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The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War
The basis for the 2018 film The Post, The Pentagon Papers are a series of articles, documents, and studies examining the Johnson Administration’s lies to the public about the extent of US involvement in the Vietnam War, bringing to light shocking conclusions about America’s true role in the conflict.
With a brand-new foreword by James L. Greenfield, this edition of the Pulitzer Prize–winning story is sure to provoke discussion about free press and government deception, and shed some light on issues in the past and the present so that we can better understand and improve the future.
848 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1971
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2688 people want to read
About the author
Neil Sheehan
19 books90 followersCornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan is an American journalist. As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series of articles revealed a secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and led to a U.S. Supreme Court case when the United States government attempted to halt publication.
He received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his 1989 book A Bright Shining Lie, about the life of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
He received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his 1989 book A Bright Shining Lie, about the life of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
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June 29, 2019
We've come to expect absurd claims of competence from Donald Trump, but every president goes to some length to make it appear that he and his associates are very competent and know exactly what they are doing at all times.
When I say "we've come to expect" it is because the American people have learned not to trust our high officials to tell us the truth. The big breakthrough in killing public trust was the courageous publication of a Pentagon report that then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had commissioned in secret to investigate how the United States became involved in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, who had been a hawk within the administration, was so shaken by the report that he risked his career to reveal it with the assistance of the New York Times. I recall the event and it made me proud to be an American, just as Edward Snowden has renewed that pride.
This book is a compilation of parts of that report; the Pentagon Papers, that contained thousands of supporting documents that were reviewed by Pentagon analysts. Far from a mind numbing read, this book is well composed and the story is easy to follow. In chronological order the American experience in Vietnam is placed in chapters that first provide a timeline, then an analysis, then a collection of appropriate documents. The documents can easily be skipped. Don't be intimidated, this is not a long read.
The book recounts the sad tale of Vietnamese independence held off after WW2 with first an effort by France to walk right back into its former role of colonizer, the war by France that started as a result, the full U.S. economic support of that war backing the French and then the terrible decision by the U.S. after French defeat to take on the task of stopping communism regardless of the cost. The whole sorry business was for the purpose of maintaining face by the United States so that other countries would not fall like dominoes to communism.
The war was driven by a determination that Vietnam would not become communist whatever the views of the Vietnamese people. Democracy was not allowed to operate in a planned 1956 election because of U.S. fear that Ho Chi Minh would win. The actual country of Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) were of no concern in themselves. There is no evidence in the book that any of the high officials running the war in the U.S. had any personal knowledge of or experience in the countries that they were devastating. The countries of southeast Asia were thought of only as front line states facing the communist menace in the form of the Chinese who had forced the U.S. into a stalemate in the Korean War. The U.S. was out to teach a lesson but ended up learning one, that people will fight for their country against a superpower with willpower that no amount of weaponry can overcome short of killing everyone.
The signs of trouble were evident all along. The country of South Vietnam was a U.S. creation with a corrupt administration dependent on the U.S. that had no following outside of Saigon. The ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) had little will to fight with generals eager to gather some cash, sometimes selling U.S. weaponry to the enemy. The Viet Cong (South Vietnamese fighting against Saigon) could never be dislodged from the countryside for long. Our arrogant leaders believed that merely introducing American troops would rally the Vietnamese to our side and show them how to properly make war.
More U.S. troops were called for and given, yet the communists responded with more troops of their own. B52 bombing raids were responded to with bicycle transport of goods down the "Ho Chi Minh Trail". Frustration in Washington grew. There was no high tech solution. Nothing could temper the resolve of the north to keep on fighting regardless of losses. In the end it was Washington that buckled and the legacy of President Johnson was destroyed with his humiliation, though a new president, Nixon, carried on the pointless killing, even expanding it, for several more years before engaging in peace talks then leaving the South Vietnamese administration to collapse on its own. It was a war that only prolonged the inevitable at the cost of over 2 million Vietnamese lives and 55,000 American lives.
The profound effect of the release of the Pentagon Papers was due to the revelation that while the American people had been assured all was well and that victory would be coming, our leaders were grasping at everything they could think of knowing that there was little likelihood of success (being told that repeatedly by the CIA) and that the ally painted as courageous was a puppet that stood up only because Washington held the strings.
