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First Post
5 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
History Today: When the whistleblower behind the Watergate scandal exposed himself. Who was 'Deep Throat'?
On May 31, 2005, W Mark Felt, the former Associate Director of the US intelligence agency FBI, revealed himself as the secret source named 'Deep Throat' that exposed the Watergate scandal in the US. The official secretly cooperated with Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to expose the scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974 read more More than 30 years after the Watergate scandal rocked the United States, W Mark Felt, once the Associate Director of the US intelligence agency FBI, publicly revealed in 2005 that he had been the mysterious source known as 'Deep Throat.' AP May 31 is remembered as a turning point in American political history, especially for those who remember the political storm that was Watergate. In 2005, more than three decades after the Watergate scandal shook the foundations of the White House and led to President Richard Nixon's resignation, the secret source behind the exposé known only as 'Deep Throat' finally revealed his identity. Meanwhile, back in 1962, Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of Adolf Hitler's Holocaust, was executed in Israel following his conviction for crimes against humanity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD If you are a history geek who loves to learn about important events from the past, Firstpost Explainers' ongoing series, History Today will be your one-stop destination to explore key events. Here's a look at what made headlines on May 31. When former FBI Assistant Director revealed himself as 'Deep Throat' More than 30 years after the Watergate scandal rocked the United States, W Mark Felt, once the Associate Director of the US intelligence agency FBI , publicly revealed in 2005 that he had been the mysterious source known as 'Deep Throat.' It was Felt's secret cooperation with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that played a vital role in exposing the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to President Richard Nixon 's resignation in 1974. The Watergate scandal eventually led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. AP Although there had long been speculation about his identity, Felt had always denied any involvement. 'I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or to anyone else,' he wrote in his 1979 memoir. Even as late as 1999, just six years before his confession, a then 91-year-old Felt told reporters, 'It would be contrary to my responsibility as a loyal employee of the FBI to leak information.' Felt's motivation to leak secret info was rooted in his frustration. After the death of longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Felt had hoped to be named as Hoover's successor. But Nixon passed him over, and tensions escalated as the White House attempted to interfere with the FBI's Watergate investigation. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD When Bob Woodward reached out to Felt for help, the veteran FBI official agreed, but only under strict conditions. Felt wouldn't be quoted, not even anonymously. He refused to offer any new information and only confirmed what the reporters already knew. And above all, his identity had to remain under wraps. Woodward and Bernstein only contacted him for matters they deemed absolutely essential. Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward at work in 1973. AP At first, they spoke over the phone. But as concerns about tapped lines grew, the pair came up with a system of signals and began meeting secretly in a parking garage in the dead of night. Felt's eventual reveal came via an article in Vanity Fair, much to the surprise of Woodward and Bernstein, who had vowed to protect his identity until his death. He died on December 18, 2008, at the age of 95. When the architect of Holocaust was executed in Israel On this day in 1962, Adolf Eichmann , a high-ranking Nazi official and one of the principal organisers of Adolf Hitler's Holocaust, was executed for his crimes against humanity in Israel. Eichmann played a key role in implementing the so-called 'Final Solution,' the Nazis' plan to systematically exterminate the Jewish population. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He was tasked with coordinating the identification, rounding up, and deportation of millions of Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe to death camps. There, they were either gassed or worked until they died. Eichmann performed his duties with chilling efficiency. Between three to four million Jews died in the extermination camps under his direction, and an additional two million were killed elsewhere. Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi official and one of the principal organisers of Adolf Hitler's Holocaust, was executed for his crimes against humanity in Israel. Image courtesy: The National World War II Mueseum After the war, Eichmann was captured by American troops. But he managed to escape custody, moving secretly through Europe and eventually the Middle East. By 1950, he had slipped into Argentina, then known for its relaxed immigration policies and reputation as a haven for former Nazi officials, where he assumed the false identity of Ricardo Klement. In 1957, a German prosecutor passed a tip to Israeli authorities that Eichmann was alive and hiding in Argentina. Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, launched a covert mission. On May 11, they made their move. As Eichmann walked home from a bus stop along Garibaldi Street, Mossad agents snatched him and took him to a safe house. