California ? Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command who helped unlock the secrets of Watergate as the shadowy “Deep Throat,” was remembered Friday by family and friends as a man who stood up for truth in deceptive times.

About 300 people, including journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, attended the service in Santa Rosa to remember Felt, who died in December at the age of 95. The Washington Post reporters wrote the stories based on Felt’s tips and guidance that helped expose the government complicity in the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate building.

The ensuing scandal helped lead to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

It also set off an intense guessing game over the identity of Deep Throat until Felt revealed himself in a 2005 Vanity Fair magazine article written by longtime family friend John O’Connor.