It was (as usual) a very interesting session of Business Ethics on that Thursday evening. The main discussion roamed about GCG, which somehow lead to an interesting discussion of Deep Throat.

If you look up google for deep throat, you will find that the top two entries are both pages from wikipedia, but the two refer to different “deep throat”s.
Deep Throat is a pseudonym for a secret informant which provided information about the Scandal of Watergate, which lead to the resignation of former US President Richard Nixon, and jailed a number of high rank government officials. The scandal was revealed through several articles written by Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, based on information provided by Deep Throat. However the informant requested that they keep the secret identity. And that’s what the two journalists did.

Deep Throat himself finally revealed his identity in 2005, at the age of 91. He was Mark Felt, which was FBI’s high rank official. The two journalists confirmed about this the following days.

The reason I bring this topic up, is not to talk about how such a top-level initiated scandal was brought down, nor where the name “Deep Throat” was derived from (although I do encourage interested individuals to browse around a find out a little more about the topic). What amazes me is the fact that the two journalists were able to keep this secret to themselves (well, maybe they did tell to 2-3 of their inner circle). The identity of Deep Throat until now holds the record in american history as the longest keep secret/ mistery, for around 30 years.

I think Indonesia has much more kept secret in the history of the country. Secret behind the September 30th movement; what happened to the SUPERSEMAR, to name a few. The only problem is that no one really knows what has happened. Parts of the history of the country has been manipulated so badly that its literally impossible to recover it. Even if someone knew or witnessed the event, they would probably be too scared to reveal it. It’s very ironic that the National Department of Education is still facing controversy on how to put the Indonesian history (especially the September 30th movement) on the school curriculum.

If only the live witnesses had the courage to reveal what had happened, even under a secret identity, that the Indonesian journalists and historians are truly independent in providing unbiased truth, instead of “paid to publish” truth, my perception of the Indonesian history wouldn’t have been different to what they teach my cousins in junior high.

“The End. And Deep Throat to You All…. “ : )