[Leica] Deep Throat and B.D.

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

BD

I detested Nixon probably more than you did and for quite different reasons
I suspect, as to me he was an excuser for governmental excesses and one of
the many presidents (Gerry Ford, Ronald Reagand, and both of the Bushes
being others) who encourage the growth of Big Gummit.  Nixon was the worst
of the lot, as he made no pretence about doing so while claiming this was
in accord with "conservative" values.  I was tempted to vote in '72 for
Hospers, the Libertarian candidate, but my then-wife talked me out of this
by reminding me of my own work for the Republican Party and my family's
committment to the GOP since 1858.  (I have not been so foolish since, and
have voted Libertarian since 1976, and have done so cheerfully.)

I reside in the Congressional District represented in 1973 by M Caldwell
Butler.  Butler is an acquaintance of mine;  I do not know that he has
"friends" as he is a bit of a Mr Bultitude in personality but, what the
hey, I've known him close to four decades.  Butler was the junior GOP
member on the Judiciary Committee who voted to send the impeachment of
Nixon to the House Floor, and his vote was the critical one -- Nixon
resigned shortly thereafter, the first President to do so.  (I happened to
run into Caldwell the day Nixon died and asked him his thoughts:  he
responded by saying that Nixon was "the most died-in-the-wool
son-of-a-bitch I have ever encountered", and that seems to have remained
his opinion.  

As to "Deep Throat", the scholars of Watergate have long figured that Felt
was the man, though some interesting alternative have been suggested.  It
is nice to have the record cleared but this only matters now to those of us
who battled through those years.  It means little to my 22-year-old son and
means less to my 8-month-old grandson.  

Consider this:  I was 22 when the revelations of the British use of turned
German spies (the Double-X Operation) and 23 when the British finally
acknowledged that they had penetrated the Germann  higher-level codes
(though Ladislas Farago had ntimated thsi in his GAME OF THE FOXES four
years earlier, in 1969).  This meant a whole lot to my immediate circle of
military-history junkies but had no impact on my broader circle of friends.
 If they thought of it at all, it simply meant to them a closing of a minor
curiousity of history.  

Most USians alvie today were not of a cognizant age when Watergate ripped
this nation apart.  Think of the impact a complete movie, newly discovered
and shot on-scene, of the My Lai atrocity would have on the US populace
now:  they would simply see it as a marginally interesting bit of Ancient
History and would then want to discuss American Idol or the NBA playoffs or
Paris Hilton's impending nuptials.  

I acknowledge that the revelation of the real persona of DEEP THROAT is
most interesting to historians and political junkies such as me and thee
but I also recognize that it is of little interest to the general public.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!

NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505