J. Stanley Pottinger, 84, Dies; Official Figured Out Identity of ‘Deep Throat’

J. Stanley Pottinger, who as a high-ranking figure in the Department of Justice during the 1970s was probably the only person in government to figure out the identity of Deep Throat, the pseudonymous man who provided critical information to reporters in the Watergate scandal, died on Wednesday in Princeton, N.J. He was 84.

His son Matt said the death, at a hospital, was from cancer. Mr. Pottinger, who went on to become a best-selling novelist, lived in South Salem, N.Y., but was in Princeton to be near the home of his daughter, Katie Pottinger.

Mr. Pottinger (pronounced POT-in-jer) served as the top civil-rights official in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and in the Department of Justice under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. In early 1977, Jimmy Carter, the incoming president, asked him to stay on to lead a grand jury investigation into illegal break-ins by the F.B.I.

During the testimony of W. Mark Felt, who had been the bureau’s deputy director under Nixon, a juror asked him, offhand, if he was the one who had guided the journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their investigation into White House ties to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

Mr. Pottinger was standing next to Mr. Felt, and saw his face go pale.

Mr. Felt asked him to repeat the question.

Mr. Pottinger asked if he was Deep Throat.

Mr. Felt said no, but haltingly.

“I knew right away from his demeanor that he was Deep Throat,” Mr. Pottinger told The New York Observer in 2005.