Final_Judgment

472 ”Deep Throat” [375]
President's Men, which is another reason that the book is an amazing
document. It is evident that Deep Throat has a serious interest in the Post's
succeeding with its investigation . . . He expects results. He will not tell him
how he knows what he knows or why he wants to help Woodward implicate
Nixon . . ." 971
Davis has concluded that the "voice" for the source, "Deep Throat," in
fact, was James Angleton's deputy, Richard Ober. And this means, of
course, that Ober most assuredly was doing Angleton's bidding as part of a
campaign to bring down Richard Nixon.
The big question, as far as Davis is concerned, is whether "Deep
Throat" approached Woodward or whether Woodward's editor, Ben
Bradlee, put Woodward in touch with "Deep Throat."
In either event, the fine hand of James Angleton was clearly at work.
Either Angleton sent Ober to Woodward or Angleton directed his longtime
Post ally, Bradlee, to have his reporter Woodward seek out Ober. Davis
points out: "The minor deception in [All the President's Men] is that only
Woodward knew who Deep Throat was. Bradlee too almost certainly knew
him and for far longer than Woodward." 972
Davis adds that: "There is a possibility that Woodward had met [Deep
Throat] while working [before he became a Post reporter] as an intelligence
liaison between the Pentagon and the White House, where Deep Throat had
his office, and that he considered Woodward trustworthy, or useful, and
began talking to him when the time was right."
"It is equally likely, though," says Davis, "that Bradlee, who had given
Woodward other sources on other stories, put them in touch after
Woodward's first day on the story, when Watergate burglar James McCord
said at his arraignment hearing that he had once worked for the CIA." 973
In Davis's judgment: "Whether or not Bradlee provided the source, he
recognized McCord's statement to the court as highly unusual, CIA
employees, when caught in an illegal act, do not admit that they work for
the CIA, unless that is part of the plan. McCord had no good reasons to
mention the CIA at all, except, apparently, to direct wide attention to the
burglary, because he had been asked to state only his present occupation,
and he had not worked for the CIA for several years." 974
A COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OPERATION
Davis's conclusion is quite powerful indeed: "Whether Deep Throat
was Richard Ober, whom Bradlee had dined with at Harvard and whom
Woodward very likely had known while at the Pentagon; whether or not it
was Ober, who as head of Operation CHAOS, as both a White House and a
National Security operative, was one of the few men in a position to know
more about Nixon than Nixon himself did; whether or not Deep Throat was
the same man who had been the deputy and the protégé of James Angleton,
the CIA's master of dirty tricks—there is no doubt that the use of the