Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House Page #6

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You gotta remember that.

What's the body count?

Eight, so far.

You, me, a few guys on my team.

- Where are they sending you?

- St. Louis.

But I don't know

how much more I have left in me.

You?

San Francisco.

Well, at least, it's Frisco.

Yeah.

Great.

How many years you put in here, Charlie?

The whole run.

My kids were born here.

REPORTER 1:
Whatever Watergate was,

whatever it wasn't,

the American people don't seem

to understand, nor care,

as Nixon has won in a landslide.

I appreciate you taking the time, Mr. Felt.

I always take care of my people, Mr. Bates.

In fact, my father always said to me,

"Mark, whatever we do,

we have to make our lives vectors."

Lines with force and direction.

You have to destroy anything

that is sick beyond repair

to rescue it from its agony.

Mark.

And...

And the agony it causes everyone else,

Mr. Bates.

REPORTER 1:
It was thought that he might

have a little bit of difficulty.

- Mr. Felt.

- What are you doing, Charlie?

What is it, Mr. Bates?

Here's to you. Bravo.

(CHEERING ON TV)

Genesis commune.

Ben Lomond, California.

Check it thoroughly.

These leaks

are driving the White House crazy.

The White House thinks it knows who it is.

Your name came up.

Do you have any idea what that would mean?

Treason, for one.

Betrayal of everything

the FBI stands for, for another.

Everything you stand for.

So, why would I do it?

I don't know.

I can't imagine their thinking.

Why don't they fire me then?

You know everything.

To them, the only thing worse

than keeping you is firing you.

Dean did say something strange.

Apparently, they know everything

going on inside our shop.

- They have a source.

- Inside the FBI?

He said they hear everything.

We just swept your office for bugs, Mr. Felt.

Do it again!

The knives are out.

More than you know.

MARK:
Am I safe?

AGENCY MAN:
No one is.

The White House

is gonna sanitize the entire town.

The director of Central Intelligence

will be gone by morning.

MARK:
Why?

Apparently, he couldn't

smoke you out fast enough.

The source

of all those stories.

Where does the CIA stand?

AGENCY MAN:
The CIA is building a wall.

We'll stay out of your way,

but if we're forced to protect ourselves,

we will.

The FBI will never reach the CIA on this.

And the White House?

Presidents come and go,

but the CIA stays.

The FBI stays.

We are the constants.

I almost forgot.

Time magazine's person of the year

is going to be Richard Nixon.

I thought you'd like to know.

Happy holidays.

(BELLS JINGLING)

GRAY:
The president told me

the unthinkable has happened.

He actually misses Hoover.

"Hoover would have gotten

the dogs off him," he said.

"He'd have everyone scared to death."

The White House is going

to make me director permanently.

Congratulations.

GRAY:
Bill Sullivan will be my number two.

You know what the president said to me today?

He said, "The Germans had the right idea

during World War ll.

"If they went through a town and one

of their soldiers got hit by a sniper,

"they'd line up the whole goddamn town

and kill everyone."

He said, "It's time to clean out the FBI."

You know what that will mean for me.

Remember, they're afraid of you.

Mark, if you did know something,

you could come to me.

We'd be able to work it out together.

We could do something about it.

I can't protect you anymore.

Just give 'em what they want.

The traitor's head on a platter.

(DOOR CLOSES)

SULLIVAN:
So, the president asked me

what he should do.

And, I tell him, get rid of everyone

in the interest of the nation.

I didn't mean me, of course.

(CHUCKLES)

You don't have many friends left, you know.

A bunch of your FBI pals

told me to cut your nuts off.

Think they'll let you keep your badge?

You got a lot of people worried

in Washington.

They think you're gonna unwrap everything.

Everything from all the years.

Everything we, you and I, know.

Is that what you want to know, Bill?

This your last little errand?

To help the president sleep at night.

I'm just sayin', you open those scabs,

a lot of things underneath.

Just remember, no one likes informers.

They only remember you as a rat,

even if you were their...

Even if you were their rat!

Mr. Felt, Mr. Miller's on the phone.

He needs to speak with you.

- This is Special Agent Clark.

- I don't want to know his name.

Tell him what you told Mr. Bates and me.

I don't think you have anything

to worry about, Mr. Felt.

You don't think.

Specific.

(BREATHES DEEPLY)

The commune where the subject, Joan Felt...

Do not say her name.

Where the target is...

Definitely some people of interest in there.

- Maybe some with the Underground.

- But the target?

If you ask me,

just someone's kid looking for a way home.

We never spoke. No paper.

You don't know anything.

Do you know your physics, Sandy?

If you tap repeatedly

on the post of a building,

and the tapping is relentless,

it creates a rhythm.

If you do that long enough

and steadily enough, it will feed back.

The frequencies will align,

the molecules will scramble,

and the whole thing, the whole building

will come apart from the inside

and collapse in on itself,

and all come tumbling down.

The molecules are beginning to scramble.

The FBI is coming apart.

Do you know where that takes us?

Do you want a country

this big, this angry, this confused

without a police department?

Get out your notebook.

May, 1969 and February, 1971.

Mark, are you sure about this?

Between those dates,

White House employees were wiretapped.

Many of them aides to the Secretary of State

and five reporters,

including The New York Times.

You're kidding.

- This is hard for you.

- What part?

All this truth.

The truth is hard for you.

The FBI illegally,

unconstitutionally and reprehensibly

bugged and taped

and secretly photographed and memorialized

every move that those people made.

Them and their wives and

their mistresses and homosexual lovers.

- Who did the wiretaps?

- Bill Sullivan.

It became a rogue FBI operation.

Sullivan drove it. Sullivan and

the White House by themselves.

How 'bout you?

What do you know?

About everything else,

I knew every sordid little detail.

But not this.

They knew they couldn't tell me about this.

Yeah, they couldn't count on you.

The White House is packing

all its crimes in separate little boxes.

Watergate, the spying, the ugliness, the rot.

Each thing in a different box,

so that no one can put it together,

so that no one sees it's all connected.

And no one will care.

But it's all the same big thing.

And Watergate? Just the gateway.

Can you get the story out

before Gray's confirmation hearing?

What you're doing

will bring down the whole house of cards.

But then, you already knew that.

SANDY:
Gray is ready to fall now.

Watch where it leads.

Any last-minute advice?

We've gone over everything.

They'll go easy.

You're the president's man.

Mr. Gray. What about this?

I don't know what my position should be.

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