The Deep Throat who brought down Nixon is finally named. Or maybe not

Deep throat, the informant who fed details of Watergate to The Washington Post, has finally been identified. Or not, depending on whom you choose to believe.

Deep throat, the informant who fed details of Watergate to The Washington Post, has finally been identified. Or not, depending on whom you choose to believe.

The search for the mysterious figure who helped to bring down President Richard Nixon has been a favourite sport of Washington insiders since the 1970s, and no one has been more active in the guessing game than Leonard Garment, the former Nixon confidant and official who claimed this week in a new book to have solved the mystery.

In Search of Deep Throat names John Sears, a former aide to President Nixon and later to Ronald Reagan, as the man. Mr Sears is adamant. "I categorically deny this," he said. "I offered to take a liedetector test to prove my innocence of this charge. Neither the author nor his publisher were willing to accept this offer."

Mr Garment said: "This is a very strong, well-researched belief, but it's not a slam dunk." (A slam dunk is a basketball shot that cannot miss.) "I think I've come as close to making an identification as can be made."

More than a few others have had the name pinned on them before: Henry Kissinger; General Alexander Haig; former CIA officials Cord Meyer and William Colby; former FBI officials Patrick Gray, Mark Felt, Charles Bates and Robert Kunkel; TV newswoman Diane Sawyer; Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen; Deputy White House Counsel Fred Fielding; FBI director L Patrick Gray; the late William Casey, who became CIA director; and Mr Garment himself.

Only four people know Deep Throat's identity, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who covered Watergate for the Post and handled the information; Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, and of course the man himself. All we know is that he is a man, he is still living, he smoked and he drank scotch.

Messrs Woodward and Bernstein say they will not tell until after Deep Throat dies. Perhaps, as Mr Nixon himself might have put it: "(unintelligible) never (expletive deleted) know."