Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers (1971).On 13 June 1971, the New York Times began publication of a secret Department of Defense history of Vietnam War decision making commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara toward the end of the Johnson administration. Leaked by former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who believed the revelation might alter the course of the war, the story outraged President Richard M. Nixon, already suspicious of the press, particularly by threatening the president's hoped‐for opening to China. As Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, observed in his memoir, The White House Years, “Our nightmare was that … the massive hemorrhage of state secrets was bound to raise doubts [in Peking] about our reliability.” When the Times...
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