BOB GARFIELD: When Woodward and Bernstein sold their Watergate archive, the deal included the promise to keep the identity of Deep Throat a secret until his death. It's a provision that sticks in the craw of former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment who though himself the author of the book In Search of Deep Throat believes the anonymous source has been mistreated by the men he leaked to. Mr. Garment, welcome to the show.

LEONARD GARMENT: Nice to be here.

BOB GARFIELD: Why shouldn't death be a sufficient cause to release the journalists from their pledge?

LEONARD GARMENT: Because what is a distressing association of words and person during one's lifetime can be as much so to family and friends and reputation after one dies. That is the recent ruling by a 6-3 majority of the United States Supreme Court where they held that the attorney-client privilege survives death for exactly the reason that I mentioned. Now-- the argument that would be made -- and it's a reasonable argument -- is that there is a claim of history, and in the piece I wrote I capitalized History because history always marches in triumphantly to defend some things that history with a small h would not put up with. [LAUGHTER] There is an argument to be made for making available information for, for history, for research, for scholars who are trying to understand what happened during a period of time. But I think on the principle of confidentiality it's wrong to say that there is a dividing line between life and death.

BOB GARFIELD: Tell me why you raise history and then immediately knock it down.

LEONARD GARMENT:Well I don't, I don't really knock it down; I say that the fact is that history is the justification that's given for ignoring the limitation that was imposed by the arrangement for confidentiality. But I think the demands of history can be met by having the kind of general rule that's observed with respect to papers given to the Library of Congress, for example. My own papers I gave to the Library of Congress under circumstances where they remain private, they can remain private for 10, for 20, for 30 years! And I think some reasonable period of privacy should be enforced which would protect the privacy of the living and their immediate family and that without impeding the authors' - in this case Woodward and Bernstein - in presenting their papers - for compensation - they're entitled to set a price upon their papers -- and that meets all of the requirements that I think should be met here.

BOB GARFIELD:I, I noted that you were in some - if not high dudgeon at least medium high dudgeon about the notion of the identity of Deep Throat being prematurely revealed, and yet you have felt free over the last number of years to speculate in public about men living and dead with no apparent concerns about their reputation. How do you reconcile your delight in discussing the topic with your concern for their post-mortem reputations?

LEONARD GARMENT: Well, I think the answer is simply this: that I was somebody who was and still - and still am very curious as to the identity of Deep Throat for reasons having to do with the certainty that whoever Deep Throat is, is somebody I knew very well. I'm not a journalist who, who gave a pledge of confidentiality to sources and who now has sold all of those papers for a very large fee and in fact advertises the virtue of the whole transaction on the basis of it being a, a triumph for confidentiality [LAUGHS] when in fact it's quite the reverse. So I'm simply dealing with the issue of kind of an excessive amount of sanctimony about this particular transaction.

BOB GARFIELD: So then I should regard your piece in the Wall Street Journal as a-- an acceptable level of sanctimony.

LEONARD GARMENT: Well I don't think it's -- I mean you can call it anything you want! I mean -- I don't think it's sanctimony. [LAUGHTER] I mean it-- holy sanctimony! [LAUGHTER]

BOB GARFIELD: Well, Leonard Garment, you're very kind to join us. Thank you very much.

LEONARD GARMENT: Thanks for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: Leonard Garment is a former White House counsel; he now practices law in New York and is president of the Jazz Museum in Harlem. [MUSIC]