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N0KFQ > TODAY 13.06.15 18:03l 54 Lines 2563 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 58386_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Jun 13
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<GB7CIP<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 150613/1600Z 58386@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1971
"Pentagon Papers" damage credibility of Cold War policy
The New York Times begins to publish sections of the so-called
"Pentagon Papers," a top-secret Department of Defense study of
America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The papers indicated
that the American government had been lying to the people for
years about the Vietnam War and the papers seriously damaged the
credibility of America's Cold War foreign policy.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered his
department to prepare an in-depth history of American involvement
in the Vietnam War. McNamara had already begun to harbor serious
doubts about U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the study-which came to
be known as the "Pentagon Papers"-substantiated his misgivings.
Top-secret memorandums, reports, and papers indicated that the
U.S. government had systematically lied to the American people,
deceiving them about American goals and progress in the war in
Vietnam. The devastating multi-volume study remained locked away
in a Pentagon safe for years. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense
Department employee who had turned completely against the war,
began to smuggle portions of the papers out of the Pentagon.
These papers made their way to the New York Times, and on June
13, 1971, the American public read them in stunned amazement. The
publication of the papers added further fuel to the already
powerful antiwar movement and drove the administration of
President Richard Nixon into a frenzy of paranoia about
information "leaks." Nixon attempted to stop further publication
of the papers, but the Supreme Court refused to issue an
injunction.
The "Pentagon Papers" further eroded the American public's
confidence in their nation's Cold War foreign policy. The brutal,
costly, and seemingly endless Vietnam War had already damaged the
government's credibility, and the publication of the "Pentagon
Papers" showed people the true extent to which the government had
manipulated and lied to them. Some of the most dramatic examples
were documents indicating that the Kennedy administration had
openly encouraged and participated in the overthrow of South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963; that the CIA believed
that the "domino theory" did not actually apply to Asia; and that
the heavy American bombing of North Vietnam, contrary to U.S.
government pronouncements about its success, was having
absolutely no impact on the communists' will to continue the
fight.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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