New York Times Vs America Case Study

Fernando Vásquez

Elements of Law

Mr. Diógenes Molina

The New York Times vs United States of America

The supreme court case “The New York Times v. The United States of America” refers to a lawsuit from The New York Times against the US federal government in order to publish the “Pentagon Papers” (which was a detailed archive of the American involvement in the Vietnam War and at the moment was classified as Top Secret and Sensitive) and not be censored or punished for treason. The whole situation was relevant at the time because of the breach of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press, and also for the exposure of secrets of the American government to it’s citizens, who had not been told the truth completely. The case was opened in June 15, 1971,

He was part of the Republican Party and was elected Vice-President of Dwight Eisenhower who served in office from 1953 to 1961. He initially ran for presidency during the 1960 elections, which he lost against John F. Kennedy. After running for Governor of California in 1962 and loosing again, the general public thought his political career was dead. In despite of the series of losses, he ran for the presidency again in 1968 and was elected as the 37th President of the United States of America. The president in office before him was Lyndon Johnson. When Nixon assumed the position, the Vietnam War was going on, 300 American soldiers were dying every week (Kelly, Rees, & Shuter, 1998), and war was not popular among the public. The war had begun in 1955 and had the support of President Kennedy and President Johnson. They both supported South Vietnam and claimed to be defending them as their allies against North Vietnam. Nixon knew the war couldn’t be won and wanted to end the conflict in a fast manner. As troops were retiring from conflict, he approved some additional bombings to territory of North Vietnam (which include territories nowadays part of Cambodia and Laos). In 1970, he announced the invasion of Cambodia, which was received with protests from the public. Skepticism began to rise in the public’s mind. They wondered whether the government was telling the truth regarding their

The US military gave the information they thought was the best for their interest and the general public. This often included not telling the truth. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America at the time knew that and thought that it was very important for the government to create a written record which documented everything related to the participation of the country in the Vietnam War, so that if any mistake in state policies was made, future administrations would not commit them again. This written record would be called the Pentagon Papers, which included a timeline, official documents and an analysis of the situation, comprised in more than 7000 pages. It was created by McNamara and a team of 36 analysts who had his trust. Nobody outside the Office of the Secretary of Defense knew about the existence of the record, as no information was requested to anyone outside of that organization. Not even the Presidents or the Secretaries of the State knew about this. 15 copies were printed and classified as “Top Secret¨. The information inside the papers stated that the involvement of the United States in Vietnam began during the Indochina War, when they helped the French in their fight against Viet Minh by providing them with equipment. It also said that the actual reason why the US wanted to help South Vietnam free themselves from North Vietnam was to contain China, as