Today in HistoryâJune 13: The Pentagon Papers Reach the Public
On this day in 1971, The New York Times began publishing parts of a leaked government report about decades of U.S. involvement in Indochina. No fewer than four presidential administrationsâthose of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnsonâwere implicated in misleading the American public.
The 47-volume classified report, commissioned by the Department of Defense and compiled by 36 analysts, became known as the Pentagon Papers. It was completed in 1969, just before Richard Nixon became president. Somewhat ironically, it was this publicationâof materials incriminating his predecessorsâthat set in motion the events that would lead to Nixonâs political downfall.
Two of the analysts had become disabused of the idea that any good could come from U.S. interference in Vietnam. They attempted to bring the report to the attention of sympathetic members of the Senate in March 1971.
When that went nowhere, one of them, researcher Daniel Ellsberg, turned to a reporter at The New York Times instead. This avenue proved far more fruitful (or we wouldnât be talking about this today).
The first excerptâs release on June 13 ignited a political firestorm. The Nixon administration tried to stop the publication on grounds that it threatened national security. The Times refused. A handful of excerpts were published before the paper was halted by a court order.
The Timesâsoon joined by The Washington Postâhad to fight for the right to release the documents, and that road ran all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Times won the case on June 30, and publication quickly resumed.
After the reporter, Neil Sheehan, died in 2021, his account of how he and his wife secretly photocopied Ellsbergâs report (defying Ellsberg in the process) to publish it in full came to light.
And thatâs when Nixon got antsy. The report showed that certain analysts had accessed information far beyond their security clearance levels. To combat this, the White House created a Special Investigations Unit. This team would become known as âthe Plumbers,â as they were tasked with stopping leaks.
These are the guys who would break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Complex the following year (spoiler alert: come back in a few days for more on this) and touch off the scandal that would eventually force Nixon to resign.
And the analysts? They were charged with espionage, but their 1973 trial saw the case dismissed after misconduct on the part of the government came to light.
- ~7,000 pages: Length of the full Pentagon Papers
- 11 words: Remained redacted until 2011
- 18 months: Time it took to write the Pentagon Papers
- 1942: FDR creates the Office of War Information
- 1966: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling establishes Miranda warnings as law
- 1971: The first known set of nonuplets is born to an Australian woman
