Fighting for the Press

by James C. Goodale

On June 13, 1971, the New York Times published on its front page a series of confidential documents outlining U.S. government policy on the war in Vietnam. These documents had been secretly leaked from the Department of Defense to reporters at the New York Times.

There followed a period of intense debate, carried out in the board rooms of the newspaper, the offices of its legal counsel, and ultimately the law courts of the nation over whether or not publishing these documents would be in the country’s interest. The June 30, 1971 Supreme Court decision was a landmark in the history of press freedom.

James Goodale, chief counsel for the Times during the Pentagon Papers, tells the behind-the-scenes stories of the internal debates – legal, political, economic and corporate – and the reasoning behind the strategy that emerged. Goodale narrative follows those weeks in June when the press’s freedom of speech came under its most sustained assault since the Second World War.

This is the story of a constitutional victory whose lessons are as essential today as they were in the 1970s – and of the personalities involved, including a disillusioned intellectual, aggressive reporters, meticulous editors, a cautious publisher, a vengeful attorney general, a beleaguered president and, in the middle of it all, the lawyer who urged his clients to fight for the First Amendment.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Journalism, Politics

260 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

James Goodale, Chief Counsel for the New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case, is a leading legal expert on the First Amendment.

He has represented The New York Times in every one of its cases to go to the Supreme Court. These were the Pentagon Papers case (The New York Times Co. v. The U.S.), The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (libel), Branzburg v. Hayes (see below) and The New York Times Co. v. Tasini, (digital rights).
He first came to public prominence during the Pentagon Papers case in 1971. More.

Read an excerpt from Fighting For the Press

Find James on Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter

Reviews

[Lucinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not an avid reader or law or politics books, so it was with great surprise that I found myself up at night, and early in the morning, turning the pages of this book. As one of its blurbs promises, it reads like a legal thriller that is, in fact, a true story. I only wished I had lived through the event, known its characters, knew the news industry as it existed then.

This is one of the best books I've read this year.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book via the Goodreads First Reads program.

As a history buff, I enjoyed learning more about the Pentagon Papers. I didn't always agree with what he had to say, but he had some valid points.

I especially loved how he went in depth about the people involved. He added little tidbits about them.

It was definitely intriguing, and I would certainly recommend it to my fellow history buffs.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOODREADS FIRST-READS REVIEW

Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles is a first-hand account by James C. Goodale of The New York Times’ battle against Richard Nixon’s Department of Justice for the right to publish the Pentagon Papers. At the time Goodale was the Times’ general counsel and lead architect of the legal strategy the Times’ lawyers used in the First Amendment cases which included the Pentagon Papers. Goodale’s first-hand knowledge not only of the case, but of the events leading up to the case gave extreme weight to this book.

Goodale lays the foundation of the Times’ strategy in the Papers case by discussing the case of Times’ reporter Earl Caldwell and the reasons for the newspapers fight against the Department of Justice’s subpoena for his sources. As that Caldwell’s case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Goodale along with the Times’ editorial staff and management confronted the issue of the Pentagon Papers. Goodale’s account of arguments with the Times’ management and the Times’ own lawyers before and at the beginning of the case brings a whole new dimension to the history of the case. The day-by-day account of the Times’ Pentagon Paper case’s nine-day journey to the U.S. Supreme Court and the actions by the government from Goodale’s point-of-view are equally riveting as well as the reaction to their Supreme Court victory.

The last quarter of the book, Goodale gives a history of First Amendment cases after the Pentagon Papers including the Caldwell case. It isn’t until the last two chapters that Goodale takes a look of the environment of government-press relations surrounding the Pentagon Papers to the current War on Terrorism under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Though solid compare and contrast between the actions of the Nixon DOJ to those under Bush and Obama, Goodale attempts to shift the main thrust of his book from the Pentagon Paper case to the current government related actions concerning the freedom of press in a lurch, which is a tad confusing to the reader and harms the overall quality of the book.

As an author James C. Goodale, quickly and openly expressed bias that might show within the pages of this book outside of his occupation as the Times’ general counsel. Self-describing himself as part of the ‘Eastern Establishment’ and politically opposed to Richard Nixon, Goodale gives the reader fair warning as to overall assessment of the political environment in the early 1970s. With this in mind, Goodale gives an overview of the times which those lived through, or were well read in, the period would easily understand but tad harder for those less knowledgeable. The legal terms and procedures were well explained by Goodale for the reader and kept the text easy to follow.

