Navasky Sounds Off

PW Sits Down With Victor Navasky

by Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 6/6/2005

How will history look at W. Mark Felt, the "Deep Throat" of Watergate fame—hero or villian?

As a villian for the role he played in the [FBI] in conducting illegal searches and surveillance on a whole set of unpopular organizations. And a hero [laughing] for playing the role of Deep Throat, as regards to the Democratic Party.

How has the journalistic climate changed in this country since Watergate?

In the immediate aftermath of Watergate, as a result of the combination of the Woodward-Bernstein book and the film, the investigative reporter became a hero to the popular culture. And now you have an administration that's trying to put investigative journalists in prison for not revealing their sources. And, of course, Mark Felt was the ultimate "anonymous source."

Who's going to be the next President of the United States?

When I was in college Norman Thomas came through and I asked him whether Adlai Stevenson had a chance to be the next president. It was in the early 1950s and he said to me, "Young man, it's not who is going to be, it's who should be."