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Born October 27, 1936
Holyoke, Massachusetts

American journalist

Neil Sheehan's career in journalism has been closely linked with the Vietnam War for nearly four decades. In the early and mid-1960s he provided acclaimed coverage of the conflict in Vietnam for United Press International and the New York Times. In 1971 he helped publish the so-called Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the war. And in 1988 he published A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. This book, which took Sheehan sixteen years to complete, is regarded as one of the finest nonfiction works ever written about the Vietnam War.

A promising young journalist

Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1936. His parents were Cornelius Joseph and Mary...