happily seven years ago, mark feld, on his own, decided to come out and unmask himself. that day, carl and i were in the newsroom and bradley and len downey are saying, you've got to confirm it. and we weren't worried that he's being taken advantage of. he's over 90, dementia. they're saying, looks this is reality. we need to confirm it and disclose it. we did. happily, then people started checking and felt wrote another book with his lawyer and so forth. all the details are laid out. so there's not a mystery about this. quite frankly, if he had died before that happened or we were able to write the book "the secret man" to tell about that story, you would have had more doubters. >> did you go to him at any point in the process before it was disclosed and he acknowledged that he was deep throat to ask him to consider coming forward? >> yes. when we were writing "all the president's men" i called him up and said how about coming clean? click. i know what that meant. >> and who conceived the idea of how you would meet? >> he started out -- >> plant, flower and all that? >>