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Nine days later, he was smuggled out of Argentina, heavily sedated and disguised as a crew member of an Israeli airline who had supposedly suffered a head injury. On May 23, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went public with the shocking news: Eichmann was in Israeli custody. Argentina protested, demanding his return. But Israel insisted that Eichmann's role as a war criminal gave them every right to put him on trial. The proceedings began on April 11, 1961, in Jerusalem, marking the first time a trial was broadcast on television. Eichmann faced 15 charges, including war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and crimes against humanity. He claimed he was merely following orders, but the court didn't buy it. He was executed by hanging near Tel Aviv. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New doc tells story of Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel
An Elie Wiesel documentary presents a compelling portrait of a Holocaust survivor who bore witness. Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, the new documentary portrait of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Holocaust survivor, and Jewish writer who devoted his life to sharing the story of what millions of his fellow victims couldn't, received the Yad Vashem Award and was just shown at the Docaviv Festival. The documentary opens with a telling quote from Wiesel: 'Whoever listens to a witness, becomes a witness.' That encapsulates his life's mission: He wanted to create a world of witnesses, and he did so by bringing the story of the tragedy of the Holocaust to millions. But living a life filled with this sense of mission took a toll on him, personally, and on those around him, as this candid and very compelling documentary by Oren Rudavsky shows. The film came about because the director's friend, author and Holocaust film historian Annette Insdorf, who was close to the Wiesel family, had been getting requests from filmmakers who wanted to tell Wiesel's story since he died in 2016. But she felt that Rudavsky and his late partner, Menachem Daum, who collaborated on such documentaries as Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust, would be a good fit for a Wiesel film. 'The process of making a film is partially by choice, partially by chance, and partially whether you can raise the money to make it,' Rudavsky said. He decided to make the film despite all the obstacles. 'I think a figure like Elie Wiesel is somebody whose message of tolerance and speaking up in times of crisis is very relevant today,' he said. 'His kind, prophetic, messianic way he spoke is very… well, timely is the wrong word because he's timeless, I think.' Rudavsky admitted that it was a challenge to create a film portrait of a man who was so revered by many. His mother had studied with Wiesel at Boston University, and his parents had Wiesel's books. As he read over Wiesel's works, such as Night, an autobiographical novel about his Holocaust experiences, and watched many of Wiesel's speeches, he said, 'It was daunting – absolutely!' But after he gained the trust of Wiesel's widow, Marion, who recently passed away, and his son, Elisha, who told him their stories and were honest about how difficult it could be to be close to Wiesel and to be in his shadow, he began to formulate a structure for the film. THE DOCUMENTARY uses rare photographs and clips, as well as interviews with his family members and short animations to tell the story of Wiesel's happy childhood in the heart of a close-knit Jewish community he was born into in 1928 in Sighet, a village which was alternately part of Romania and Hungary. He was encouraged by his parents to study both Torah and literature, and he spoke multiple languages. 'As in a dusty mirror, I look at my childhood and wonder if it really was mine,' Wiesel says in the film. He shares his vivid memories of how his family was put in a ghetto under Nazi rule and then deported to Auschwitz when he was 14. His mother instructed him not to stay with her and his three sisters but to go to the men's camp with his father. The father and son were able to stay together through the concentration camp, a death march, and Buchenwald, where his father eventually died, and Wiesel recalls his anguish at being helpless as his father passed away. Taken to a Jewish children's home in France following the war, he realized that the Holocaust experience would always be a key part of who he was. 'Whether we want it or not, we are still living in the era of the Holocaust. The language is still the language of the Holocaust. The fears are linked to it. The perspectives, unfortunately, are tied to it,' he said in a speech years later. His parents and younger sister were killed in the war, but he was reunited with his older sisters afterward, and one of them is interviewed in the film. For about 10 years, he did not talk or speak about the war, studying at the Sorbonne and working as a journalist. Eventually, in response to encouragement from the author Francois Mauriac, he wrote a long book on the war in Yiddish, The World Was Silent, which he then shortened and translated into French, changing its title to Night. The documentary dramatizes, through its animations, some of the most horrific moments from the book. 'Why do I write?' Wiesel says to an interviewer. 