Felt’s motive: Money

We now know why W. Mark Felt, the “American hero”, and his family came forward with their secret: money and book deals. To safeguard their scheme, they had to scoop their own co-conspirators: Woodward and Bernstein. This is outlined in the Washington Post: Deep Background:

The problem for Vanity Fair, Friend said, was that O’Connor wanted the magazine to pay Felt and Felt’s family for the story — a condition the magazine would not agree to.

O’Connor — who had become acquainted with the Felt family through Felt’s grandson, a Stanford classmate of O’Connor’s daughter — decided instead to publish Felt’s account as a book. But after a year of trying to find a publisher, Friend said, O’Connor was back at Vanity Fair’s doorstep.

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