-- was a stress test of institutions. watergate reminds there are three co-equal branches of government, the judicial, legislative, and executive branch, of course, co-equal. this was a moment in time when the three were figure out their interrelationship and where two of the branches placed limits on one branch, and the constitution survived, and the country moved on. and it's a good lesson for all of us and something that kids should know about. they should know about their rights, they should know that the constitution's in place to protect them when one of the branches of government oversteps its bounds. thank you. >> extensive samples of evidence including documents, oral histories, audio recordings, and vintage television clips are available to explore on line at nixonlibrari.gov.

>> this week we're featuring american history tv's weekend programs in primetime here on c-span3. on tuesday night we look at watergate on the 40th anniversary of the break-in. we hear from key congressional staff charged with investigating a possible impeachment of president nixon. starting at 8:00 eastern, francis o'brien, chief of staff to congressman rudino, chairman of the judiciary committee in 1984. at 10:00 eastern, bnard nussbaum, senior member of the house judiciary committee staff. american history tv in primetime all this week on c-span3. next, author max holland discusses his book, "leak: why mark felt became deep throat." mr. felt was the fbi assistant director who shared leaked watergate information with reporters including bob woodward and carl bernstein. in his book, mr. holland argues that mark felt sellishly used

journalists to discredit editor l. patrick gray and that nixon's resignation was an unintended consequence. the kansas city public library hosted this hour-long event. >> well, good evening. [ applause ] welcome to the kansas city public library. i'm director of public affairs, and let me come clean right now -- a recovering watergate junkie. [ laughter ] >> it's all true. i have suffered from watergate on the brain for many years. i got hooked when i was in high school, and it was a long road to recovery. i underwent years of expensive therapy. there basically meant buying and reading almost every single book, memoir, conspiracy theory,

and i diatribe connected with watergate and richard nixon. it didn't help that i lived in washington, d.c., during much of this period. [ laughter ] >> indeed, it was only after i relocated to the heartland that i was finally able to put watergate behind me. [ laughter ] >> and then about six months ago, my friend jen chin from the university press of kansas told me it a new book they were publishing. a new book about watergate. written by an author who would even be willing to come to kansas city on the 40th anniversary of the world's most famous third rate burglary. [ laughter ] >> which plus about 24 hours is essentially what today is. even better, it was a book that would address one of the least satisfying aspects of the whole

watergate saga, namely the motivation of that shadowy source codenamed deep throat who only became known to the world at large in 2005 when mark felt, once the number-two man at the fbi, revealed that he was the guy who hung around parking garages with bob woodward. so once an addict, always an addict. [ laughter ] >> jen gave me "leak: why mark felt became deep throat" by max holland on a friday afternoon. i started reading it on the bus on my way home. it took me only moments to get hooked. i mainlined it the rest of the weekend. [ laughter ] >> leak, if you haven't picked up my drift by now, is an extraordinary piece of work. it is the result of painstaking

archival research and offers a gripping narrative and ends with a breathtaking conclusion that shatters the deep throat myth. along the way we learn that mark felt was hardly a high-minded idealist seeking to expose the corruption of the nixon administration. instead, he was apparently playing another game entirely. his leaks about watergate were aimed at discrediting l. patrick gray, acting director of the fbi. the idea behind this scheme was that felt thought he would be named director instead. a position he believed he had been unfairly denied. in other words, this whole deep throat thing was an exercise in personal pique by a wiley washington bureaucrat that went wildly out of control. which is to say "leak" has the added benefit of offering further proof of my hypothesis that all history is personal. [ laughter ] >> of course, not every reviewer feels this way about "leak."

going against the accepted version of over even if it is a history as murky as the tangled web of watergate means you're taking on some big guns. most especially that would be the saintly and intrepid "washington post" reporters named bob wood wart and carl bernstein as well as the editors who supported them. naturally, the "post" devoted quite a bit of coverage to the 40th anniversary of watergate, one of its shining moments. but the cover did have a couple gaps. for example, here's how the "post" covered max's book. [ laughter ] >> so is this a cover-up? max had to come to the heartland to get a hearing. and we're glad he did. max holland, by the way is, no stranger to investigative journalism. a former writer for the nation

in its washington bureau, contributing editor to "the wilson quarterly," editor of "washington decoded" and winner of the jay anthony lucas work in progress report on a forthcoming back on the warren commission. in 1972, the year of watergate, the year nixon ran for re-election, max also worked on a presidential campaign. his candidate was george mcgovern. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, let's put watergate in front of us. please welcome max holland. [ applause ] >> thank you very much for that introduction. before i get started, i would like to thank the staff of the kansas city public library for making this event possible. it's a very well oiled machine. i'm very impressed with its

