Whilst some people have been saying Mark Felt should be thought of as an American Hero, others have been calling him a traitor and most certainly The Times and Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter in the Regan White House, who said:
Noonan: “A hero would have come forward, resigned his position, declared his reasons, and exposed himself to public scrutiny. He would have taken the blows and the kudos . . . heroes pay the price.” As it was, he let others take “the blows and the kudos”, watching silently as other Nixon officials were accused of using Woodward for various underhand purposes. This, too, was distinctly unheroic.
He may have done a laudable deed to the nation and perhaps even the world, but his actions were not heroic. He didn’t have to go behind the backs of his superiors. His superiors were Nixon henchmen, but he should have gone over their heads. He should have told the world what was happening and ought to have taken the credit or blame for what occurred as a result, instead of allowing many other people to suffer the burden of a falsely pointed finger indicating them. His actions were those of someone afraid and protective of his own position. He should be called brave and ballsy and we should be in his debt, but we should not think him a hero. Save the word hero for the real guys.
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Everyone, of course, is entitled to their own ideas about what constitutes heroism; and I can certainly think of many in history I think far more deserving of that honor, than Mr Felt. But I also don’t think making oneself a sacrificial lamb (i.e., resigning one’s influential position in government or risking dismissal) unless it is the only way to achieve one’s object is a necessary condition for performing heroically. There is much to be said for “living to fight another day” and thus potentially getting even further opportunities to display heroism later.
When one is Deputy Director of the FBI, one’s only superiors are the Director, the Attorney General, and the President. Mr Felt did go over their heads; he did go to the press; the desired object (exposure and disgrace of the criminal conspiracy in the White House) was ultimately achieved. As for falsely pointed fingers of accusation: that was Standard Operating Procedure during those days; thousands of anti-war and civil rights activists were hounded and investigated by federal law enforcement authorities during the Nixon administration; and even perfectly ordinary little people like me were constantly subject to public rebuke anytime some “good patriot” or “loyal American” felt our dissenting policy opinion, the cut of our trousers, or the length of our hair somehow threatened the outcome of ongoing military operations in Southeast Asia.
I am grateful to Mr Felt, in retrospect, for what little he may have done to advance the cause of turning public opinion against Mr Nixon and his cronies. As for heroes from that era, however, he is in no great position to unseat Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Rev. Roy Bourgeois, Angela Davis, or many unnamed others from that place of honor in my heart.
What astounds me more than anything about this whole affair is that people like Chuck Colson and G. Gordon Liddy are still getting significant face-time on national TV, when by all rights they should be hopeless alcoholics, living under pseudonyms in flophouses somewhere. “The Lord,” he do work in mysterious ways, I guess…
I agree with you in all bit the idea about going over the heads of his superiors. I know he was very high up and that obviously restricted his options, but what I’d have wished he could have done was been public. I realise that putting a face other than the Presidents to the scandal could have been counter-productive, but I think it would have made the case against Nixon even stronger.
I understand your view which argues that self sacrificing behavior is not necessarily benificial to anyone, because it removes the whistleblower from the system, but I think that his way of hiding precudes any claim of heroics.
I think the nationalism in American society is actually detrimental to the progress of the general intellect because it hampers real debate. Why can’t pundits just accept that some people’s view of the country differs from their own and that reform and criticism is a way to show love? People aren’t always right, and sometimes the only way to make them better is to tell them what they do wrong. The hunting of a cultural clique damages the whole, because no-one evolves, and the clique just gets more determined and stronger.
You are absolutely correct about the infuriatingly blind jingoism that invariably equates approving foreign policies of whatever current administration with “true patriotism” and – in the specific case of military adventures overseas – “supporting the troops.” Reminding such people that freedom of speech and the press, along with the thoroughgoing criticism of government policies it implies, were considered absolutely essential to effective government by Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin and a host of other Founders has utterly no effect on such people. “All that means,” such will say, “is that you have the right to spout your nonsense and I have the right to consider you an idiot and a traitor.” And that’s where the debate usually ends, with all questions about the wisdom of current policies left asked, but unanswered. Maddening.
I think we can agree there was nothing particularly heroic about Mr Felt’s role in the Watergate affair; at best he refused to toady up and completely support the coverup. What I wish more than anything is that Woodward and Bernstein had thought to call him “the Source,” “the Oracle,” “the Voice,” “the Informant,” or frankly just anything other than “Deep Throat,” for crying out loud. Poor Linda Lovelace.
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