Vol. 14 No. 7 (July 2004), pp.543-545

INSIDE THE PENTAGON PAPERS, by John Prados and Margaret Pratt Porter (eds.).  Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.  272pp.  Hardcover.  $29.95.  ISBN: 0-7006-1325-0.

Reviewed by Daniel N. Hoffman, Political Science Department, Johnson C. Smith University.  Email: dhoffman@jcsu.edu .

The Pentagon Papers affair was dramatic and important at the time, and continues to be significant in light of current controversies about the recent invasion of Iraq, the thinking that led up to that action, and the ongoing difficulties in obtaining full and accurate information about the same.

This volume, inspired by a thirtieth anniversary symposium at the National Press Club in 2001, reviews and analyzes the production, publication, ensuing litigation and impact of the Pentagon Papers.  Each chapter includes a narrative by the editors, plus statements by other symposium participants who played significant roles in the episode, providing little-known details and illuminating a number of significant dimensions of the episode’s meaning.

The study that produced the Papers was launched in 1967 by Robert McNamara, prompted by his growing (but not publicly disclosed) belief that our Vietnam policy had somehow gone seriously wrong.  Designed for the eyes of a very few, it was conducted in relative haste and extreme secrecy by researchers with access to DOD, CIA, and State Department (but not White House or NSC) documents covering the years 1950-1968.  In the process, the scope of the study expanded until the final product mushroomed to some seven thousand pages.  This process is detailed in Chapter 1.

Chapter 2 reports how one of the researchers, hawk-turned-dove Daniel Ellsberg, decided over time that the public needed to know about the repeated lies, misjudgments, and internal conflicts revealed by the study.  After secretly copying the volumes with the aid of Anthony Russo, Ellsberg sought first to persuade members of Congress to disclose them.  That failing, in 1971 he turned to the New York Times which, against advice of counsel, decided to go public, soon followed by other newspapers.

Chapter 3 relates the Nixon Administration’s decisions to seek injunctions barring the newspapers from further publication, and to criminally prosecute Ellsberg and Russo.  It is interesting that the first reaction was quite different: since the study was full of material embarrassing to Democratic policymakers and did not cover the Nixon years at all, its publication could be a political plus.  However, Henry Kissinger and others persuaded the President that the sacred mandate of secrecy must be vindicated.  Transcripts of White House tapes regarding the legal action are included.

Detailed in Chapter 4 is the frantic rush of John Mitchell’s Justice Department to [*544] prepare injunction suits against the Times and the Washington Post.  The government was hindered by both a complete lack of precedent for such a suit and by its own unfamiliarity with the contents of the study.  The first issue was addressed by a flat claim of “irreparable injury to the defense interests of the United States,” and the second by arguing that NONE of the study could be published, because all of it was classified Top Secret.  Chapter 4 follows the litigation all the way up to the Supreme Court, which, of course, decided that the government had failed to meet the extraordinary burden of proof needed to justify a prior restraint on publication.  Yet a majority of the Justices apparently did accept that some risk to national security was indeed presented.

Chapter 5, perhaps the most novel part of this book, takes issue with the latter point.  Pressed by skeptical lower-court judges, the government supplemented its blanket secrecy claim by filing sealed briefs itemizing the most sensitive passages it could find in the Pentagon Papers.  In a meticulous, first-time review of these items, Chapter 5 argues that some were already in the public domain, some (from the so-called “Negotiating Volumes”) were not even in the newspapers’ possession, others were dated and of no relevance to ongoing or potential military or diplomatic activity, and the rest were so vague and general as to be of no value to an enemy. Thus it is not surprising that no one has ever identified any actual harm to national security that flowed from the Papers’ publication.

Chapter 6 presents the views of symposium participants concerning the political impact of the Papers: increased antiwar sentiment, media skepticism, and public distrust of government.  The consensus is that, under the circumstances, these reactions were quite appropriate.  The Court’s support for freedom of the press bolstered a key constitutional safeguard.  Indeed, the White House paranoia over leaks that was triggered by the episode led to abuses of power by the Plumbers – among others – that were at the heart of the Watergate scandal and showed why such safeguards are indispensable.

The seventh and final chapter, by Michael J. Gaffney, gives a brief overview of the legal and constitutional issues raised by the Pentagon Papers case and a number of subsequent secrecy-related episodes.  To anyone following current events it comes as no great surprise that the Supreme Court’s decision left much unresolved and that, as Gaffney concludes, the cult of secrecy is still very much with us.

I should disclose here that I have worked with Morton Halperin, who played a large role in the Pentagon Papers affair, and co-authored with him a study, TOP SECRET, which among other things rejected the government’s legal arguments for preventing and/or punishing the Papers’ publication. I also authored a separate study, GOVERNMENTAL SECRECY AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS, which found, contrary to much conventional wisdom, that executive secrecy has been from the very outset a major threat to the constitutional order, and one singularly resistant to the operation of checks and balances.  The current volume is recommended reading for anyone still [*545] inclined to take secrecy and presidential power claims at face value.

REFERENCES:

Halperin, Morton and Daniel Hoffman.  1977.  TOP SECRET.  New York: New Republic Books.

Hoffman, Daniel N.  1981.  GOVERNMENTAL SECRECY AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS: A STUDY IN CONSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS.  Westport: Greenwood Press.

*****************************************************

Copyright 2004 by the author, Daniel N. Hoffman.