deficiency. i'd also like to thank my publisher, the university press of kansas, especially jen chin for getting the book in the right hands. it's great to be back in the midwest. i went to journalism school up the road in lincoln, nebraska. in fact, i was attending journalism school when the film "all the presidents men" came out, and i was suitably impre impressed. i was among those who would flock to journalism school after watergate. i never forgot one of the first lessons i learned from a journalism professor who had worked at the "lincoln star." he said, remember, every person you interview puts on their pants one leg at a time just like you do, which was another way of saying not to be intimidated by anyone you interview. now of course yesterday exactly 40 years ago, five burglars were

apprehended when they broke into the democratic national committee headquarters in the watergate office complex. the nixon campaign immediately denied any connection or responsibility. it was a third-rate burglary. and as hard as it may -- as hard as it is -- as hard as it is to believe now, watergate was not a big issue in the campai in 1972. mcvern t make it one, that's ve understanding mark felt's rule. five months after the burglary, xon won a landslide presidential election and poor george mcgovern, for whom i worked, couldn't even carry his home state of south dakota. he only carrieda theistr aa massachuses. but five months election, the nixon administration w ine daer, embroiled in the worst

scandal sithe teapote in the 1920s. d eventua the first impe pross 100 yeare, in richardç1 nixon'satio in 1974, all because of that third rate burglary. now before getting to the of my book, i want to note another anniversary. last month was the 50th anniversary of a film called "the man who killed liberty valence." "the man who shot lerty what d movie to do with watergate even though it starred two of richard nixon's favorite actors -- jimmyohn w. in truth, this movie, i think, is onhe best movies about journalism, certainly on a par with "all of thpresint's

to ca anu scenplay, let me brily describehat that movi abou it starts wi an esteemed u.s. senator ding a train w his , returning to a western town called shinbone to attend the funeral of arancher. a reporter's on e d wonders why the senator is making t long trip t aend a funeral of a rancher who was a drunk and, by all accounts, whose life didn't amount to very much. stewart wants tose thesion to s straight once and for l, gethe truth out and give friend the credit he has aays deserved. the great bulk of the movie is then told in flashback as stewart tells his political rise start became known as the man who shot liberty valence, a ruthless outlaw who was shinbone. it turns out that stewart was a young lawyer when he went to that territory. there wasn't even much need for

a lawyer, it was so lawless. he took odd jobs as a waiter and a tu htor, staeda young woman w him even a john anye, e rancher, was courting this woman. eventually stewart runs afoul o liberty valenc played by a very lee marvin. naturally there's a gusite, andto everyone a-- gunfht. d to everyone's amazement, he outduels liberty valence though he hardly knows how to use a six shooter. stewart learns afterwards that the shot was actually fired by john wanye, even though by saving stewart's life he is going to lose, it's all but certain he's going to lose the love of the woman he's courting. stewart then goes on to achieve fame and renowned for ridding shinbone of that law. he becomes the first u.s. senator from that territory when it becomes a state and even goes on to become the ambassador to

the court of st. james. privately he's always chagrinned that his whole career is built on a lie, but john wanye will not have it any other way. the movie then flashes again to the present, and stewart finishes telling the story to the reporters who's been taking notes all this time. he's relieved to finally have unburdened himself and told the truth. but it turns out oddly enough the reporter doesn't want any teinro of stert and sayswhhe legend bomes fact, int the egend. that confronte wie because in case the connection is t obvious, "all the president's men" is really like a hollywood western set in washington. where -- or as one scholar scholar wrote, two reporters at one end of the street aided by a

code named deep throat and the president at the other end. and the good guys win with truth, its only weapon, the press saves the day. this legend first came out in 1974, and the book, "all the president's men," subsequently these reporters one played by dustin hoffman and robert redford, became icons in the 1976 movie "all the president's men." every bit as enduring and as powerful as the man who supposedly shot liberty valence. but just like john ford, i think the truth is far more revealing. the editor in washington once said, the forces at work behind the scandal tell you more about how things happen in washington. and to subscribe to the legend of deep throat is to have a terribly skewed and, to my view,