This book gives an account of the conversations that went on in the White House and the Pentagon from 1950 to 1968 and it is fascinating to follow the personalities as they react to events, far too often taking the course of "it probably won't work but let's do it anyway". The Vietnam War was a disaster and the Pentagon Papers show how leadership will do anything but admit failure with the highest priority being to make everything look like success. The result should have been more openness in government, but as we know the effort has been to make things even more hidden and to come down hard on anyone who might dare to think of doing what Daniel Ellsberg did.
When I say "we've come to expect" it is because the American people have learned not to trust our high officials to tell us the truth. The big breakthrough in killing public trust was the courageous publication of a Pentagon report that then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had commissioned in secret to investigate how the United States became involved in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, who had been a hawk within the administration, was so shaken by the report that he risked his career to reveal it with the assistance of the New York Times. I recall the event and it made me proud to be an American, just as Edward Snowden has renewed that pride.
This book is a compilation of parts of that report; the Pentagon Papers, that contained thousands of supporting documents that were reviewed by Pentagon analysts. Far from a mind numbing read, this book is well composed and the story is easy to follow. In chronological order the American experience in Vietnam is placed in chapters that first provide a timeline, then an analysis, then a collection of appropriate documents. The documents can easily be skipped. Don't be intimidated, this is not a long read.
The book recounts the sad tale of Vietnamese independence held off after WW2 with first an effort by France to walk right back into its former role of colonizer, the war by France that started as a result, the full U.S. economic support of that war backing the French and then the terrible decision by the U.S. after French defeat to take on the task of stopping communism regardless of the cost. The whole sorry business was for the purpose of maintaining face by the United States so that other countries would not fall like dominoes to communism.
The war was driven by a determination that Vietnam would not become communist whatever the views of the Vietnamese people. Democracy was not allowed to operate in a planned 1956 election because of U.S. fear that Ho Chi Minh would win. The actual country of Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) were of no concern in themselves. There is no evidence in the book that any of the high officials running the war in the U.S. had any personal knowledge of or experience in the countries that they were devastating. The countries of southeast Asia were thought of only as front line states facing the communist menace in the form of the Chinese who had forced the U.S. into a stalemate in the Korean War. The U.S. was out to teach a lesson but ended up learning one, that people will fight for their country against a superpower with willpower that no amount of weaponry can overcome short of killing everyone.
The signs of trouble were evident all along. The country of South Vietnam was a U.S. creation with a corrupt administration dependent on the U.S. that had no following outside of Saigon. The ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) had little will to fight with generals eager to gather some cash, sometimes selling U.S. weaponry to the enemy. The Viet Cong (South Vietnamese fighting against Saigon) could never be dislodged from the countryside for long. Our arrogant leaders believed that merely introducing American troops would rally the Vietnamese to our side and show them how to properly make war.
More U.S. troops were called for and given, yet the communists responded with more troops of their own. B52 bombing raids were responded to with bicycle transport of goods down the "Ho Chi Minh Trail". Frustration in Washington grew. There was no high tech solution. Nothing could temper the resolve of the north to keep on fighting regardless of losses. In the end it was Washington that buckled and the legacy of President Johnson was destroyed with his humiliation, though a new president, Nixon, carried on the pointless killing, even expanding it, for several more years before engaging in peace talks then leaving the South Vietnamese administration to collapse on its own. It was a war that only prolonged the inevitable at the cost of over 2 million Vietnamese lives and 55,000 American lives.
The profound effect of the release of the Pentagon Papers was due to the revelation that while the American people had been assured all was well and that victory would be coming, our leaders were grasping at everything they could think of knowing that there was little likelihood of success (being told that repeatedly by the CIA) and that the ally painted as courageous was a puppet that stood up only because Washington held the strings.
This book gives an account of the conversations that went on in the White House and the Pentagon from 1950 to 1968 and it is fascinating to follow the personalities as they react to events, far too often taking the course of "it probably won't work but let's do it anyway". The Vietnam War was a disaster and the Pentagon Papers show how leadership will do anything but admit failure with the highest priority being to make everything look like success. The result should have been more openness in government, but as we know the effort has been to make things even more hidden and to come down hard on anyone who might dare to think of doing what Daniel Ellsberg did.
February 11, 2018
This book is a MEAL. Undertake it for purposes of research, or if, like me, you feel the need to own and read a set of government documents that the US government tried so hard to keep its citizens from seeing. The documents themselves are not written to entertain or to be readable; they were written candidly in most cases, under the assumption they would remain of limited availability.
