Money played role in Deep Throat's revelation

The daughter of former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent W Mark Felt, who was revealed this week as "Deep Throat", has acknowledged that money played a role in the family's decision to go public.

Felt, 91, was the key source in The Washington Post's Watergate investigation that helped bring down US President Richard Nixon. Felt stepped forward in the first week of June, ending a three-decade mystery about the source's true identity.

"He is relieved to get the secret off his chest," Joan Felt said of her father in an interview published on Sunday in The Press Democrat.

• Who is Deep Throat?

Joan Felt, 61, told the newspaper there were many reasons her family wanted to reveal Felt's role in Watergate after three decades, but added, "I won't deny that to make money is one of them."

Some literary agents have said the family could earn more than $ 1 mn from a book deal.

"My son, Nick, is in law school and he'll owe USD 100,000 by the time he graduates," she said. "I am still a single mom, still supporting them to one degree or another, and I am not ashamed of this."

Joan Felt said her father suffered a stroke in 2001 and has undergone surgeries for heart problems and a broken hip but is still lucid.

"We had to help him see that most of the world now considers what he did heroic," she said. "At the time it was happening, he wouldn't have gotten that percentage of support, but history has shown what he did was important."