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December 2008 Ethics Dunces
“Deep Throat”
As when he was finally identified as the shadowy whistle-blower who fueled the Woodward and Bernstein investigation of Watergate, former F.B.I official Mark Felt, who recently died, is being lionized in the press (especially by the Washington Post, which was the biggest beneficiary of his leaks) as a patriotic hero. The Scoreboard has already examined this issue [See http://ethicsscoreboard.com/
Felt did not do the
right thing. The right thing, as a high-ranking FBI official, was
for him to use the information he had gleaned about Watergate to prompt
a full F.B.I. investigation, inform his superiors, and let the law enforcement
system, rather than the press, enforce the law. Felts end-around
his own organization created the false impression, alive to this day,
that the F.B.I was in league with Nixon and not willing or able to bring
the White House conspiracy to justice. That was not the case. Whether
Felt, as some suspect, was motivated by a desire to undermine F.B.I
Director L. Patrick Gray, who had just been appointed to the job Felt
coveted, or whether he simply used poor judgement, we cannot know. But
either way, his obligation was to do everything in his power to ensure
a full investigation of the matter through regular channels. If, and
only if, he saw that the cover-up efforts and corruption extended into
the Bureau was going to the press a legitimate option.
Felts explanation for why
he didnt do this seems to be that he was afraid: he didnt know
who to trust, and feared that if his superiors at the F.B.I were in
league with Nixons men, then his life was at risk. Again, we cannot
know if this is true, a rationalization, paranoia, or a lie. But while
fear, reasonable or not, may explain unethical conduct, it doesnt
make it ethical. It is not unreasonable to expect an F.B.I agent to
accept some personal risk as a consequence of doing his duty. Felt was
afraid? Tell it to Elliot Ness.
The fact that Nixons machinations were a Constitutional affront, and that he was rightfully exposed and forced to resign did not retroactively cleanse what was for Felt a betrayal of his duty. Woodward and Bernstein owe their place in history, and their book and movie profits, to his actions, and it is hard to blame them for portraying Felt in a rosy light. But Mark Felt was in fact an Ethics Dunce for the ages. He not only didnt recognize the ethical path, he obscured it for others.