Fighting for the Press is a book not only about an important case in American legal and journalistic history for the general reader, but most importantly for historians and journalists. While this book is excellent for a student of history, it is to journalists and journalism students that I greatly recommend this book. If Goodale’s purpose was to give journalists a history and knowledge of their First Amendment rights and continual challenges, he succeeded without question.

[Gabriel Schoenfeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fighting for the Press is an engaging personal memoir and a valuable contribution to the vast literature about the Pentagon Papers case by an important insider. Unfortunately, the book turns into an unpersuasive polemic when Goodale turns to contemporary developments.

[Brian Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy cow! How on earth can a book published in 2013 about events from 1971 have even more relevance today (2020) than at any point in the intervening 49 years? Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles, is ostensibly a legal history of the Pentagon Papers trials by James C. Goodale, chief council for The New York Times at that time. But it’s much, much, more than that. There are few other books as important and as relevant to our current situation as is this book. Even for those, like me, who are very familiar with the Pentagon Papers case, we tend to view it in isolation. Goodale shows how it is part of a continuum, with links to the Bay of Pigs, the Black Panthers, the Cuban Missile Crisis, hippie communes, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and other circumstances.

Even as legal history, it is a riveting story and Goodale, not surprisingly, is a talented storyteller. Judging by the concluding chapters, a central motivation for Goodale was the continuing encroachment upon First Amendment press freedom by the Bush and Obama administrations. Most worrisome, as Goodale notes, is the tactic being applied to the Julian Assange case where, since in the internet age prior restraint is an impossibility, the Federal government is attempting to apply the Espionage Act to reporters and investigators who receive classified information but are not the individuals who obtain the classified information, claiming that such reporters & investigators are in conspiracy with the individual who gains access to the information. Goodale lays bare the government strategy: “Any action therefore taken against Assange under the Espionage Act could be taken against them [the NYT which published some of the WikiLeaks] too, since they published exactly as Assange had.” (p. 213) The Federal government desperately needs an Assange conviction to then challenge the more traditional media outlets, not as First Amendment challenges, but as acts of espionage. “The journalistic community was slow to perceive the danger from the government’s approach. It did not realize that anytime it tried to obtain information for the publication of a national security story, it could be guilty of the crime of conspiracy.” (p. 215) Is there any doubt that with today’s corrupt and politicized judiciary, that Assange will be convicted? Is there any doubt that with today’s judiciary that The New York Times would have lost the Pentagon Papers case back in 1971?

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The publication of the Pentagon Papers, top secret documents leaked to a reporter, was contentious from the beginning. First, there was internal debate at The New York Times over whether or not to publish. Then publication led to one of the most important first amendment cases ever, as the government sought an injunction to keep The Times from continuing to publish more of the Pentagon Papers. As the chief legal counsel for The Times, James Goodale is able to share his first hand experience and his thoughts on the personalities involved in this momentous historical case.

Although Fighting for the Press was occasionally hard to follow or a little repetitive as the case moved through the appeals process, it was mostly just exciting. And if James Goodale occasionally seemed a little too self-congratulatory, I can’t blame him too much given the role he played in winning this famous first amendment victory. Overall, the story was very well written. Precise language was used to explain legal concepts so clearly that they were extremely exciting even to someone with my lack of prior knowledge.

From the beginning, I felt as though I’d been given a priceless opportunity to interview someone who’d lived through a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. In many cases, I like for a non-fiction author to be unbiased, but this was clearly a memoir as well as a history. As such, the author’s personal recollections and impressions of the people involved in the case added some depth and intrigue to what could otherwise have been a dry legal story. There were actually moments when, despite knowing the final outcome, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how the details played out. This was an engaging read that I’d recommend to fans of history books and memoirs.

This review first published on Doing Dewey.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to the opinions of some, I feel as though this book dragged at times during the legal battle over the papers but did a great job of tying that battle into what the current administration is doing to suppress the media. Very interesting read.

[Nathan Tran]

After seeing the dedication to Trevor Timm, I moved it to the top of my reading list. EFF FTW

[Blake Maddux]

Here is the review that I wrote of Fighting for the Press for The Arts Fuse:

http://artsfuse.org/96172/fuse-book-r...