Felt, Nixon, Vietnam. (LETTERS TO THE EDITOR).(Letter to the Editor)

William Norman Grigg's quasi-puff piece about "Deep Throat" was disappointing (June 27 issue). Not only does Mr. Grigg misunderstand the nature of Watergate, but THE NEW AMERICAN'S usually intrepid insistence on supported arguments was so strangely lacking that it appeared Mr. Grigg merely set up a straw man only to knock him down.

The thesis of Mr. Grigg's article is that Deep Throat's actions were "hardly those of a traitor" to America that "many [conservative commentators] consider Felt to be." However, Mr. Grigg does not cite even one commentator that says Mark Felt betrayed his country. He does mention Thomas Fleming's charge that Felt betrayed Richard Nixon, but Grigg in no way tries to disprove it.

What is most disturbing is that Mr. Grigg seems to lionize Deep Throat as someone who was forced to go outside the "proper channels" (i.e. the law) due to the "urgent necessity to deal with threats to the Constitution ... posed by an administration abusing its powers." Mr. Grigg then lists some of the "routine crimes against the Constitution committed by Nixon." What! Maybe Mark Felt knows what his true motives were, but one thing is certain: he didn't sneak around with reporters Woodward and Bernstein because he was outraged over wage and price controls.

And if Mr. Grigg thinks Felt so noble for taking "full legal responsibility" for his actions, why did Felt conceal his identity for three decades?

Whatever Nixon's shortcomings, we need to face a hard truth: 17 million Vietnamese were enslaved by Communists in 1975 because leftist Democrats in Congress cut off the aid the South needed to survive. Had Mark Felt and the Washington Post not helped to break Nixon's presidency--and the Republican Party--those Democrats would never have been swept into power in the 1974 midterm ...