1971: Publication of the Pentagon Papers

DATE: June 13, 1971

DESCRIPTION: The Pentagon Papers were a 47-volume history consisting of 3000 pages of historical analysis and 4000 pages of original government documents regarding the involvement of the US in Vietnam from 1945-1967. They contained information that wasn’t released by the US media and revealed that four US government administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsburg, a US military analyst, leaked the Papers to Neil Sheehan, a New York Times journalist. The newspaper proceeded to publish excerpts from it in a series of articles starting on June 13, 1971.

BLAME: The blame for this mostly falls on Daniel Ellsburg. He was the one with direct access to the Pentagon Papers and the one who personally leaked the Papers to Neil Sheehan. Sheehan also has some blame in this because he was the one that actually got the Pentagon Papers published, as a journalist for the New York Times. Even though he was the one that Ellsburg decided to leak the information to, if he decided not to publish it, this event may not have even happened.

TENSION INCREASE: This didn’t really increase world tension because this event really only regarded America; the fact that their government was hiding facts about the Vietnam War from their citizens did not really involve any other countries. It’s true that this event managed to negatively affect the US’ world opinion, but in general, tension from the East/Communist countries was not created from it because it did not really involve them. +0

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