John Stanley Pottinger is a novelist, lawyer, banker, and former politician.

Pottinger was born in Dayton, Ohio on February 13, 1940. He was educated at Harvard University and Harvard Law School, graduating with a JD in 1965.

Pottinger held significant roles as a bureaucratic appointee in the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations. From 1970 to 1973, he held the position of the Director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1970–73 and from 1973–77 served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the United States Department of Justice.

Bob Woodward told in his book The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat (ISBN 0-7432-8715-0) that during a 1976 grand jury appearance over break-ins ordered by Mark Felt, Pottinger discovered that Felt was Deep Throat.

During the grand jury hearing, a juror asked Felt, who was testifying, whether he was Deep Throat. Pottinger says that Felt went white with fear. Pottinger instructed Felt that while Felt was under oath and had to answer truthfully, Pottinger considered the question to be beyond the scope of the inquiry and would be withdrawn if Felt wanted. Felt successfully requested the inquiry to be withdrawn. ¹⁾

Pottinger later engaged in a lucrative practice on Wall Street and wrote a best selling book, The Fourth Procedure,[2] as well as several other novels. He dated Gloria Steinem in New York City.

In 2013, Pottinger was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case. ²⁾

He is the father of Matt Pottinger and Matthew Pottinger is a former journalist and U.S. Marine Corps officer who served in the U.S. National Security Council of the administration of Donald Trump.