“For anyone interested in the Nixon years, this is a page turner, a perfect blend of investigative and scholarly journalism that explains and documents why Mark Felt—aka ‘Deep Throat’—leaked to journalists during Watergate. Holland has answered important and previously unanswered questions.”
—John W. Dean, Nixon White House Counsel
“Max Holland’s Leak is a thorough, thoughtful, and insightful review of Mark Felt’s behavior as ‘Deep Throat.’ By focusing on Felt’s overweening desire to succeed J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director, Holland’s analysis is an essential companion to Bob Woodward’s account of Felt’s motives and choices. Engagingly readable, Leak is a consistently smart and savvy book.”
—David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bearing the Cross
“With lucid writing and prodigious research, Max Holland replaces the heroic if shadowy figure portrayed by Hal Holbrook in All the President’s Men with a much more deeply flawed Deep Throat in the person of Mark Felt. And his observations about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein finally establishes some critical distance between the highly mythologized crusaders portrayed in the film and the actual journalists who’d stumbled onto a great story and doggedly pursued it. Out of five stars, this gripping corrective deserves all five—plus a Bravo!”
—Irwin F. Gellman, author of The Contender: Richard Nixon, the Congress Years, 1946–1952
“Mark Felt’s motivation for leaking FBI information of its Watergate break-in has been misunderstood from the beginning, and since. The myth of the heroic, altruistic patriot has hardened into legend. Max Holland makes it abundantly clear that Felt’s carefully calculated dissemination of FBI reports served his personal ambitions to succeed J. Edgar Hoover in the ‘War of the FBI Succession.’ Holland has earned our gratitude for taking the story from the romance of American journalism to a revealing, probing account of the treacherous shoals of bureaucratic politics. A welcome, necessary addition to the Watergate story.”
—Stanley I. Kutler, author of The Wars of Watergate and editor of Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes
“Holland convincingly destroys the myth of Deep Throat’s alleged altruism and shows how Mark Felt used Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to further his own very personal agenda. This is an enormously revealing book that replaces Woodward’s The Secret Man as the definitive study of Deep Throat and his motives.”
—Keith Olson, author of Watergate: The Presidential Scandal That Shook America
“Holland’s Leak is both perceptive and well-written. The definitive account of Mark Felt’s role and motive in becoming Deep Throat, it also details the evolution of the Watergate affair, the internal politics of the Nixon White House, and the political culture and actions of the FBI and its senior executives. A must read.”
—Athan Theoharis, author of The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History
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