Parts of these lengthy epistles have been edited down and quoted from by Neil Sheehan, the New York Times journalist who fought to get them and make them accessible to the public. I was just a kid myself when the earthshaking ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court came down saying that the documents should be printed and available, and I used my lunch money to hustle down to the local bookstore as soon as it was out in paperback. I have that copy still.
Some of the scariest moments come in memorandums discussing the possibility of using nuclear weapons on the Vietnamese. The dryly written notes about a policy toward "exfoliation" belies the human and environmental holocaust Washington brought down when it became clear that the Vietnamese people actually did NOT want a Western-style government, and that the only way to force it upon them was to destroy the jungles in which they hid.
One plan considered is to withdraw the bombing raids from Hanoi and Haiphong Harbor. Too many pilots are being killed, and it takes a long time to train a pilot. That's the actual reason, along with a desire not to ramp up aggression toward the Chinese.
HOWEVER, the plan is to tell the American people ("the public") that the bombings have been moved from north to south because all the targets that were bombed in the north were destroyed. There is discussion about the fact that this is untrue, but would look better in the press.
Small wonder the US Government fought so hard to suppress these damning documents! The loss of credibility and innocent trust toward government in the USA did not start with the Watergate break in; it started during the US war against Vietnam.
There is a point at which it is acknowledged (in a document, not by paraphrasing), that the only reason the US government remains in Vietnam is to prevent US "humiliation", even though the KIA ("Killed In Action") figures are projected to be 1,000 US lives lost (and of course innumerable Vietnamese, 80% of whom will be civilians) per month. Even General Westmoreland, the most tireless advocate for more troops, calling up the reserves if necessary, cannot project a date the U.S. can declare a victory, or even gracefully withdraw without a clear and obvious loss of this war.
The risk of staying in: possible war with China, also "world-wide revulsion against us" (Memorandum #96, prepared by John McNaughton for Sec. of Defense McNamara, who would become disillusioned with the whole mess and advocate for withdrawal).
The guerilla fighters in the mountains are at one point compared (Memorandum #101, p.447) to the Irish freedom fighters who were defeated after WWI.
This tome is a treasure trove of primary documents, and the NY Times narrative is carefully written to honor the original meanings of quotations that have been pieced together and make it possible to publish the events and documents in a single volume. Don't bother with it unless you have a serious interest in the US war against the people of Vietnam, and the deceit regarding same of the American people whose tax money paid for it.
I have seldom stayed with a book so difficult for so long when there was no academic requirement involved. I began this book for the second time (didn't finish it the first time, when I bought it) in Oct. 2012. Because it was so dense and important, and because I didn't want my mind to wander, I only read a few pages daily till I hit page 500. At that point I picked up a highlighting pen and could not put it down. I have no idea why this is so, but last night I just HAD to finish it. I did that last night, and am glad I followed through.(less)
updated 3 minutes ago
Parts of these lengthy epistles have been edited down and quoted from by Neil Sheehan, the New York Times journalist who fought to get them and make them accessible to the public. I was just a kid myself when the earthshaking ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court came down saying that the documents should be printed and available, and I used my lunch money to hustle down to the local bookstore as soon as it was out in paperback. I have that copy still.
Some of the scariest moments come in memorandums discussing the possibility of using nuclear weapons on the Vietnamese. The dryly written notes about a policy toward "exfoliation" belies the human and environmental holocaust Washington brought down when it became clear that the Vietnamese people actually did NOT want a Western-style government, and that the only way to force it upon them was to destroy the jungles in which they hid.
One plan considered is to withdraw the bombing raids from Hanoi and Haiphong Harbor. Too many pilots are being killed, and it takes a long time to train a pilot. That's the actual reason, along with a desire not to ramp up aggression toward the Chinese.
HOWEVER, the plan is to tell the American people ("the public") that the bombings have been moved from north to south because all the targets that were bombed in the north were destroyed. There is discussion about the fact that this is untrue, but would look better in the press.
Small wonder the US Government fought so hard to suppress these damning documents! The loss of credibility and innocent trust toward government in the USA did not start with the Watergate break in; it started during the US war against Vietnam.
There is a point at which it is acknowledged (in a document, not by paraphrasing), that the only reason the US government remains in Vietnam is to prevent US "humiliation", even though the KIA ("Killed In Action") figures are projected to be 1,000 US lives lost (and of course innumerable Vietnamese, 80% of whom will be civilians) per month. Even General Westmoreland, the most tireless advocate for more troops, calling up the reserves if necessary, cannot project a date the U.S. can declare a victory, or even gracefully withdraw without a clear and obvious loss of this war.
