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Today Marks 30 Years Since Watergate's Opening Act

Aired June 17, 2002 - 11:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Today marks 30 years since the opening act in Washington's most notorious modern political scandal, one that brought down a presidency. It was June 17th, 1972 and burglars were caught red-handed at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Men with direct ties to Richard Nixon were linked to that break-in.

Nixon's White House tapes later proved that he was involved in the cover-up from the beginning. With the threat of impeachment looming in the summer of 1974, Nixon became the first and only president to resign from office.

It is perhaps Washington's best kept secret, maybe the only secret ever really kept in Washington: the identity of Watergate source known as deep throat. Well University of Illinois journalism students spent three years trying to figure out this mystery, and Professor William Gaines led the class. He joins us this morning from Chicago.

Professor Gaines, today you've become an instant celebrity today. I think I've seen you on every network outlet talking about this. And it really is a remarkable story.

Now, first of all, let's begin at the beginning. How much documentation and where did you get all the information that you and your classes were digging through?

PROF. WILLIAM GAINES, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: The information we got was public record. It was published reports. You know everybody you see involved in the Watergate scandal wrote a book. And it was an autobiography. It was good enough as good as getting them to sit down and talk to you.

We had that and we also were very fortunate to get 16,000 pages of FBI reports. We were able to get those because they were on microfilm and had been requested 20 years ago by the library at the University of Illinois. So it was a matter of walking across the street to the library and we had 16,000 pages of FBI reports to study and dig through and we listened to the Nixon tapes.

We got every bit of information we could because we had no travel budget. This was just a small classroom project. It grew into something much larger. HARRIS: Yeah, so now what happened, as I understand it, what you and your class did was you came down to a list -- was it 12 people that you put together as the final potential candidates in this case?

GAINES: We had 12 and then we eliminated five more because they just didn't have any access to the information. We used a formula to eliminate individuals. They had to be living, they had to be working in the White House from the time span that detail was providing information to Woodward. And various other reasons, like if deep throat spoke of this individual in the third person, he described or said something they had said.

Then if "All the President's Men" is a legitimate non-fiction work, that person is not deep throat. So we went down the list and we eliminated everybody accept 12. And then five more were dropped because of lack of access of information.

HARRIS: What we just did there a second ago was we put up the names of the final seven. And it strikes me that of the final seven here, first of all, Pat Buchanan rises to the top. And, as I understand it, your class chose Pat Buchanan unanimously as the choice for deep throat. Why him?

GAINES: Well it wasn't a part of project. But in an interview they did choose Pat Buchanan. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) had everything. What can we say? We tried to, like all the other candidates for the title of deep throat, we tried to eliminate him through the different means that we had.

He stayed in there and he was working in the White House during -- at the time. He's a -- he was a smoker and he drank scotch. He's a rather tall individual. Deep throat is supposed to have been tall.

He lived nearby. He lived within one mile of Woodward's balcony where he put the flag out. You know, the balcony where the flag -- that we checked out the balcony does not face the street. You can't see it by driving down the street. You have to go up back ally and turn around by some dumpsters and so forth.

So it seemed in order to make it convenient that deep throat would have lived nearby. Buchanan lived the closest.

HARRIS: I also find this very interesting. I understand that once your students came down to their conclusions about I guess the final four, whatever, that you contacted each of them to ask for a comment. And Pat Buchanan was the only one who would not give a comment or did not deny it? Is that true?

GAINES: Pat Buchanan has not made any comment at this point as far as I know. We attempted to contact him. We attempted to contact all of the individuals. We had some very interesting interviews.

We sent a letter to his home. And we tried to contact him through various means and other people. And he never replied to our request or anybody else's. Which doesn't mean he's deep throat, of course, but it adds kind of a question to it. HARRIS: Yeah, one of many questions. And one question that immediately jumps to my mind is why would Pat Buchanan turn down an opportunity for some more publicity? He's never one who has been shy about talking about anything. If it is him, why do you think he wouldn't be talking?

GAINES: Well, it's hard to say why an individual would be deep throat and why they would not want to reveal it later. But I think Pat Buchanan is a very complex person. My wife says he's a good guy who wanted to do the right thing. So maybe that's one of the reasons that he's a chosen candidate by the students.

HARRIS: Let me ask you this. I read somewhere where someone who was postulating all of this said that the secrecy about deep throat's identity alone sort of exaggerates his importance in the scheme of things. Would you agree with that?

GAINES: I think so. Absolutely. Woodward and Bernstein developed this story through many different means. They're very good reporters. I hold them up to my class as a standard that reporters should seek. They're hardworking and they cracked that case on their own. Deep throat may have helped a bit, but this myth about deep throat, this mystic, has added to the erroneously conclusion that he really broke this story. And all he did was confirm here, there, and give them some encouragement.

HARRIS: Finally, professor, who do you think it is? I mean, we said who your students thought it was. They came up with Pat Buchanan. Do you think it was Pat Buchanan?

GAINES: No. I didn't want to choose anybody because this was not our final report. We were reporting out on the 30th anniversary and we were going to press on. And I didn't want to detract from the factual type of reporting we were doing by making a guess. But I certainly think that the students have a right to make a guess, and I respect their guess. And I think they've done a terrific job, and I'll have to go along with them.

HARRIS: Sounds to me like they did more than just make a guess.

GAINES: Oh yeah.

HARRIS: They did a pretty good job here.

GAINES: At the end, they had to make a decision, they had to look at some of the nuances involved. But it was not a guess.

HARRIS: Interesting. Very, very interesting. Professor Gaines, thank you very much and good luck. We'll see how all this turns out, and perhaps maybe you will have uncovered the man and maybe caused him a little, I guess, discomfort now with being quiet. We'll see.

GAINES: Thank you.

HARRIS: Good luck to you.

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