The Search for Deep Throat: John Dean's Picks

By Rebecca Winters

He helped topple a President and shake Americans' trust in their government, and yet after three decades the identity of Deep Throat is still one of Washington's great unsolved mysteries. This week in an e-book published by the online magazine Salon, former White House counsel John Dean delivers a list of four men he believes could have been the anonymous source who divulged key facts about the Watergate break-in and cover-up to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Dean, whose incriminating Senate testimony led President Nixon to call him a traitor, has twice before proffered theories on the shadowy source--naming Watergate prosecutor Earl Silbert and Nixon White House chief of staff Alexander Haig, both of whom denied it. In his latest attempt, Dean has narrowed in on Jonathan Rose, a Nixon White House attorney. Rose adamantly and, to Dean, persuasively denied the accusation, leaving Dean with a list of four finalists instead. Dean isn't the only one who won't let the mystery die. After three years of research, a University of Illinois journalism professor and his students released a seven-man list last week. Like Dean, they name two-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan and Nixon aide Steve Bull. The only sleuths who know for sure, Woodward and Bernstein, are keeping mum. --By Rebecca Winters

To read more about Dean's search for Deep Throat, go to www.salon.com/deepthroat