wrong view of that historic episode. now my interest in watergate, i wasn't a watergate maven like henry. i watched the hearings very carefully in the summer and spring of 1973, having worked for mcgovern. but i didn't read all the books. my interest started in 2007 when i opened the "washington post" and read a small item in the gossip column that said that woodward and bernstein had sold their papers to the university of texas for $5 million. now this is after deep throat, mark felt, had come forward in 2005. and his done a lot of work in archives and knew that there's always something in the archives that is different from the public perception of what happened. so i wondered what's in their papers. one of the first things i noticed when i started to read about watergate is how

effortlessly woodward had shifted the reasons for mark felt leaking. it was kind of looking at a kaleidoscope. it was subject to change at any moment. in 1974 when the book "all the president's men" came out, felt was depicted as a conscience-stricken government employee who had to tell woodward what was going on because he was trying to save the office, the honor of the office of the presidency from richard m. nixon. but when the secret man, woodward's 2005 book about felt, came out, there had been a transformation. felt was no longer this principled whistleblower. rather it was a more pedestrian explanation. felt was trying to save his beloved fbi from the clutches of richard nixon. sort of a turf explanation. still a little later, woodward added a third element. he i grudgingly admitted that ft did want to be director of the

fbi and maybe was upset over being passed over. then he repackaged all three motives and said felt really had a multiplicity of motives. he was principled, he was turf conscious, and he was upset over being passed over. now, i didn't think bundling three-week explanations made for a strong one. also, i knew that from doing work on the fbi under hoover that the idea that nixon could appoint one man as director and remake or control the fbi was just prereposterous. after years of j. edgar hoover, the fbi had a deep-seated, ingrained, independence and culture unlike any other culture in washington. the idea that nixon could just control it by appointing a new director just didn't wash with me. but the final straw i guess in my battle was in december, 2008,

when mark felt died three years after coming forth as deep throat. you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, of course, but the newspaper coverage -- not just the "post," but all of the mainstream media, was so over the top. so unquestioning of why mark felt did what he did, that it just aroused my suspicions. then bob woodward during a eulogy held in january of 2009 went back to this extremely epharmaceuticalsiefus epharmaceuticals -- effusive view of felt, he likened to a criminal enterprise. now if there's one thing mark felt was not, it was a truth-teller. i began my research with a simple question -- according to the presidential tapes that nixon surreptitiously made, he was informed that mark felt was

the source of the leaks coming out of the fbi. he didn't know his name was deep throat -- nobody knew that code name then. but nixon learned about three weeks before the election that felt was the leak. and i couldn't understand for the life of me why he didn't fire the son of a gun right away. so i called up william ruckles' house. he's the young man, he was in his mid 40s, being sworn in there. mark felt is on the right. and i asked him, what does d richard nixon ask you about mark felt when he asked you to become on an emergency basis the fbi director in the spring of 1973? he said, nixon told me watch out, mark felt is a leaker, don't trust him. in effect, i forced his resignation for leaking. now, i had never heard this. i had never read it in

woodward's book, and i was fascinated. i asked him to explain the story to me. it's a long story which i won't get into. but what he told me after that troubled me because he said he had told the same story to woodward, and woodward's response had been this is very important and interesting, and i'm going make sure it gets out. but in fact, woodward had done nothing to get it out. and i wondered why would woodward suppress the fact that felt left the fbi under a cloud of suspicion. and it turns out if you start pulling on that string, the reason for felt's leaving the fbi abruptly, the whole story, the whole fairytale starts to unravel. now the jist of my findings is that mark felt engaged in what the fbi would consider a media influence operation. he leaked information to influence two actors in washington. one was the white house, and to

a lesser extent, the democratic controlled senate. because his purpose was to denigrate and thwart any other rivals for the position of fbi director. his acts were entirely a function of a war of succession that had been going on in the fbi kind of covertly behind the scenes since at least 1970. following the death of the long-time director, j. edgar hoover, who was in that office for almost 50 years. felt himself had been with the fbi since 1942 when the bureau underwent a tremendous wartime expansion. his family had moved 17 times in his 30-year career. he had sacrificed everything to rise. his wife was practically a single parent. he was the special agent in charge here in kansas city in 1958 to 1962. and he felt -- i'm not making an

intentional pun there, but he believed that he was entitled as the number-two man at the bureau to become hoover's successor. instead, richard nixon had unexpectedly appointed a man called l. patrick gray, who was kind of as colorless as his name. a complete dark horse in terms of the -- someone no one had seen as a potential fbi director. but -- when hoover died suddenly, nixon didn't want a big confirmation fight. so he just promised gray the appointment on an acting basis. this was someone he had known, who had worked on his campaigns. they weren't good friends, but he knew him. gray was a submarine commander during world war ii and korea. had a very distinguished record. but was kind of naive when it came to washington. and particularly bureaucratic politics.

