Felt was Hoover’s deputy and expected the job. When Hoover died on 2 May 1972, Nixon put in Gray, an outsider and loyalist. Six weeks later the break-in gave the Bureau’s old guard a weapon. Gray said in 2005 that Felt became Deep Throat out of “a revenge motive and a desire to get rid of me”, and that the White House had told him several times to fire Felt. [1]
The Bureau as an institution had reasons too. Nixon tried to use the CIA to stop the FBI following the money, and Gray passed FBI investigative files to Dean. Leaking was a way for career agents to protect their investigation and their independence from a White House trying to control both. [2][3]
On this reading, the scandal was partly an agency fighting for itself, and a story fed by a man who wanted his boss’s job deserves more suspicion than it got.
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