In 1992, The Atlantic Monthly published a classic article by James Mann that laid out a convincing theory regarding the identity of Deep Throat, the famously anonymous Woodstein source who helped bring down the Nixon Administration. Mann believed there was a good chance that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt, the No. 2 or No. 3 man at the FBI during the Watergate years. I first read Mann’s article in about 1996—near the beginning of my long and enduring obsession with Watergate—and I found his case far more convincing than most of the other Deep Throat theories that had been bandied around since 1974. (Kissinger? Come on. L. Patrick Gray? A bumbling functionary who was totally out of his depth at the FBI. Al Haig, William Rehnquist, Diane Sawyer? Shut up and stop wasting my time.) Partly because of Mann’s article, and despite the existence of a handful of other strong candidates, I’ve spent the last decade believing that Felt was Deep Throat. As it turns out, he was.

Until not long ago, the Mann article was freely accessible on the Atlantic’s website. But sometime in the last year or two, the magazine began hiding the article behind a subscription wall. Now, for obvious reasons, the article is public again, and you should go read it.

In a series of articles for Slate since 1999, Timothy Noah had also been a strong proponent of the Felt theory.