The Washington Post article with Bob Woodward confirming the identity of Watergate's Deep Throat:

The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.

The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories.

The Vanity Fair story said Felt had admitted his "historic, anonymous role" following years of denial.

In a statement today, Woodward and Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."

Felt's guidance to Woodward -- provided on "deep background" in secret meetings -- helped keep public attention focused on the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington's Watergate office and apartment complex, and on a subsequent cover-up effort. This ultimately led to a congressional investigation that revealed the role of Nixon and a number of his top aides. Under threat of impeachment, Nixon resigned in 1974.

Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee had kept the identity of "Deep Throat" secret at the source's request, saying his name would be revealed upon his death. "We've kept that secret because we keep our word," Woodward said.

But with the Vanity Fair article and the family's statement, the three decided today to break their silence.

This solves one of the greatest political mysteries of the 20th century. I don't remember ever hearing W. Mark Felt's name mentioned as a serious possibility before today. A big surprise, indeed.