Ken W. Clawson

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Ken Wade Clawson was Deputy Director of Communications for Richard Nixon at the time of the Watergate scandal. Prior to his post at the White House, Clawson had been a reporter for The Washington Post.

In the 1990s, Clawson was the subject of many articles pointing to him as the possible identity of Deep Throat, Woodward's source in the Executive Branch.

Clawson died at the age of 63 on December 18, 1999, survived by his wife Carol, three living children, his mother and sister, along with six grandchildren.

[edit] The "Canuck Letter"

Clawson is perhaps best known to most Americans for an incident which occurred during the Watergate scandal. According to Bob Woodward in All the President's Men, Clawson bragged about having written the Canuck Letter to a friend, Marilyn Berger, who happened to be a Washington Post reporter. Berger passed the information along to Woodward and Bernstein, who were engaged in writing a series of articles in the Post exposing "ratfucking" dirty tricks by the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Supposedly, when confronted with the information, Clawson replied that he did not want Berger revealed as the source, saying it would disrupt his marriage; "I have a wife and a family and a dog and a cat." While this part of the story may be apocryphal, it is used to identify Clawson in American popular culture.