Vietnam Relations: The Pentagon Paper

The United States Vietnam Relations is an examination which was prepared by the US Department of Defense containing the history of the US’s political and military involvement in Vietnam from the years 1945-1967. More commonly, we refer to these as the Pentagon Papers. Uncovered by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg and his friend Anthony Russo, the Pentagon Papers caught the public’s attention in 1971 on the front page of The New York Times who would later state that the Johnson Administration “systematically lied, not only to the public but also to congress.” In addition, the papers revealed coastal raids on North Vietnam, bombings in Cambodia and Laos, and attacks by the Marine Corps which the mainstream media did not report. These events exposed knowledge that the US had expanded the scale of the war in Vietnam.

Though the publication reflected very poorly on the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, Nixon felt that his was safe. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, however, persuaded the president that no opposition of a publication could set a poor model for any future secrets. The Nixon administration therefore pushed to convict Ellsberg and Russo of espionage and conspiracy as he did not have the authority to publish any classified documents, and in a failed attempt, tried to persuade the New York Times to refrain from its voluntary publication. This would result in a federal court ban to be forced on the Times. Shortly after, The Washington Post would start to publish its own articles relating to the Pentagon Papers, as Ellsberg had given excerpts to its editor. The same process was repeated, and The Washington Post refused to cease publication, though this time Nixon did not have the support of the federal court. In the meantime, fifteen separate newspapers began publishing copies that they’d received as the Supreme Court had now allowed further