'What else could I do? I write to bear witness.' He went on to write many more books, including novels, autobiographies, and memoirs, and his fame grew. But the movie details how he remained isolated from others, resolving not to become close to anyone until he met Marion, a translator, whom he married. WHILE HE traveled the world speaking about his life and his writings, he had a special moment in the spotlight in 1985 when he opposed then-president Ronald Reagan's visit to a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, that contained graves of SS officers. While Reagan seemed not to have known about the presence of the SS graves when he was first invited there, Reagan compounded the faux pas by saying that these SS members were victims of the Nazis 'just as surely as' those who were killed in the death camps. The planning of the Bitburg visit coincided with the moment when Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by Reagan. In a small meeting, which was caught on tape and is included in the documentary, and in a public speech when accepting the medal, Wiesel very respectfully – but very directly – challenged the president, imploring him not to lay a wreath on the graves of those who murdered his family and millions of others. 'This medal is not mine alone. It belongs to all those who remember what SS killers have done to their victims… While I feel responsible for the living, I feel equally responsible to the dead. Their memory dwells in my memory. Forty years ago, a young man woke up and found himself an orphan in an orphaned world. 'What have I learned in those 40 years? I learned the perils of language and those of silence. I learned that in extreme situations, when human lives and dignity are at stake, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims. But I've also learned that suffering confers no privileges. It all depends on what one does with it,' he said. He went on to say, 'I, too, wish to truly attain reconciliation with the German people. I do not believe in collective guilt nor in collective responsibility. Only the killers were guilty; their sons and daughters are not, and I believe, Mr. President, that we can and we must work together with them and with all people, and we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world that, as you know, is still awaiting redemption.' Rudavsky said he was impressed by 'that speech, which I consider as one of his top few speeches. His eloquence, the whole circumstance considering where we are now with our politics… the way he spoke so gently and persuasively to President Reagan...' The film goes on to show Wiesel's speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1986 and other important moments, such as his visit to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey, who featured him on her show. 'He always saw himself as a teacher,' said Rudavsky, and one of the highlights of the film is a scene in which a class of African-American high school students in the US discuss Night, completely engaged by it. As he worked to finance the film, Rudavsky said he was grateful to a number of his producing partners, among them the Claims Conference, Jewish Story Partners, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, the Public Broadcasting Service's American Masters, and Patti Askwith Kenner. The film has been shown at and will be shown at Jewish film festivals in America, and Rudvasky is hopeful for a limited theatrical release of the film in the fall in the US. Eventually, it will be shown on the PBS American Masters series. It has won Audience awards at several US film festivals and will likely turn up on one of Israel's documentary channels. Asked at a recent screening – and virtually all screenings – what Wiesel would say about what's happening in the world today, Rudavsky said, 'I can't speak for Elie, but he would be crying for those who are suffering.'
Business Recorder
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Recorder
German minister says future arms deliveries to Israel depend on Gaza situation
BERLIN: Germany will decide whether or not to approve new weapons shipments to Israel based on an assessment of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in an interview published on Friday. Wadephul questioned whether Israel's actions in its war with Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza were in line with international law. 'We are examining this and, if necessary, we will authorise further arms deliveries based on this examination,' he said in an interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The comments build on a shifting tone from Berlin and mounting international criticism of Israel in recent days as the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza after an Israeli aid blockade and mounting civilian deaths test German support. Wadephul said it was important that Israel can defend itself given the threats it faces, including from Houthi, Hezbollah and Iran. Macron says stance on Israel must 'harden' unless Gaza situation improves 'For me, there is no question that we have a special responsibility to stand by Israel's side,' he said, reiterating the principle of 'Staatsraeson' which underpins German support for Israel in atonement for the Holocaust of World War Two. 'On the other hand, of course, this does not mean that a government can do whatever it wants,' he said. Three months into the war, South Africa filed a case to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the accusations as outrageous. Israel's aid blockade of Gaza, which began after the breakdown of a ceasefire in early March, has also been contested at the World Court. Half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation, a global hunger monitor said in mid-May. Netanyahu has dismissed charges that Israel was deliberately causing starvation in Gaza by imposing the 11-week blockade that was relaxed last week after mounting pressure from close allies. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said airstrikes on Gaza were no longer justified by the need to fight Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 assault on Israel killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and triggered the war.
