L. Patrick Gray, the Nixon appointee who ran the FBI immediately after the death of J. Edgar Hoover — and thus, during the height of the Watergate scandal — says he believes his number two at the Bureau, W. Mark Felt, “became the anonymous source known as Deep Throat because he was angry at being passed over” as Hoover’s successor and because he “wanted to sabotage Gray.” According to an Associated Press wire story by Douglass K. Daniel, the now 88-year-old Gray said on ABC’s This Week‘s Sunday news talk show, “I think there was a sense of revenge in his heart, and a sense of dumping my candidacy, if you will.” (Felt has denied that elsewhere — see the MobyLives archive for the week of 30 May – 3 June 2005 and thereafter.) Gray also said he trusted Felt “to the point of putting Felt in charge of investigating FBI leaks,” reports Daniel. However, said Gray, the leaks continued. Said Gray, “I couldn’t stop it because my No. 2 man was the guy that was doing it.”