Daniel ellsberg, a senior research associate at mit’s center for international studies, leaked the pentagon papers to the press because he felt the need to reveal the nature of u.s The “pentagon papers,” as the leaked study came to be called, showed that every presidential administration from harry truman’s to lyndon johnson’s had misled the american public about what the united states was doing in vietnam and the likelihood of military success there. Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real
Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92 - The
Bbc news and other news organisations have reviewed the documents and these are some of the key findings.
The pentagon papers, officially titled report of the office of the secretary of defense vietnam task force, was commissioned by secretary of defense robert mcnamara in 1967
In june of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed However, the publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and suffered from many quality issues. Seth stern, the director of advocacy at the freedom of the press foundation, called the pentagon’s actions “a classic case of unconstitutional prior restraint.” he is referring to the same concept that the supreme court rejected when the nixon administration tried to block publication of the pentagon papers.
