The Pentagon Papers were a secret 7,000-page Defense Department study of US policy in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg leaked it; the New York Times published it from…
Forty years after the leak, the National Archives released all 7,000 pages, declassified and unredacted. About 34% had never been published before.
No. Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo because of government misconduct. It was not an acquittal: no court ruled on whether the leak was lawful.
A White House unit set up to stop leaks burgled Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to find material against him. Some of the same men were caught at the Watergate in 1972.
The government had not met the heavy burden needed to stop publication in advance, so the Times and the Post could keep printing.
No. It protected the right to publish. Whether copying and disclosing classified documents was lawful was a separate question, and two justices said prosecution remained…
After the third instalment, a federal judge ordered the Times to stop. It was widely described as the first such order on national-security grounds.
The Times ran the first instalment on Sunday 13 June 1971, from Neil Sheehan's reporting. Its own lawyers had advised against publishing.
Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study, began photocopying it on 1 October 1969 with Anthony Russo. He tried Congress first, then went to the Times.
Robert McNamara ordered a history of US decisions on Vietnam in 1967. Finished in January 1969, it ran to 47 volumes covering 1945 to 1967.
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