The risk of staying in: possible war with China, also "world-wide revulsion against us" (Memorandum #96, prepared by John McNaughton for Sec. of Defense McNamara, who would become disillusioned with the whole mess and advocate for withdrawal).
The guerilla fighters in the mountains are at one point compared (Memorandum #101, p.447) to the Irish freedom fighters who were defeated after WWI.
This tome is a treasure trove of primary documents, and the NY Times narrative is carefully written to honor the original meanings of quotations that have been pieced together and make it possible to publish the events and documents in a single volume. Don't bother with it unless you have a serious interest in the US war against the people of Vietnam, and the deceit regarding same of the American people whose tax money paid for it.
I have seldom stayed with a book so difficult for so long when there was no academic requirement involved. I began this book for the second time (didn't finish it the first time, when I bought it) in Oct. 2012. Because it was so dense and important, and because I didn't want my mind to wander, I only read a few pages daily till I hit page 500. At that point I picked up a highlighting pen and could not put it down. I have no idea why this is so, but last night I just HAD to finish it. I did that last night, and am glad I followed through.(less)
updated 3 minutes ago
February 26, 2014
Utterly fascinating. The temptation to compare the lead up to Vietnam to our current wars falls away as the reader delves into the intricacies of the intrigue, all of which took place behind the scenes and years before all the flower children began protesting. This is not the baby boomer version of the war, where the youth were right there to go against the grain. Everything was in place so soon in the game and it was just a matter of raising the number of troops needed. Could not put this down. I also like the paucity of retrospective commentary and interpretation. Historians sometime overshadow their topic.
March 2, 2017
In 1971 the US Government tried to prevent the publication of leaked information in the American press. In response the US district court system said:
"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom and expression and the right of the people to know.......These are troubled times. There is no greater safety valve for discontent and cynicism about the affairs of government than freedom of expression in any form" -- Judge Murray L Gurfein.
The Supreme court chimed in with:
"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my views, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the founders hoped and trusted they would do" --Justice Hugo Black
Copy that.
I wasn't looking for relevance when I picked up this book but I can't help but be a bit blinded by it since our current President has recently declared all-out war against his number one enemy, the free press. This book was an important addition to my library for the exact reason why The New York Times gave as their reasoning behind printing it, "It is only with the fullest possible understanding of the facts and of the background of any policy decision that the American people be expected to play the role required of them in this democracy." The future will tell if America actually learned this lesson 45+ years ago. Given that out of millions of users on here a mere 140 have bothered to read this book and only 3200 read the 9/11 commision report, I'm not sure the American people even care about being informed. And with the Iraq war/Bush administration it's clear our government hasn't tired of trying to deceive the public. Sigh.
"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom and expression and the right of the people to know.......These are troubled times. There is no greater safety valve for discontent and cynicism about the affairs of government than freedom of expression in any form" -- Judge Murray L Gurfein.
The Supreme court chimed in with:
"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my views, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the founders hoped and trusted they would do" --Justice Hugo Black
Copy that.
I wasn't looking for relevance when I picked up this book but I can't help but be a bit blinded by it since our current President has recently declared all-out war against his number one enemy, the free press. This book was an important addition to my library for the exact reason why The New York Times gave as their reasoning behind printing it, "It is only with the fullest possible understanding of the facts and of the background of any policy decision that the American people be expected to play the role required of them in this democracy." The future will tell if America actually learned this lesson 45+ years ago. Given that out of millions of users on here a mere 140 have bothered to read this book and only 3200 read the 9/11 commision report, I'm not sure the American people even care about being informed. And with the Iraq war/Bush administration it's clear our government hasn't tired of trying to deceive the public. Sigh.
Read
March 25, 2020The term Pentagon Papers refers to a 47-volume study of the history of the war in Vietnam. It was secretly ordered by U.S. Defense Minister Robert McNamara in 1967. The study was completed in January 1969 and delivered to McNamara's successor Clark Clifford. It contained 4000 pages of original government documents, all of them classified, as well as 3000 pages of historical analysis.
In 1971 a large part of the study was leaked to the New York Times, which shared part of the information with the Washington Post. The U.S. government promptly initiated legal action to prevent further publication (after the Times had published 3 instalments on 3 subsequent days). The cases (against the Times and the Post) went up to the U.S. Supreme Court in record time and were dismissed as running counter to the First Amendment, the section of the U.S. constitution that guarantees freedom of the press.
