The Pentagon Papers are released to the public – 40 years to the day that they were leaked.
Photo credit: LBJ Library, photo by Charles Bogel. [Download Photo...]
Photo credit: LBJ Library, photo by Charles Bogel. [Download Photo...]
Photo credit: LBJ Library, photo by Charles Bogel. [Download Photo...]
Photo credit: LBJ Library, photo by Charles Bogel. [Download Photo...]
A link to a digital copy of the complete Pentagon Papers is available online through the National Archives: www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers.
Video
At 9:15, there are 2 seconds of black, then the interview resumes. Total running time: 10:01, June 09, 2011. [Download Video...]
Harry Middleton was a speechwriter for President Johnson and Director of the LBJ Library for 30 years. In this videotaped interview, he recounts LBJ's efforts to declassify and open materials relating not only to the Vietnam War but all foreign policy archival materials. LBJ's efforts began before the Pentagon Papers were leaked and continued until just weeks before his death.
Memo
In 1972, LBJ asked Harry Middleton and former National Security Advisor Walt Rostow to prepare a memo on steps that could be taken to declassify foreign policy archival materials and to prepare a plan of action for LBJ to take to President Nixon. The memo with their recommendations is available to the public.
View Memo...Photos
Historical photos relating to the release of the Pentagon Papers. Photos are public domain.
Dedication of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Librarycredit: Frank Wolfe
President Lyndon B. Johnson's visit to Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnamcredit: Yoichi Okamoto
Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, Walt Rostow, others look at relief map of Khe Sanh area, Vietnamcredit: Yoichi Okamoto
6:41 P.M. Bipartisan Congressional Leadership meeting on Vietnamcredit: Yoichi Okamoto
Meetingcredit: Yoichi Okamoto
Meetingcredit: Kevin Smith
Background: In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara created a task force to study the history of U. S. decision-making on Vietnam policy. Members of this top secret group, which grew to 36 people in all, used copies of classified documents from the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, and the White House, to compile a 47-volume report. They completed it in 1969, calling it United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, later commonly known as the Pentagon Papers. President Lyndon Johnson was not told about the study at the time it was conducted.
Daniel Ellsberg, who had briefly worked on the task force, and Anthony Russo obtained a copy of the report and made portions of it available to the New York Times and other media outlets. On June 13, 1971, the Times began publishing a series of articles about the Papers. U. S. Senator Mike Gravel also made a copy of parts of the Papers available. Based on national security concerns, the U. S. Justice Department obtained a court order to stop publication of the Papers, but on June 30, 1971, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional right to a free press overrode other concerns. The materials published in 1971 represented only a small portion of the 7,000-page report.
The LBJ Library obtained the Pentagon Papers in September 1969, when Robert McNamara gave the Library one complete set of the task force report. In May 2002, the LBJ Library declassified and released a portion of the report called the “Negotiating Volume.” Back in 1971, Ellsberg and Russo decided not to release to the news media this portion of the Papers which dealt with negotiations to end the Vietnam War. The rest of the Papers, which fill nine boxes, have remained closed, locked in the vault at the LBJ Library.
Former LBJ Library Director Harry Middleton recalls that President Johnson was passionate about declassifying and releasing not only archival materials about the Vietnam War but all materials as quickly as possible. A videotaped interview with Middleton about LBJ’s efforts to work with President Nixon to open papers is available on the LBJ Library website, http://www.lbjlibrary.org/collections/pentagon-papers.html.
The declassification of the Pentagon Papers was done by the National Declassification Center at the National Archives and Records Administration and the LBJ, Kennedy, and Nixon presidential libraries.
LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove participated in the effort to open these historical documents. “Now, for the first time, we can read the report as it was written,” said Updegrove. “Perhaps no ‘smoking gun’ will be found in this 7,000-page report, but it will undoubtedly contribute to our greater understanding of this conflict. When the LBJ Library was dedicated, just weeks before the leak of the Pentagon Papers, President Johnson said, ‘It is all here: the story of our time—with the bark off.’ And he committed the Library to opening materials as quickly and as fully as possible. He might be a little surprised that it has taken 40 years to get this report fully declassified, but I am sure he would be happy that it has finally come to pass.”
News Stories
KVUE News
They have been locked in a vault at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum since 1969. On Monday the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of the Vietnam War, were finally made public. Parts of the top-secret report were leaked to the New York Times in 1971. The LBJ Library also released some of them in 2002. However, this is the first time the public can read through the full report.
KVUE NewsNPR
Forty years ago, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times published portions of these documents, better known as the Pentagon Papers. On Monday, for the first time, the government released all 7,000 pages of the report with no redactions.
NPRDigital Journal
The Pentagon Papers outline the United States involvement in the Vietnam war. The documents are now available to the public at the LBJ Public Library in Austin, Texas as well as in the John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon libraries and at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland in physical form. They are online at the National Archives website.
Digital JournalPOLITICO
All 7,000 pages of the famed, highly critical report examining two decades of U.S. involvement in Vietnam were published, unredacted, by the National Archives and Records Administration, ending a saga that was a watershed development in an unpopular war and an important case on First Amendment rights. The papers were released at noon EDT at the presidential libraries of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and at the archives — in 47 print volumes and online.
POLITICO