Mark Felt, Deep Throat and Ace Hannah's Three Rules

I just watched a great interview on Hardball with Ralph DeToledano, who ghostwrote Mark "Deep Throat" Felt's memoirs a few years ago. DeToledano said that Felt's own manuscript left his publisher unhappy, so DeToledano was brought in. DeToledano had to drag things out of Felt, who wanted to portray himself as a great man and who denied in the book that he was Deep Throat. DeToledano said that recently Felt said he wanted to republish his book, to which DeToledano owned 50%. After 18 months and several letters, DeToledano extracted a check for $5,000 for his half of the rights. This was before Felt's revelation in the current Vanity Fair that he was DT. Now Felt's memoir is worth millions. Which begs the question: when is Felt telling the truth? Then or now?

DeToledano was an editor at Newsweek who covered Nixon for years, often quite favorably. He says Nixon had no loyalty to anyone and had no principles.

In the film Vera Cruz, Burt Lancaster recites Ace Hannah's Three Rules:

1. Don't do any favors you don't have to.

2. Don't trust anyone longer than you have to.

3. Don't take any chances you don't have to.