PENTAGON PAPERS: THE SECRET WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300170024-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: June 28, 1971
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

T11"iE STATINTL
001t!03504 j l DP80-01601
To see the conflict and our part in it
as a tragedy without villains, war crimes
without criminals, lies without liars, es-
pouses and promulgates a view of pro-
cess, roles and motives that is not only
grossly mistaken but which underwrites
deceits that have served a succession of
Presidents.
-Daniel Ellsberg
THE, issues were momentous, the sit-
uation unprecedented. The most mas-
~sive leak of secret documents in U.S.
history had suddenly exposed the sen-
Isitive inner processes whereby the John-
`son Administration had abruptly esca-
lated the nation's .most unpopular-and
unsuccessful-war. The Nixon Govern-
ment, battling stubbornly to withdraw
from that war at its' own deliberate
pace, took the historic step of seeking
to suppress articles before publication,
and threatened criminal action against
. ~y Sed
that the Government 'was fighting so
fiercely to protect. Those records af-
forded a rare insight into how high of-
ficials make decisions affecting the lives
of millions as well as the, fate of na-
tions. The view, however constricted or
incomplete, was deeply disconcerting.
The records revealed a dismaying de-
gree of miscalculation, bureaucratic ar-
rogance and deception. The revelations
severely damaged the reputations of
some officials, enhanced those of a few,
and so angered Senate Majority Lead-
er Mike Mansfield-a long-patient Dem-
ocrat whose own party was hurt most
-that he promised to conduct a Sen-
ate investigation of Government decision
making.
The sensational afTair began quietly
with the dull thud of the 486-page Sun-
day New York Tinges arriving on door-
steps and in newsrooms. A dry Page
One headline-vJETNAM ARCHIVE: PEN-
John Mitchell charged that the Times's'
disclosures would cause "irreparable in-
jury to the defense of the United States"
and obtained a temporary restraining
order to stop the series after three in-
stallments, worldwide attention was in-
evitably assured.
A Sfudy Ignored
The Times had obviously turned up
a big story (see Puass). Daniel Ells-
berg, a former Pentagon analyst and su-
perhawk-turned-superdove, apparently
had felt so concerned about his in-
volvement in the Viet Nam tragedy
that he had somehow conveyed about
40 volumes of an extraordinary Pen-
tagon history of the war to the news-
paper. Included were 4,000 pages of
documents, 3,000 pages of analysis and
2.5 million words-all classified as se-
cret, top secret or top secret-sensitive.
The study was begun in 1967 by Sec-
the nation's most eminent newspaper. TAGON STUDY TRACES 3 DECADES OF retary.of Defense Robert McNamara,
The dramatic collision between the GROWING U.S. INVOLVEMENT-WaS f01- who had become disillusioned by the fu-
Nixon Administration and first the New lowed by six pages of deliberately low- tility of the war and wanted future his-
York Times, then the Washington Post, key prose and column after gray col- torians to be able to determine what
raised in a new and spectacular form umn of official cables, memorandums had gone wrong. For more than a year,
the unresolved constitutional questions and position papers. The mass of ma- 35 researchers, including Ellsberg,- Rand
about the Government's right to keep terial seemed to repel readers and even Corporation experts, civilians and uni-
its planning papers secret and the con- other newsmen. Nearly a day went by be- _ formed Pentagon personnel, worked out
flitting right of a free press to inform fore the networks and wire services of an office adjoining McNamara's. With
the public how its Gov-
z
- _..tioned -(see AM Yt57?~
s ~ 'i a'~cfi ~~~a /t03Yfti fCVIr3'-FtIDPS&01lg?1~R OO031101t c i 8o tbta in
___.more..fundamental,.the Iegal-.battlcJo_._as-not to.giv_e_the -series any greater "ex-_ -_guments within the Truman Adnunis-
cased national attention on the records posure." But when Attorney General tration on whether tier 17 c 0-0A g,.,r.,