{"id":4345,"date":"2005-06-02T15:00:53","date_gmt":"2005-06-02T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=4345"},"modified":"2021-03-25T16:32:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T21:32:57","slug":"nixon-wanted-polygraph-for-deep-throat-w-mark-felt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2005\/06\/02\/nixon-wanted-polygraph-for-deep-throat-w-mark-felt\/","title":{"rendered":"Nixon Wanted Polygraph for “Deep Throat” W. Mark Felt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

In an article titled, “President Called Felt a ‘Traitor’ in ’73,”<\/a> William Neikirk and Mike Dorning report for the Chicago Tribune<\/em> that White House tapes reveal that former President Richard M. Nixon wanted to force W. Mark Felt to take a lie detector “test.” Excerpt: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON — Nearly 15 months before his 1974 resignation, President Richard Nixon described W. Mark Felt as a traitor who should be required to take a lie detector test, according to previously undisclosed tapes of White House conversations stored at the National Archives.<\/p>

Felt was identified this week as the Washington Post’s Watergate source known as Deep Throat. While a national debate erupted over whether Felt is a hero or a villain, tapes previously disclosed showed that Nixon had concluded as early as October 1972 that Felt, then the deputy director of the FBI, was leaking damaging information on the Watergate scandal.<\/p>

The newly disclosed tapes also show Nixon and his aides firmly believed Felt was leaking information to The New York Times and Time magazine on a variety of topics, including wiretaps of reporters and a White House-authorized burglary of the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg<\/a>, who earlier had leaked the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s internal history of decision-making in the Vietnam War.<\/p>

In a tape that was recorded May 12, 1973, Nixon brought up Felt’s name in a telephone conversation with Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, saying that Felt apparently had “blown the whistle” on the administration’s involvement in investigating Ellsberg.<\/p>

Referring to Felt, Nixon told Haig, “Everybody is to know that he is a goddamn traitor and just watch him damned carefully.” But he added that he was going to leave it to the “new man to clean house” at the FBI, a reference to the vacancy at the bureau after acting director L. Patrick Gray had stepped down two weeks before.<\/p>

Nixon said he found out from Time’s attorney three or four months before this May meeting that Felt had leaked information to the magazine. He said he told Gray at the time to investigate leaks Nixon said were coming from the FBI. Nixon said Gray protested that they could not be coming from the bureau.<\/p>

“And I said we have it on very good authority that they’re from Felt,” Nixon said he told Gray. But when the acting FBI director said that the leaked information couldn’t be coming from Felt, Nixon said, “I said, `Dammit . . . you ought to give him a lie detector test.’ You know I was very tough.”<\/p>

Gray told Nixon that he could not give Felt a lie detector test and vouched for his deputy, as did Atty. Gen. Richard Kleindienst.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In another White House tape recording<\/a>, former President Nixon infamously stated, “I don’t know anything about polygraphs, and I don’t know how accurate they are, but I know they’ll scare the hell out of people.”<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an article titled, “President Called Felt a ‘Traitor’ in ’73,” William Neikirk and Mike Dorning report for the Chicago Tribune that White House tapes reveal that former President Richard M. Nixon wanted to force W. Mark Felt to take a lie detector “test.” Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Nearly 15 months before his 1974 resignation, President …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[550],"class_list":["post-4345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-polygraph","tag-richard-m-nixon","anons"],"yoast_head":"\nNixon Wanted Polygraph for "Deep Throat" W. 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