The Pentagon Papers were highly embarrassing to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and their administrations. Among other things, they demonstrated that these presidents had escalated the Vietnam conflict far beyond what they had admitted to the public and to Congress.
In 2011 the study was declassified and released to the public. This book is not a copy of the complete study, but a bundling of the information that appeared in the New York Times. It is divided into 10 chonological chapters starting with the role of the Truman administration in the decolonization of French Indo-China up to the shock of the Tet Offensive when many Americans began to suspect that the war was not as easy to win as they had presumed (early 1968, i.e., after the study had been ordered). The historical chapters are followed by an analysis by Max Frankel and a collection of court records from the First Amendment cases.
It remains fascinating reading 49 nears later. Generals, political advisors, diplomats and spies wrote honest analyses and recommendations each based on their own frame of thought, not necessarily compatible with the thinking of the other three. In hindsight the spies were right: the C.I.A. had warned from almost the beginning and repeatedly afterwards that the insurgency of the Vietcong could not be fought by military action against North Vietnam, and that the war was unwinnable without a drastic change in the government of the South. Kennedy and Johnson, although democrats, time and again gave the generals nearly all the weapons and freedoms they wanted until the Tet Offensive revealed how unrealistic the military assessments of the situation had been.
Leslie H. Gelb, a key official in the composition of the study for the Defense ministry, later became a Times correspondent and then fulfilled other duties in the highest ranks of government. Wikipedia contains the following quote from a book that he co-authored in 2018:
"And look, because we'd never learned that darn lesson about believing our way into these wars, we went into Afghanistan and we went into Iraq."
In 1971 a large part of the study was leaked to the New York Times, which shared part of the information with the Washington Post. The U.S. government promptly initiated legal action to prevent further publication (after the Times had published 3 instalments on 3 subsequent days). The cases (against the Times and the Post) went up to the U.S. Supreme Court in record time and were dismissed as running counter to the First Amendment, the section of the U.S. constitution that guarantees freedom of the press.
The Pentagon Papers were highly embarrassing to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and their administrations. Among other things, they demonstrated that these presidents had escalated the Vietnam conflict far beyond what they had admitted to the public and to Congress.
In 2011 the study was declassified and released to the public. This book is not a copy of the complete study, but a bundling of the information that appeared in the New York Times. It is divided into 10 chonological chapters starting with the role of the Truman administration in the decolonization of French Indo-China up to the shock of the Tet Offensive when many Americans began to suspect that the war was not as easy to win as they had presumed (early 1968, i.e., after the study had been ordered). The historical chapters are followed by an analysis by Max Frankel and a collection of court records from the First Amendment cases.
It remains fascinating reading 49 nears later. Generals, political advisors, diplomats and spies wrote honest analyses and recommendations each based on their own frame of thought, not necessarily compatible with the thinking of the other three. In hindsight the spies were right: the C.I.A. had warned from almost the beginning and repeatedly afterwards that the insurgency of the Vietcong could not be fought by military action against North Vietnam, and that the war was unwinnable without a drastic change in the government of the South. Kennedy and Johnson, although democrats, time and again gave the generals nearly all the weapons and freedoms they wanted until the Tet Offensive revealed how unrealistic the military assessments of the situation had been.
Leslie H. Gelb, a key official in the composition of the study for the Defense ministry, later became a Times correspondent and then fulfilled other duties in the highest ranks of government. Wikipedia contains the following quote from a book that he co-authored in 2018:
"And look, because we'd never learned that darn lesson about believing our way into these wars, we went into Afghanistan and we went into Iraq."
August 9, 2018
The Post released in December. Steven Spielberg, who described the film as an historical political thriller, wanted to release this film about truth as quickly as possible during this period that some people call the post-truth era. The film serves as a morality play about truth to power as well as the fortitude and courage that Katherine Graham mustered to publish what we now call the Pentagon Papers. This fine film builds up to that climactic decision, which went against her advisors. That decision transformed The Washington Post from a local paper to a national one, strengthening it for the impending historic role it would play during the Watergate crisis a year later, which led to this book: All the President's Men. The Post: https://www.foxmovies.com/movies/the-...
As a young news writer I read The Pentagon Papers during its daily drip-drip-drip in The New York Times. A few years earlier I served in Vietnam as a writer and photographer. So, reading purloined documents every day about the government’s lies and misrepresentations made a big impact on me as a young adult.
