Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

We know the government lied about Vietnam. But should the reporter who published the Pentagon Papers have lied to his source?

By Stephen Engelberg

This column was originally published in Not Shutting Up, a newsletter about the issues facing journalism and democracy. Sign up for it here.

Examining the News

On Jan. 7, The New York Times published an obituary for Neil Sheehan, the veteran foreign correspondent who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. Department of Defense’s deeply critical secret history of America’s involvement in Vietnam. The obituary was accompanied by an article, which Sheehan insisted be published only after his death, that purported to reveal for the first time Sheehan’s account of the “greatest journalistic catch” of a generation: how Sheehan had obtained the top secret documents from Daniel Ellsberg, a Rand Corporation analyst who had turned against the war.

Read more at: https://www.propublica.org/article/seeing-the-pentagon-papers-in-a-new-light