Pentagon Papers Revealed
Today in History: June 13 Marks First Publication of Pentagon Papers Excerpts
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Fifty-five years ago today, The New York Times dropped one of the most explosive stories in American journalism history. On June 13, 1971, the paper began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — a 7,000-page top-secret government study that revealed four U.S. presidents had repeatedly lied to the public about the Vietnam War.
The leak, carried out by defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg, triggered a Supreme Court showdown that reshaped press freedom forever. It also set in motion the events that would bring down President Richard Nixon. The Associated Press has marked today as the story's 55th anniversary.
Ellsberg Spent 18 Months Secretly Copying 7,000 Pages
The Pentagon Papers were commissioned in 1967 by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. He wanted an honest internal history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam going back to 1945. What the study found was damning: the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson had all misled the public about the true scale of the war, according to WTOP News.
Daniel Ellsberg was a RAND Corporation analyst who had helped write parts of the study. By 1969, he had turned against the war. He spent 18 months secretly photocopying the documents. In March 1971, he handed them to Times reporter Neil Sheehan. The first headline read: "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement."
Nixon Tried to Kill the Story — And Failed in 17 Days
Two days after publication, the Nixon administration got a federal court to stop the Times from printing more. It was the first time in U.S. history the government had halted a story before publication. Nixon called the leak "treasonable action" on White House tapes. Attorney General John Mitchell pushed to use the Espionage Act of 1917 to shut it down, according to Journal-News.
The Washington Post began publishing its own excerpts on June 18. The government tried to block them too. Just 17 days after the Times first published, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the newspapers. Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The press was to serve the governed, not the governors."
The Papers Revealed Wars America Never Admitted Fighting
The documents exposed secrets the public had never been told. The U.S. had secretly expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos. The military had conducted coastal raids on North Vietnam. None of this had been reported, according to Union-Bulletin. By late 1971, a Gallup poll found 71% of Americans believed the government had misled them about the war.
Ellsberg himself said it simply: "I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public." He faced 115 years in prison under the Espionage Act. His case was eventually dismissed after the government was caught breaking into his psychiatrist's office to find blackmail material.
The Plumbers Unit That Led Straight to Watergate
Nixon's reaction to the leak had consequences far beyond the courtroom. He ordered the creation of a secret White House unit nicknamed "the Plumbers" — their job was to stop leaks. Their first mission was that break-in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. The same unit later organized the Watergate burglary in 1972, which ultimately ended Nixon's presidency, according to News-Gazette.
Today, 55 years later, the Pentagon Papers are fully declassified and stored in the National Archives. But their legacy lives on. The case still defines the legal limits of government censorship. And the tension between state secrets and the public's right to know, as WANDTV notes, remains as unsettled in 2026 as it was in 1971.
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