Deep Throat and the Saving of Democracy

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Deep Throat and the Saving of Democracy
June 3, 2005
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Temple Beth-El
Richmond, Virginia

With all due respect to everyone in the Sanctuary this evening, I believe that is only those older than about forty-five who can truly remember, recall and feel the anxiety, the apprehensions and the fears that transfixed this country in the early 1970's. Some here maybe feel that it was just yesterday. I do, though I could never keep all the details straight. Then, it was but twenty-five years or so since the end of WWII. The country had lived through its aftermath and the Korean War and was in the midst - never knowing how or when it would end - of the Cold War, coming near the edge of nuclear war over

Cuba

. It faced off China over Quemoy and Matsuy; endured the trauma of the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy; with the societal fabric being stretched and torn in the struggle for civil rights. The United States was and still is the protector of the free world. And the presidency, even with a leader whom we might not have liked in the office, was the cornerstone of that democracy. Anyone who lived through the assassination of JFK and the transition to LBJ felt the strength, importance and eminence of that office.

While I can't remember the exact date, years after the episode that made it famous, Ruby and I stumbled upon the Watergate Hotel. Only its rounded architecture makes it stand out. Otherwise you could drive by and it would escape your notice. While the break-in to the offices of the Democratic National Party did not attract immediate and great attention, increasingly placed in the context of other events like the investigations into SDS - Students for Democratic Society, the break-in to the office of Dr. Daniel Ellison, it brought events to a boil. While many want to say that the cover-up was worse than the original crime, I don't agree. The crime itself, in the context of other criminal actions to undermine the democratic electoral process, where you and I choose the leadership that will determine our fate, was just as evil. It was a small action - to bug the offices - with an enormous consequence. So immense, that it brought down the president and nearly the presidency. President Nixon's resignation followed not so long after that of Vice President Spiro Agnew, whose name was not a household name when chosen nor now and the trepidation of succession to the Oval Office. In all its previous history, this country had never faced such an emergency, crystallized by Watergate.

In the midst of this growing crisis of 1970 - 1974, we, the American Jewish community and Israel became deeply enmeshed in the vortex. Ruby and I were in Israel for a year of study when the Yom Kippur War erupted. Due to severe censorship, you here knew more about how badly it was going than we did. At one time Israel's need for ammunition and jet planes was critical, even dire. Her survival hung in the balance. President Nixon, in the fall and early winter of 1973, by his unilateral orders, sent this war materiel directly from NATO in Europe. As they landed, the planes were repainted with Israeli symbols, and the shells were trucked to the fronts of Sinai and Golan. While the Israelis did their own fighting, without Nixon's decision, Israel was doomed to destruction. Compare Watergate and its two-bit burglary and the salvation of the State of Israel. In the early spring of 1974, Nixon visited Israel. Ruby and I were part of the crowd. All of a sudden boxes of small American flags were opened and distributed. In a momentary glimpse of his limousine the crowd went wild cheering and waving the American flag, for the man who in once sense was the messiah, and on the other hand, was increasingly clear to be him who was undermining the integrity of the office he held and had used to save us. Ruby and I limply, with great inner conflict, waved our flags. He had saved our lives and yet was endangering America.
Into this maelstrom insert one W. Mark Felt. Remove from this the question of his identity. He is not Jewish, but of Irish descent with no religious affiliation. In his position as number two in the FBI of then and not now, the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, he had access to deeper knowledge of the scope and detail of the affair. By no means do I think of him as a saint. He had and maybe still has all our mortal failings. He was shunted aside and did not become the head of the FBI when Hoover died, and he smarted under the insult. His vision was certainly authoritarian, even as he wanted to protect the department and the legacy of "The Director." Yet I imagine that he had to envision the course of events that would occur when he shared his knowledge and it became public. So I lay before us tonight, not the question of his total or political character, but the following: If you knew then, what you knew then, If you could have looked to the political and national and even international horizon, If you could have felt in the marrow of your bones and in the beating of your heart, The national traumas we had endured and would then endure, Would you have done it?

Despite the intricacy of the web which he wove to protect his identity, Despite the screen of privacy that he erected, He had to know the risk to his name, career, to his family, and maybe to his very life.
If you were he, Would you have risked it all?

Is it a moral dilemma? Or, Is it clear and unambiguous?
Now that we have a name and a face, how do you feel about him? About "Deep Throat?"

For me, I would have hoped to have had his courage. It is not that it is so crystal clear. Yet certainly from our Jewish perspective I see that there are some instructive teachings. We learn in the Torah to certainly chastise our people for their wrong doing - hochayach tochiyach et ametechah. We are commanded - al ta'amod al dahm reyachah - don't stand silently by the blood of your neighbor. Silence in the face of knowledge of wrongdoing is no mitzvah. While one may argue that there were other paths to follow with this information, in its time and place, without the sense of privacy laws as we know them today, it may be argued in response that Felt's information would have been lost or better yet, destroyed. This left him little alternatives. It can also be argued from a Jewish perspective that the breaking of silence was a mitzvah. The Rabbis say: shtiyka ka-ho-da-ah dah-may - silence is like agreement/ acquiescence. It is not easy to be a whistle-blower, a squealer, a "rat." It puts you beyond the pail, removes protection, and leaves you defenseless. You have few friends and more enemies. But when you know what you know, if you do not act on that or with that knowledge, Judaism accounts us as culpable because of our silence. In our silence we are an accomplice in the evil doing. From this perspective, W. Mark Felt, in the breaking of his silence, in our language, did this country a big, perhaps, the biggest mitzvah. In days of yore we did not all the foibles of our patriots. There was no media to tell us of their warts and weaknesses, yet surely they had them. The world is not led by saints, just by mortals. Yet in the annals of this country's history, some day, I believe, in my personal opinion, the name of W. Mark Felt will be recorded along with those like Ethan Allen, Paul Revere, Thomas Paine and others, patriots all, who fought battles for the life and soul of this country, and, doing so, were prepared to risk all that was precious. I hope that in times of crisis, men and women of conscience will arise to call us to task, keep the moral compass of this country clearly focused on the values and beliefs that called it into existence. At times, it just the individual that stands between the abuse of power because the wielder of it has been corrupted by having the power in the first place. Our faith teaches us to have such a conscience, to stand up and be counted and to act, as Abraham argued with God in His decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, as the prophet Nathan stood up before King David, when he used his power to send Bat Shevah's husband Urriah to the front to die in battle so that David could then take Bat Sheva as his wife, as Eliyahu stood up to King Ahab who killed Navot when he wouldn't sell him his vineyard. Would we in the moments of our test, be faithful descendants of Abraham, Nathan and Elijah. Mark Felt isn't Jewish. Too bad. He walked in our footsteps. May he be accorded an honorable place in our history.

Shabbat Shalom.