BRAZOSPORT NEWS: The Ben-Stein-Is-Deep-Throat Theory

The theory that Woodward & Bernstein's secret Watergate source is Ben Stein is gaining steam via a story published on writing.com.

The piece has been making the rounds of the blogging community and was sent to me by the author, who said he saw my post about the possibility of Stein being "Deep Throat."

When I wrote about Stein, I was mostly amused by the notion that the bespectabled actor/author/game show host/stock market theorist is American journalism's most famous veiled source.

Stein, as he is known today, is something of a public figure, beginning with his acting career in movies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and continuing with his game show "Win Ben Stein's Money," his books and his appearances on Fox News Channel's stock market roundtables.

Quite often, Stein gives off a Chesire cat vibe. He's the cat that swallowed the canary. And if the story on writing.com is true, now we know why.

The story is quite serious and makes for intriguing reading, especially if you came of age during Watergate, as I did. For the younger in age, it's likely much ado about nothing. Ah, the callowness of youth.

The author has parsed virtually everything ever written about Deep Throat and says those trying to solve the mystery made one serious mis-step by thinking Deep Throat was a longtime friend of Bob Woodward. Instead, the story asserts that Deep Throat had a long-standing connection to Woodward's Watergate reporting partner, Carl Berstein.

Stein, it turns out, grew up next door to Carl Berstein in Montgomery County, Maryland.

It's understandable to assume Woodward is the link to Deep Throat. He's the reporter who dealt almost exclusively with him. But those who want to solve the mystery have to recognize that Woodward & Berstein took pains to hide Deep Throat's tracks.

The Stein Theory rests heavily on what the author calls "The Bradlee Riddle." The reference is to Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor who is the only other person at the newspaper during the Watergate era to know Deep Throat's identity. According to John Dean's book Unmasking Deep Throat, Bradlee thinks "if someone looked at who had access to the information, and then looked at who was out of town on the dates in question, that alone would resolve it."

"Rex," the writing.com author, does exactly that, but he doesn't examine those who would normally be in Washington but those who typically weren't on a day-to-day basis. Stein was living in California during much of the Watergate mess.

Rex theorizes that Stein was working with Donald Segretti's dirty tricks campaign team, mainly because Paul Bible, a former Segretti associate from the U.S. Army who was recruited (apparently unsuccessfully) for the team, happened to grow up in the same Montgomery County, Maryland neighorhood as Carl Berstein and Ben Stein. Under this theory, that means it's likely that Stein, too, was recruited as one of the dirty tricker campaign operatives.

(Segrett is known to have made recruiting pitches to three other Army pals and asked them to recommend other potential candidates. None of the 50 Segretti operatives mentioned in All The President's Men have ever been identified.)

IF (and it's a big if) Stein was working with Segretti's crew, it likely would have meant frequent travel to Washington, especially when the George McGovern campaign was in the area. (The dirty tricksters followed the McGovern campaign to gather intelligence and pull dirty-pool pranks.)

Matching up the McGovern campaign travel schedule and the published dates of Woodward's meetings with Deep Throat, there is a definite pattern.

Stein went to work directly for the Nixon White House in November 1973, after Nixon's victory over McGovern, and became a speechwriter, placing him ever closer to information. (Stein's father was a key Nixon advisor.)

There's a lot more in the story, but this quote caught my eye, so I will end with it:

Woodward also provided an interesting clue to Leonard Garment during an interview for Garment's book CRAZY RHYTHM. On page 249 Woodward states that "Deep Throat's public role and public persona had changed radically since Watergate days." Think about it. Could anyone picture the Deep Throat in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN becoming a comedian - playing roles in "Feris Bueller's Day Off," "The Wonder Years," "Tales From the Crypt," and eventually becoming a game-show host?