Beside all of that, the way I've heard it was that the reason Felt became Deep Throat was because he wasn't made Hoover's successor, as Nixon chose some dude name Gray.
Felt having a hissy fit over not being named Director and deciding to become "Deep Throat" is the current best guess of most historians and analysts. Sadly, because Felt role was hidden by Wooward's, Bernstein's, and Bradlee's lies for thirty years, Felt was never interviewed or investigated on the subject.
That's the truly ironic part in all of this. The journalism profession, which so fervently believes in it's crucial role as the Fourth Estate and the necessity of it's investigations, completely failed to investigate the half of the Watergate story and failed to do so because of the continued lies of three journalists who the profession holds in the highest esteem.
(Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, let me say that journalism's role as the Fourth Estate and the investigations it undertakes are vitally important. The trouble here is with the profession's huge blind spot towards itself. It fails and fucks up just as often as the other organizations it routinely flogs, but it naturally fails to report on it's own failings.
Neither Woodward, Bernstein, or Bradlee have been taken to task for protecting Felt long after anything could have been done to the man. Not one person in their profession has investigated the critical decisions they made in 1972 while dozens continue to pick over the bones of the other half of the story.)
So maybe there is a point in saying that if Hoover is still the director of the FBI between 1972 and 1977, Felt might not feel angry about not becoming Director of the FBI.
That's the point I've been trying to make. A living Hoover means Felt is not yet disgruntled. A living Hoover even means that, if Felt was actually driven to become "Deep Throat" by "altruistic" motives as some people who are old to to know better still want to believe, Hoover would be able to quash any attempted leaks by Felt.
Only one man leaked in the FBI and that man was Hoover.