>                     DEEP THROAT A CIA OPERATIVE?
> 
>  October 30, 1994 Sunday, FINAL / ALL
> BOOKS; Pg. 11J; 247 words
> BY JOE DIRCK
> Washington
> 
> Was Deep Throat in the CIA?
> 
> Mark Riebling raises that intriguing possibility in "Wedge," and
> even names two top CIA officials who seem to fit the profile of the
> mysterious Watergate source described in Bob Woodward's and Carl
> Bernstein's "All the President's Men."
> 
> One of his suspects is Cord Meyer, a top assistant to then-CIA
> director Richard Helms. Meyer matches Woodward's description of his
> source - chain smoker, heavy drinker, intellectual, combat veteran -
> and he, like Woodward, was a graduate of Yale. Meyer was a friend of
> Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and may have even known Woodward.
> 
> Riebling's other possibility is William Colby, who later became CIA
> director himself. When the Nixon White House was trying to shift
> blame for Watergate to the agency, Helms directed Colby to act as
> "damage-control officer" and deflect suspicion from the CIA. Within
> hours of Colby receiving these instructions, Riebling writes,
> Woodward had his first clandestine meeting with Deep Throat.
> 
> Colby was also "rumored to use underground parking structures for
> secret meetings, albeit of a romantic nature," according to
> Riebling. And in his 1978 book, "Honorable Men," Colby includes a
> curiously flattering passage about the Post's source. "Deep Throat
> remains a secret," he wrote, "but the public has benefitted from his
> information."
> 
> Woodward has said he will not reveal Deep Throat's identity while he
> is still alive. Both Meyer and Colby are living.