Boston Globe
13 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Construction begins on Boston's new $100 million Holocaust museum
When general contractor Lee Kennedy Co. completes the project in late 2026, the Holocaust Museum Boston will stretch across six floors of a 33,000-square-foot building at 125 Tremont St., facing Boston Common and the State House. Kipnis, a former dental hygienist, now leads the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit she formed in 2018 with Ruderman to keep the stories and lessons from the Holocaust alive for new generations. Their foundation bought a three-story building on that site for $11.5 million in 2022, using money that Ruderman and Kipnis contributed. Their initial plans called for retrofitting the structure, but then they decided to build something new, and twice the size, to fulfill their ambitious vision. They expect construction costs will total around $100 million, and say they've already raised around two-thirds of it. A supplemental budget under consideration at the State House could provide up to $10 million in state funds as well. Advertisement It all started with a trip they took in 2018 to Auschwitz with Holocaust survivor and friend David Schaecter, who told them: You've seen Auschwitz, so now what are you going to do? The foundation they created was initially intended to fund fellowships for teens to learn about the Holocaust. The COVID-19 pandemic paused that plan, so Kipnis and Ruderman came up with a more ambitious one, building a museum. Schaecter helped create a Holocaust memorial in Miami Beach, Fla., near where he lives. But Ruderman, owner of the Value Store It chain of self-storage sites, says his friend and former business associate is 'kind of shocked we took it to this level.' Advertisement Kipnis said the Boston site is ideal, not just because of all the people who walk by it every day, but also for its proximity to other themed landmarks, such as the Freedom Trail and the Embrace statue on the Common. 'Think about what all these things represent: It's resistance, it's courage,' Kipnis said. When it opens, the museum will feature a donated Nazi-era rail car, personal artifacts from the Holocaust, as well as an interactive holographic exhibit featuring interviews with Schaecter. (The 30-foot-long rail car is being donated by Sonia Breslow of Arizona, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.) 'This is not a Jewish museum, this is a museum for everyone,' Ruderman said. 'We're using the Jewish people as an example of what happens when democracy breaks down.' Kipnis added: 'This museum will ensure their stories are told, and the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten.' Advertisement This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston's business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
German minister: Future weapons deliveries to Israel depend on Gaza situation
"We are examining this and, if necessary, we will authorize further arms deliveries based on this examination," Wadephul said. Germany will decide whether or not to approve new weapons shipments to Israel based on an assessment of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung published on Friday. Wadephul questioned whether what is happening in Gaza is in line with international law. "We are examining this and, if necessary, we will authorize further arms deliveries based on this examination," he added. The comments build on a shifting tone from Berlin and mounting international criticism of Israel in recent days as the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza after an Israeli aid blockade and mounting civilian deaths test German support. Wadephul said it was important that Israel can defend itself given the threats it faces, including from Houthi terrorists, Hezbollah, and Iran. "For me, there is no question that we have a special responsibility to stand by Israel's side," he said, reiterating the principle of "Staatsraeson" which underpins German support for Israel in atonement for the Holocaust of World War Two. "On the other hand, of course, this does not mean that a government can do whatever it wants," he said. Three months into the war, South Africa filed a case to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the accusations as outrageous. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said airstrikes on Gaza were no longer justified by the need to fight Hamas.
