Deep Throat: 'Follow the money'

Deep Throat's most famous Watergate line was: "Follow the money."

That was W. Mark Felt's advice to Bob Woodward, as chronicle in the book and the movie, "All the President's Men."

And, according to his daughter, that's just what the family continues to do in urging Felt to go public with his identity.

Joan Felt, 61, played a key role in persuading her 91-year-old father to reveal the 33-year-old secret identity of Deep

Throat, the anonymous Watergate source Woodward turned to in his investigating reporting days for the Washington Post.

Felt, who has lived with her father in a two-story home in Santa Rosa, Calif., for the past 13 years, said her father

deserved to be released from the secret he had held so long.

"There were many reasons why we decided to do it. I won't deny that to make money is one of them," Joan Felt told

the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. "My son, Nick, is in law school and he'll owe $100,000 by the time he graduates. I'm still

a single mom, still supporting them to one degree or another, and I am not ashamed of this."

While Mark Felt was wrestling with Watergate, his daughter Joan was raising a counterculture family with three

children that did not include marriage. Her father strongly disapproved, straining their relationship. With the birth of her

first child in 1974, Joan Felt became the breadwinner of her young family, working a variety of low-paying jobs and living

in small rentals in Guerneville and Santa Rosa. Around the time of the birth of her youngest son, Nick, she and her father

began rebuilding their relationship. Mark and Audrey Felt made trips from Alexandria, Va., to visit the family in Sonoma

County.

Audrey Felt's death in 1984 would bring father and daughter even closer, and he made the annual trips to Santa Rosa

alone.

"When my mother died, my father decided to move out here," said Joan Felt. "My dad has always been the most

supportive and beyond-the-call-of-duty father."

In 1990, at age 77, the former FBI man severed the last of his Washington ties and moved to Santa Rosa. He rented an

apartment for a time, and in 1992 purchased a split-level, five-bedroom home on Redford Place for about $200,000. The

lower part of the split-level was remodeled into an apartment for him, with a bedroom-living room, kitchenette and

bathroom.

"Dad bought the house for us because I was a single mom. I've been the breadwinner, and I was living in this little,

tiny two-bedroom duplex with these three kids," Joan Felt explained.

The family settled in – Mark Felt, Joan Felt and the boys – Will Felt, then 18; Robbie Jones, then 13; and Nick Jones,

then 11. Joan Felt began teaching Spanish at Sonoma State University and at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Joan Felt said it took time to persuade her father that he hadn't betrayed the FBI by leaking information to Woodward

and that enough time had passed for people to understand that what he did was right.

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