Felt’s daughter says finances a motive

SANTA ROSA, Calif. – The daughter of the former FBI agent who was revealed last week as Deep Throat has acknowledged that money played a role in the family’s decision to go public.

W. Mark Felt, 91, was the key source in the Washington Post’s Watergate probe that helped bring down President Richard Nixon. Felt stepped forward last week, ending a three-decade debate over the source’s true identity.

“He is relieved to get the secret off his chest,” Joan Felt said of her father in an interview published Sunday.

Joan Felt, 61, told the newspaper there were many reasons her family wanted to reveal the elder Felt’s role in Watergate after three decades, but added, “I won’t deny that to make money is one of them.” Some literary agents have said the family could earn more than $1 million from a book deal.

“My son, Nick, is in law school and he’ll owe $100,000 by the time he graduates,” she said. “I am still a single mom, still supporting them to one degree or another, and I am not ashamed of this.”

Joan Felt said her father suffered a stroke in 2001 and has undergone surgeries for heart problems and a broken hip but is still lucid.

“We had to help him see that most of the world now considers what he did heroic,” she said. “At the time it was happening, he wouldn’t have gotten that percentage of support, but history has shown it was so important what he did.”