and particularly the politics of the bureau. any man who was going to follow in the direct footsteps of hoover was going to be in a snakepit, and that's something he never realized. felt leaked in order to show that pat gray didn't have control over the bureau. he could leak with impunity because, again, watergate wasn't a campaign issue. nixon's popularity and his ranking against mcgovernor stayed steady. no matter how many watergate stories came out in the "washington post," they didn't kpluns the election. one of the other things i found was that felt was not only leaking to a cub reporter which was what bob woodward was in 1972, he was leaking to a very veteran reporter at "time" magazine named sandy smith who had come from chicago. he had made his reputation covering the mob. sandy smith was very well-known in the higher echelons of the fbi, and he was so discreet

about his sources that he had it literally written into his contract that if time were sued for libel on the basis of one of his stories, he would not be compelled to disclose the sources in the court of law. that's extraordinary protection. and that is the reason why felt chose sandy smith for actually the most important leaks. "time" magazine never got the credit that the "washington post" had posted, it published weekly. sometimes stories were late. actually if you read the coverage, you'll soon realize that the most earth-shaking leaks actually came out in "time" magazine first. now felt acted because he had a different timetable. he wanted to convince nixon by the time of the election that pat gray wasn't up to the job, and that after the election nixon would appoint an insider,

someone who knew how to control the bureau. he was far from principled. he was contemptuous of the media. and even woodward and his books admits that felt expressed disdain for the press' inexactude and short attention span. and i would add to the degree to which it could be manipulated. now i thought i was very clever when i figured out why mark felt was leaking. but eventually i realized as i reviewed the press coverage that i wasn't even as clever as i thought because this is a story from "the new york times" in august, 1973. so this is two months after felt had left the bureau. serve or eight months before "all the president's men" comes out and reveals a secret source code named deep throat. a front page story in "the new rk." and that arrow point almost to

one of the last paragraphs. this is what that paragraph says -- there have been reports over the last year that at least some of the details of the involvement of officials of the white house and the nixon re-election campaign and the watergate cover-up and related events have come from fbi employees who were disgruntled for one reason or another. in some cases, sources have said leaks from bureau agents were intended to point to mr. gray as the fbi's permanent director by signaling the white house that he did not have the respect of many agents and could not control them. if he were nominated, the bureau would "leak like a sieve." that is exactly what felt was up to. now he was upset -- i'm not sure he was bitter. he was leaking to get something.

in that sense, it was an intelligence or influence operation. he ostensibly told woodward that there was a switch mentality at the upper reaches of the white house. but where there really was a switchplate mentality was in the upper echelons of the fbi. these were men who were used -- not used to being controlled by the justice department. they had counter intelligence programs against the new left, the u.s. communist party, the black panthers, all unbeknownst to any other agency of the u.s. government. all thiscame out later, in the 1970s. they were playing hardball. and they were hard bitten men. they saw the opportunity to succeed jay . edgar hoover as a once in a lifetime opportunity, and no holds were barred. an ancillary finding of mine was

about 1/3 of what felt told woodward and bernstein was untrue because he didn't really care about the facts. what he cared about was inciting the white house against pat gray. now part of -- although my book is about felt, of course it also involves woodward and bernstein and how they depicted felt. now i think they probably believed early on what felt was telling them. that he was on their side, disclosing bad facts about the white house because the only actor who ever portrayed deep throat better than hal holbrook, i think, was mark felt. he fooled everybody. he fooled pat gray. he fooled woodward. but at some point i think bob woodward is not obtuse. he's covered most of the agencies in washington. he's written scores of

best-selling books. he had to realize, especially after the fbi documents became available in about 1992, that felt had sold him a bill of goods, that the fbi's investigation hadn't been stymied or thwarted by the nixon white house. that in fact it was the fullest investigation since the assassination of president kennedy. and that felt's refusal to come forward and come out of the shadows and acknowledge the acclaim that was supposedly being heaped on deep throat, the reason for that was that felt knew that if he did come forward and his actions were scrutinized and enough people from then were still around, he couldn't withstand the scrutiny because his reasons for leaking would be exposed. what actually happened is that woodward and bernstein replicated the fbi's investigation. the fbi