CIA MYSTERY MAN: IS JOHN PAISLEY REALLY DEAD? WAS HE REALLY DEEP THROAT?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200840001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 8, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/08: CIA-RDP91-00
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CIA MYSTERY MAN
?Is-John Paisley Really Dead?
Was He Really Deep Throat?
Here's a dark-horse candidate for
the identirv of Deep Throat: John
Paisley .
More than a decade after \Va-
tercate forced Richard Nixon to
resign the presidency. no one yet
knows the identity of the prime
source for li'ashington Post re-
porter Bob Woodward.
The 55-year-old Paisley. a
long-time CIA agent. disap-
peared in th,~ Chesapeake Bay on
September 24, 1978. after using
the radio aboard his 31-foot
sloop. the Brillig, to tell friends
he would he out past dark and to
ask them to leave the lights on at
his dock near Lusby, Maryland.
A day later, his unoccupied
yacht ran aground near Point
Lookout. at the mouth of the Po-
tomac River. One week after
that, a, badly decomposed body
with a bullet hole jr the head and
two diving weights strapped
around the Torso was found float-
ing in the Bay at the mouth of the
PattTxcntRiver.
The body was identified as
Paisley's-based on dental
records and fingerprints-and
was cremated before Paisley's
family could view it. Suicide was
tentatively listed as the cause of
death.
The CIA initially downplayed
Paisley's CIA connections,
claiming that he was a low-level
employee who had retired four
years earlier. Actually, Paisley
had joined the Agency in 1954.
had risen to the post of deputy
director of strategic research,
and had served as a 5200-a-day
"consultant" since his retire-
ment. overseeing a team that as-
sessed the quality of the CIA's
studies of the Soviet Union.
Furthermore. Paisley was re-
vealed to have been the CIA's
liaison with the White House
Plumbers, the group including G.
Gordon Liddy and E. Howard
Hunt that was created to plug
White House leaks. The Plumb-
ers planned such actions as the
break-in of.Daniel Ellsberg's
psychiatrist's office and the June
17_1972. entry of the Democrat-
ic National Committee's head-
quarters at the Watergate.
Paisley's links to the Post are
murky, yet substantial.
He is said to have participated
in a swingers' club in the Virgin-
ia suburbs whose members in-
cluded several CIA officials and
a member of the Post's Water-
gate investigative force. Pais-
ley's nickname within the sex
ring: Deep Throat.
And Paisley supposedly car-
ried a card that falsely identified
him as a Washington Post deliv-
cry man: he once climbed from a
Post truck over the wali of the
Soviet Embassy. Allegedly, the
Coast Guard called the Post im-
mediately after the body was re-
covered from Chesapeake Bay.
Paisley's death has been
cloaked in mvsten for more than
six years. The body recovered
from the Bay was substantially
shorter and lighter than Paisley:
the position of the bullet wound
in the head makes it unlikely that
a right-handed man such as Pais-
ley could have shot himself there.
Members of his immediate fami-
lv doubt that the body identified
as Paisley's was his.
So questions remain about
Paisley: Is he dead? If so. did he
commit suicide? Or was he mur-
dered? And by whom-the CLA,
the Russians, a -ival lover? Or
did he defect? And was the
swingers' club the only place he
was known as Deep Throat?
Washington author Jim Hou-
gan, who has just published a
controversial analysis of Water-
gate. Secret Agenda, has another
Deep Throat candidate: Bobby
Ray Inman, the former deputy
director of the CIA. Like the 41-
year-old Woodwa -Inman, 53,
once held a sensitive post in Na-
val Intelligence, finally rising to
director. Inman also served as di-
rector of the National Security
Agency.
When Hougan asked Inman re-
cently if he was Deep Throat,
Inman denied it, pointing out that
he had left Washington during
587R000200840001-9
John Paisley
Was Deep Throat Deep-Sixed?
the Watergate period. Inman ac-
tually left for an assignment
in Hawaii in December 1973.
Woodward's last conversation of
substance with Deep Throat was
one month earlier.
But, Inman insisted, he
couldn't have been Deep Throat.
After all, he had called Bob
Woodward and asked him if he I
was Deep Throat, and Wood-
ward had said no. Hougan argues
that this suggests Inman was at
least a key source for Woodward;
otherwise, why would he have to
ask if he was the main source?
Inman resigned from the CIA
in 1982. It was major news at the
time. The reporter who got the
scoop: Bob Woodward.
-ROBERT PACK
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/08: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200840001-9