FOLLOW THE MONEY

On Tuesday, daughter of Deep Throat Joan Felt said, "I think this is a great moment in American history and a great moment for our family, especially my dad."

In the Vanity Fair article, she is quoted as saying to her father, "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least some money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education. Let's do it for the family."

From the New York Times:

(Excerpts)

This was not the way that Bob Woodward expected to tell the last chapter of the Watergate story that he and The Washington Post had owned for more than 30 years.

Mr. Woodward, a one-man Washington media machine, has long soared high above normal journalistic rivalries. But this week, in the wake of Vanity Fair magazine's disclosure that W. Mark Felt was his secret source Deep Throat, it became clear that Mr. Woodward had been facing months, and even years, of competitive pressure from an unlikely source, the Felt family itself.

On Wednesday, word came that the family of Mr. Felt, the ailing, 91-year-old former No. 2 official of the F.B.I., had sought payment in vain for his story after failing to reach a collaborative agreement with Mr. Woodward - not only from Vanity Fair, but also from People magazine and HarperCollins Books. They are apparently still determined to claim their share of the story that helped make Mr. Woodward a famous millionaire.

"It's doing me good," Mr. Felt told reporters outside his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., when asked how he was reacting to the publicity. "I'll arrange to write a book or something, and collect all the money I can."

Mr. Woodward's longtime book publisher, Simon & Schuster, now plans to rush his own, long-planned book on his relationship with Mr. Felt into print this summer, as early as July, according to a senior publishing executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

...For years, Mr. Felt himself emphatically denied helping Mr. Woodward, but in recent years, after he shared his story with his family, and began to suffer signs of dementia, they apparently grew eager to share it with the world.

J. Todd Foster, managing editor of The News-Virginian of Waynesboro, said that in 2003, after being frustrated in their efforts to persuade Mr. Woodward to cooperate, the Felt family had come to him - about six months after he had approached them on his own hunch that Mr. Felt was Deep Throat - to propose a collaboration. At the time, Mr. Foster was a contributor to People, which he said considered but rejected an article because the Felts wanted payment.

"This was always about the money, and they were very up front with me," he said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Foster and the Felt family then took the project to ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins. But Judith Regan, president and publisher of ReganBooks, said Wednesday that a possible book had collapsed because of serious concerns that Mr. Felt was no longer of sound mind.

It also became clear on Wednesday that the Vanity Fair article had forced Mr. Woodward to bow to the institutional imperatives of the newspaper that has given him almost unrivaled leeway to tell his stories in the time and way of his own choosing. Senior Post executives said that the newspaper had convinced Mr. Woodward that the time had come to tell this tale at last - and as quickly as possible.

...Mr. Foster of The News-Virginian said the Felt family was seeking a big payout, though he did not know an exact figure. But Vanity Fair did not provide any sort of bonanza. The magazine's editor, Graydon Carter, said the Felt family's lawyer, John D. O'Connor, who wrote the article, was not paid much more than $10,000 for it. "The money is not that much," Mr. Carter said, though the family was free to sell movie and book rights on its own.

Repeated efforts to reach Mr. O'Connor, were unsuccessful on Wednesday, though he had said Wednesday morning on "Today" on NBC, "Their main motivation was an heroic and permanent legacy."

Mr. Felt's daughter said he and Vanity Fair had told her not to talk. Mr. Felt's grandson, Nick Jones, speaking to reporters outside his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., said of his grandfather's role in Watergate, "We stand behind him and what he did."

Mr. Woodward, speaking from his home in Georgetown, where television and still cameras were staked out, dismissed any notion that he was trying to protect a commercial interest.

"What I'm trying to protect is the story, and that it be accurate and full and complete," he said.

...Mr. Bradlee, whose passion for hot stories was famous, said The Post had lost little in waiting to tell Mr. Felt's story. "It seems to me you gain as much in prestige in keeping your word as you lose in losing the scoop," he said. "You know, a pledge is a pledge."

Asked if the Felt family's disclosure had helped Mr. Woodward, by corroborating the existence and identity of Deep Throat, Mr. Bradlee responded with a proud laugh about his onetime protégé, "It helps him on the way to the bank, I'm sure!"

Follow the money. Follow the money. Follow the money.

Heroes? No.

Whores? Yes.