Voting Station

Mark Felt

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Crime Fighter

The Resume

    (August 17, 1913-December 18, 2008)
    Born in Twin Falls, Idaho
    Birth name was William Mark Felt
    FBI agent (1942-73)
    Associate Director of the FBI (1972-73)
    Admitted to having been Deep Throat during the Watergate investigation (2005)
    Identity confirmed by Bob Woodward

Why he might be annoying:

    Shortly after J. Edgar Hoover died, Felt told newly appointed Acting Director L. Patrick Gray, ‘The Bureau doesn’t have any secret files,’ even as he was helping Hoover’s secretary remove the ‘Private and Confidential’ files from his office.
    He later testified before the House of Representatives about destroying Hoover’s files, ‘There's no serious problems if we lose some papers. I don't see anything wrong and I still don't.’
    During the early 1970s, he oversaw COINTELPRO, the FBI’s program of harassing left-wing political groups.
    As part of the program, he authorized FBI agents to break into the homes of relatives and friends of members of the radical Weather Underground without warrants.
    He and fellow FBI agent Edward Miller were convicted on charges of violating the Constitutional rights of US citizens by ordering the searching of their homes without warrants (November 6, 1980).
    After he revealed himself to be Deep Throat, there was speculation that his motive for leaking information was to get vengeance after being passed over for director of the FBI despite being the top-ranked agent after the death of Hoover and resignation of Clyde Tolson.
    Ironically, all the secrecy about ‘Deep Throat’ failed to fool the White House: President Nixon suspected Felt of leaking information but decided not to act directly against him out of fear that he would ‘go out and unload everything.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    He worked as a waiter and a furnace stoker to pay his way through college.
    During World War II, he worked in the FBI’s Espionage Section, tracking down spies and saboteurs.
    He was a consultant for the TV series ‘The FBI.’
    He and Miller were pardoned by Ronald Reagan, who wrote, ‘The record demonstrates that they acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government.’
    Richard Nixon apparently did not hold a grudge: after the pardon, he sent Felt a bottle of champagne with the note ‘Justice ultimately prevails.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 119 Votes: 63.03% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying