Deep Throat for Kids

This week’s Big Reveal that former FBI man Mark Felt was Watergate’s “Deep Throat” was a stunner and immediately brought me back to my high school obsession with the Watergate Hearings.

While Watergate was a national travesty and embarrassment, it was a boon to high school civics and government classes. Here I am in a 1973 photo (in my favorite tuxedo t-shirt) intently listening to my teacher Elaine Harris expound on the crimes that were committed by members of the Nixon administration and the President himself. My very first memory (at the age of 4) was watching JFK’s funeral on TV as my mother ironed and sobbed next to me, and I was made painfully aware of divisions in our country and in my parents’ marriage during the 1968 Democratic Convention. But it was Watergate that propelled my generation into its own political consciousness and forever weaned us from the fantasy that all of our leaders were to be trusted and admired.

Don’t you think Mark Felt looks a lot like Hal Holbrook, who played the unknown Deep Throat in the 1976 movie version of “All the President’s Men?” Lucky coincidence? Imagine the trouble this nickname gave to high school teachers as they tried to avoid talking about the film “Deep Throat” or the act it represented. I think it was an editor at the “Washington Post” who coined the phrase as opposed to Woodward and Bernstein but even then we knew damn well that it was referring to the most famous porno of all time. It was a true phenomenon in the early 70s and I remember hearing that going to see it in downtown Chicago was one of the last things my parents did together before they split up. More information than I (and you) needed to know?

The Watergate Hearings, which began on May 17, 1973 and amassed 319 hours of coverage by August 7th, was my favorite TV program that spring and summer, eclipsing shows such as “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Room 222,” and “Bridget Loves Bernie.” The gavel-to-gavel coverage of the hearings was a riveting precursor to Reality TV as well as a soap opera that made “Dynasty” look like “Captain Kangaroo.” I’m not saying that as a high school freshman I understood the intricacies of what was taking place, and I admit that before the hearings I had never heard of Watergate Bad Boys Haldeman, Erlichman, or Dean, but, unlike the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials, this was TV that was drowning in content and teachable moments. The unprecedented coverage by the networks was mercifully low on the constant yak of outside commentators who today try to guide every second of our viewing experience, and we were instead allowed to witness history in the making. The ratings would make the producers of “American Idol” drool—it was estimated that 85% of all U.S. households had tuned in to at least some portion of the hearings despite Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox’s attempts to ban Watergate testimony from the airwaves.

The facts presented during the hearings were incredible—from the bungled burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters to the question that was increasing in volume with every passing day, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” In addition to following the Watergate burglars’ connections to E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, the lurid tales of hush money and illegal CIA activities, and the shocking revelation that Nixon had recorded almost every conversation he’d had in the Oval Office, I must admit that I was also closely watching one other critical aspect of the hearings: Maureen Dean. I guess this country is so sexist that we can’t have a big government hearing without crowning someone the Honorary Hottie (remember Fawn Hall?). John Dean’s wife definitely took up that mantle during the Watergate coverage. And let’s face it, she was…well…hot! Her pulled back blond hair was reminiscent of Grace Kelly and Kim Novak and her ever-changing couture wardrobe sure beat Martha Mitchell’s increasingly desperate appearances (would that we had listened more closely to Martha’s ravings). To cement her status as the Hot Babe of Watergate, Maureen Dean was later accused by various right wing sleazeballs of being a high class hooker with ties to the mob. The Deans are currently involved in a libel suit against G. Gordon Liddy and others for publishing the preposterous story that the Watergate break-in had nothing to do with President Nixon but was orchestrated by Dean to protect his then-girlfriend Maureen by removing materials that linked her to a call-girl ring run out of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. And so the fun continues, more than 30 years later!

I think out of my entire collection of paper ephemera from my past, the piece I’m most proud of is my official membership card in the National Sam Ervin Fan Club. Ervin, of course, was the North Carolina senator who presided over the Senate Watergate Committee and was the one who got to grill all of the players. He became a household name during the hearings and the public ate up his folksy analysis of the events, delivered in his wonderful Southern drawl. Of John Mitchell and John Erlichman, Ervin said, “I don't think either one of them would have recognized the Bill of Rights if they met it on the street in broad daylight under a cloudless sky.” When Nixon claimed executive privilege, Ervin commented, “The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere. What he says is executive privilege is nothing but executive poppycock. The President is a servant of the Constitution and not its master. There is nothing explicit or implicit in that instrument which exempts him from a duty the law imposes on all competent human beings in our land.” About the Watergate scandal in general he said, “I used to think that the Civil War was our country's greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate.”

Where are the feisty, courageous Senators of today? Just before he died at the age of 88, Sam Ervin wrote a letter to President Ronald Reagan that began, “Dear Mr. President: The Constitution is the wisest instrument of government the earth has ever known. If America is to endure as a free Republic as ordained by it, Presidents, Supreme Court justices and other public officers must do what they have sworn to do, that is, support it. Despite my admiration for you, I am constrained by my duty to our country to assert that what you say and advocate, in respect for religion, shows that you do not understand the religious clauses of the First Amendment, and how obedience to them is essential to the preservation of religious freedom they are designed to secure to all Americans of all faiths.”

Right on, Sam. If you want a chilling reminder of how badly we need some folks in Washington who are willing to reprimand our out-of-control leaders, listen to this week’s broadcast of NPR’s “This American Life,” called “Godless America.” If only Ervin were around to have a crack at Tom DeLay who recently said in a speech that God is using him to promote a “biblical worldview.” I’m renewing my dues in Sam Ervin’s Fan Club.

Comments

[Neil]

I was in grade school in Queens at the time of Watergate and I remember being glued to the set and actually arguing about politics with my classmates. I can't imagine anyone ten years old now talking about politics in school. After the moon landing, Watergate was clearly the biggest news event of my childhood.

In junior high, we did a whole 6 months on Watergate and the "propaganda" of the government. When conservatives complain about liberals in education, I have to laugh, but in reality (at least in the NYC public school system at the time) I don't think I ever had a non-liberal teacher who didn't blaming the Republicans for everything back in the 1970's. If I remember correctly, I think we even had a photo of FDR hanging along with Washington and Lincoln. To be honest, I never even met a Republican until college (and we used to make fun of him).

Of course, things with Reagan and everyone became Republican. My wife was Republican. I used to tell her that I could never vote Republican. "Why?" she asked. Not because of Bush or conservative politics. The real reason is I get this feeling in my gut from thirty years ago -- "don't you remember... they were the ones involved in Watergate!?"

[amba]

I didn't know there was a Sam Ervin fan club, but we went to Washington and met him, and got his autograph! I still have it.

[Mary Bell]

I'm the same age as Maureen Dean. Watergate was my savior in those deep dark "poor" days of marriage and motherhood. All I had to look forward to was the latest dirt on Watergate. Maureen Dean is a snooty bitch, somebody all of us real people hated. Pretentious doesn't even begin to describe her.

MB

[Tom Hearndon]

Fact is, Maureen Dean was a hooker (I doubt she was high class) and was running a call girl operation at the time. I knew George Owen, Maureen's first husband and they set up the ring. Some might remember Owen was busted with stripper/porn star Candy Barr in her Dallas apartment the night in 1957 for possession of Marijuana. Owen liked to boast that he knew every pimp, whore, gambler and banker in Dallas. Maureen was one of the whores he knew.

John Dean is her third husband. When they first met he didn't bother telling "Mo" that he was still married to a wife he later divorced and treated like dirt.

Also, interesting you were a member of the Sam Ervin fan club, particularly when you realize Sam was a staunch defender of segregation!

[10der]

Is the above comment factual?