SAY IT AIN'T SO, PAT! :

U. of I. students track down Deep Throat (Ron Grossman, June 14, 2002, Chicago Tribune)

As the 30th anniversary of Watergate nears, student investigators at the University of Illinois have concluded that Deep Throat, the White House source
who helped journalists unravel the greatest political scandal in American history, was most likely conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.

Since 1999, journalism professor William Gaines and his students have set about unmasking the elusive informant. Building on the work of their predecessors-and examining information ranging from thousands of pages of FBI records to interviews with members of the Nixon administration-this year's class unanimously fingered Buchanan, a White House speechwriter during the Watergate era.

A report of the University of Illinois investigation, "A Finders Guide to Deep Throat," was posted on the Internet late Friday.

Though I've long accepted their book editor's assertion that Deep Throat was a composite used for dramatic effect in All the President's Men, I actually hope this is true. I like Pat. He's gone a little daffy on us since he started running for president, but I think even at his populist xenophobic anti-corporate worst he's a patriot. He seems like exactly the kind of guy who would expose Nixon's wrongdoing. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 15, 2002 7:39 AM