friend to the political left. 

In 1980, he was convicted of approving illegal "black bag" break-ins against of the families and friends of Weather Underground radicals. He was later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. 

In his 1979 book, "The FBI Pyramid From the Inside," co-authored with conservative writer Ralph de Toledano, Felt supported Hoover's bugging of the Rev. Martin Luther King during the Kennedy administration. He opposed Gray's decisions to hire women as FBI agents, to loosen the dress code and to ease the weight restrictions for FBI agents. 

He came from the traditional crime-fighting FBI, having started with the agency in 1942. He unmasked a German spy in the United States, chased bank robbers and for years led what was known internally as the "goon squad," which monitored the performance of field agents. Even after he was promoted to deputy associate director in 1971, his reputation was that of a hard-line Hoover loyalist. 

No one knows exactly what prompted Felt to leak the information from the Watergate probe to the press. He was passed over for the post of FBI director after Hoover's 1972 death, a crushing career disappointment. 

But by the time he told O'Connor "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he was enfeebled by a stroke and his memory of the era had almost vanished because of Alzheimer's disease. 

In his 2006 book with O'Connor, "A G-Man's Life," Felt expressed his anger at White House officials who attempted to interfere with the FBI investigation. 

 "It's impossible to exaggerate how high the stakes were in Watergate," he and his co-author wrote. "We faced no simple burglary, but an assault on government institutions, an attack on the FBI's integrity, and unrelenting pressure to unravel one of the greatest political scandals in our nation's history. 

"From the start, it was clear that senior administration officials were up to their necks in this mess and would stop at nothing to sabotage our investigation. White House staffers, high and low, were either evasive or obstructive. They drew the Justice Department and the CIA into their cover-up. They used the acting director of the FBI, a political appointee, to inform them of the information we dug up and attempt to limit our inquiries. . . . 

"I really can't describe adequately how bad it was," the book went on. "As investigators trying to bring the truth to light, we could not rely on Justice Department prosecutors or even federal grand juries to bring indictments. What we needed was a 'Lone Ranger' who could bypass the administration's hand-picked FBI director and Justice Department leadership and derail the White House cover-up." 

Felt, who saw all the FBI investigative paperwork on Watergate, was acquainted with Woodward from a chance meeting at the White House in 1970 when Woodward was still in the Navy. After Woodward became a reporter, Felt helped him on a story about the attempted assassination in May 1972 of George C. Wallace Jr., the segregationist Alabama governor then running for president. 

Days after the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Watergate, Felt told Woodward that The Post could safely make a connection between the burglars and a former CIA agent working at the White House, E. Howard Hunt.

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