The Washington Post has confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former FBI official, was "Deep Throat" -- the source quoted by the newspaper in the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.

Bob Woodward, one of the Post reporters who broke stories on the scandal, confirmed Felt was the source after a report said Felt had revealed his identity.

Ben Bradlee, former editor at the Post, told the newspaper that knowing Felt was a high-ranking official helped him feel confident about the material the publication was releasing.

He said he knew the "positional identity" of the source as the newspaper was breaking the stories, and that he learned the name a couple of weeks after Nixon resigned.

"The number-two guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source," he said.

"I knew the paper was on the right track," Bradlee said.

Felt, 91, reportedly gave John D. O'Connor, the author of an article in Vanity Fair magazine, permission to disclose his identity.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt told O'Connor, of the nickname borrowed from a title of a pornographic film.The magazine said Felt, who now lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his daughter, Joan, admitted his role in the scandal to his family in 2002.

"The Felt family cooperated fully, providing old photographs for the story and agreeing to sit for portraits," Vanity Fair stated in a press release.

Felt, who was number 2 at the FBI when Watergate broke in the 1970s, said he never meant to bring down Nixon over the break-in at the Democratic Party offices in 1972. He said he was "only doing his duty."

Felt also reportedly told the magazine that he was not "proud" of being Deep Throat.

"You (should) not leak information to anyone," Felt indicated to his son, Mark. Jr., at one point in the article.

Post reporters Woodward and Carl Bernstein had said earlier they would not reveal their source while Deep Throat was still alive.

In a family statement released Tuesday, Felt's grandson Nick Jones said: "The family believes my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice."

Jones said in the statement: "My grandfather is pleased he is being honoured for his role as 'Deep Throat' with his friend Bob Woodward. As he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think "Deep Throat" was a criminal, but now they think he was a hero.'"

Watergate

On June 17, 1972, five burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

Nixon attempted to cover up the fact that the men caught in the act of breaking and entering worked for his re-election campaign.

The source known as Deep Throat told the Washington Post reporters to "follow the money." In fact, that is exactly what they did. Money found on one of the burglars was traced back to the re-election campaign.

Facing impeachment, Nixon announced on Aug. 8, 1974 that he would resign the next day, making him the first president in American history to step down. Gerald Ford took over to complete Nixon's term.

A lot of people, including Nixon, had previously guessed that Felt was the source behind the story. But many others have also been suggested, such as Patrick Buchanan. He was a Nixon speechwriter and later ran three times for president.

Some theories have also suggested the mystery source as former White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig and ABC newswoman Diane Sawyer, who was an aide to Nixon at the time.

When asked in 1999 whether he was Deep Throat, Felt denied any involvement.

"I would have done better,'' Felt told the Hartford Courant. "I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?''

Woodward and Bernstein won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigation into the scandal. The story was turned into a book, All The President's Men, and a movie of the same name.

With files from The Associated Press