Garment shines a little light on some of the more puzzling questions of the Nixon administration and on Iran/contra. He writes as he speaks, conversational and wandering. That's the book's salvation, however: finally here's the human side of some of the darker moments in Republican government. We see how the three branches, press and other groups play off each other to achieve their goals. Like any good serial author, he leaves us hungry for the next book, which will "tell all" about Watergate. I can't wait

I was enticed by this book from the moment I read about Garment's lively performance of "Tiptoe through the Tulips" at age 7 in his father's dress making factory. Having read several Watergate books, I felt that this one was different for one specific reason; Garment makes Nixon into a human being, and helps to bring Nixon's several positive qualities to life (such as his wonderful foreign policy) that many Watergate-related authors have falied to acknowledge. I especially loved the ending of the book at his daughter Annie's Bat-Mitzvah; it was a wonderful conclusion to to a nostalgic story. I am left with only one question...when will the movie be out?

Reading this book is rather like listening to someone else convince himself about something based almost entirely on his own impressions. This book has a very, very long contextual opening, setting the stage for the Watergate break-in and the subsequent turmoil. In fact the section on DT is quite short, suggesting that the author or his publisher needed to pad the book in order to bring it to an acceptable length. I like the way that Garment goes through the various suspects and elminates them; the only trouble is that most of his conclusions are based on his assessment of the temperment of the person in question ("If you knew X, you'd know that he would never go to a garage late at night"). The reader comes away with two questions in the absence of more concrete evidence 1) Why should we trust Garment and 2) What if he is dealing with someone who was acting completely out of character in his role as Deep Throat? Even Garment would have to concede that there are times when people in our lives suddenly reveal themselves to be entirely different from what we thought they were.

I gave this book two stars because even though it wasn't convincing, it was fun to read. Garment has a compelling writing style that makes this an interesting political memoir even if it isn't in the end successful in living up to its goal.

The fact that no one has figured out who Deep Throat is, after 27 years of amateur sleuthing, suggests that no definitive evidence exist (remember how quickly the author of "Primary Colors" was unmasked? And that was just a novel). Garment doesn't have anything new, but he combines all the clues that exist (there aren't many) and produces a plausible guess. Is he right? I don't know, and I suspect neither does he. But the point of the book is not to find out who Deep Throat is, but to relive the scummy underbelly of Watergate, following the leaks and counterleaks, attempts to unmask and conceal sources, and so on. This is a fun book to read, even if Deep Throat's identity (Garment's guess, unfortunately, is not particularly exciting) remains unknown.

Five stars for an energetic and intriguing whodunit.

Leonard Garment starts with the premise that Deep Throat must have been a very important person. He then reasons that since he, Len Garment, knows everyone who is really important (he actually does, this is not a pretense) it follows that he must know Deep Throat personally.

He then proceeds by elimination, working his way through his list of personal pals and social acquaintances until he finally arrives at the Deep Throat candidate he feels is the most likely person. As an exercise in name dropping, the book is a tour de force, but this is not to say it is a trivial book. It is an extremely well written, witty, and solidly researched whodunit.

The book makes two assumptions the reader might think about and then reject. First, it assumes that Watergate can be framed geographically as a pure White House and Washington DC insider type story, a tale confined to "this town", to the exclusion of the far wider world in which President Nixon operated on a day to day basis. The other weak assumption is that Bob Woodward, in "All the President's Men," laid down for his readers a trail of honest, helpful hints and tips pointing to Deep Throat's identity. Rather than disguising Deep Throat's identity. This seems naive.

The only standout historical error in the book is at the top of page 85, where Garment remarks that "Helms and Walters knew that the burglary investigation did not threaten any security sensitive CIA secrets in Mexico." It did.

If Garment's intriguing book interests you in Deep Throat, there are a few other books you might read in order to get access to some broader and more realistic views of this important historical problem: Consequences, by John G. Tower; Secret Agenda, by James Hougan; China Builds the Bomb, by Lewis; Dark Sun, by Richard Rhodes.