The Pentagon Papers, as published by The New York Times: Neil Sheehan obtained the Pentagon history from Daniel Ellsberg. Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E W Kenworthy and Fox Butterfield wrote the stories that explained and gave context to the documents.
IN SIXTY-SEVEN, Robert McNamara, defense secretary, commissioned a secret history of our role in Indochina. The work produced three-thousand pages of history and a four-thousand page appendix. Four years later, The Times obtained most of it and began publishing. After a quick but major legal challenge, the Supreme Court freed The Times and The Post to continue publishing. A happy day for those of us who advocate freedom of the press. And then papers around the country published the unfolding series.
The significance of these papers lies in the disclosure and analysis of the war’s origin and the course it took.
These papers take us through a looking glass into a new and different world of leaders and government, writes Sheehan, a perspective apart from the public world. The strength, the veracity of these documents comes through the written words of the guys who put the plans into action. The Times wanted to move the story quickly into the public domain.
Nine long installments in The New York Times summarized the papers. This book reprints those articles supplemented by key documents.
The papers serve as raw history, an insiders’ study of the decision-making struggle over Vietnam for twenty-three years. The papers recorded a fateful progression of attitudes and discussions with analysis and narrative, writes Max Frankel in an appendix of the book, The Lessons of Vietnam.
As a trove of insights, hindsights and revelations, the study raised a troubling question: How did powerful and sophisticated men around the president entrap themselves while inducing others to do their will? Even in the early years, Washington’s public optimism hid a private pessimism.
IN JANUARY SIXTY-EIGHT, on Tet, the lunar new year, the enemy struck the US Embassy and capitol cities of the provinces during a massive surprise attack. The Tet Offensive caught the White House and the military off guard. The strength, length and intensity of the attack prolonged the shock, writes Kenworthy. Two months later, amid mounting pressure, a growing divide deepened in the US.
I arrived in Can Tho, the capitol of the Mekong Delta, a week before the Tet Offensive began. A scary indoctrination for my year in Nam. Although there were many others during the year, the Tet Offensive stands as the strongest and loudest sustained attack in that city and the headquarters compound where I lived.
Dad was a quiet hawk when I went to Nam. But early in the crazy year of sixty-eight, even he turned against it. But he supported me, revealing his change of heart after I came home.
The DVD includes special features about recreating the era and the filming of The Post as well as writers and producers discussing the importance of the story.
Rereading The Pentagon Papers before seeing the film amplified the experience. Although this book includes over a hundred key documents, I just read the ten original articles, analysis and editorials as published by The New York Times forty-seven years ago this summer.
Although there is no excuse for it in any event, lying to the American people did not begin with the current administration, which takes falsehoods to a new level. Our tragic experience in Vietnam compounded itself on a building mountain of lies and misrepresentations. Let’s call it wishful thinking.
As a young news writer I read The Pentagon Papers during its daily drip-drip-drip in The New York Times. A few years earlier I served in Vietnam as a writer and photographer. So, reading purloined documents every day about the government’s lies and misrepresentations made a big impact on me as a young adult.
The Pentagon Papers, as published by The New York Times: Neil Sheehan obtained the Pentagon history from Daniel Ellsberg. Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E W Kenworthy and Fox Butterfield wrote the stories that explained and gave context to the documents.
IN SIXTY-SEVEN, Robert McNamara, defense secretary, commissioned a secret history of our role in Indochina. The work produced three-thousand pages of history and a four-thousand page appendix. Four years later, The Times obtained most of it and began publishing. After a quick but major legal challenge, the Supreme Court freed The Times and The Post to continue publishing. A happy day for those of us who advocate freedom of the press. And then papers around the country published the unfolding series.
The significance of these papers lies in the disclosure and analysis of the war’s origin and the course it took.
These papers take us through a looking glass into a new and different world of leaders and government, writes Sheehan, a perspective apart from the public world. The strength, the veracity of these documents comes through the written words of the guys who put the plans into action. The Times wanted to move the story quickly into the public domain.
Nine long installments in The New York Times summarized the papers. This book reprints those articles supplemented by key documents.
The papers serve as raw history, an insiders’ study of the decision-making struggle over Vietnam for twenty-three years. The papers recorded a fateful progression of attitudes and discussions with analysis and narrative, writes Max Frankel in an appendix of the book, The Lessons of Vietnam.
As a trove of insights, hindsights and revelations, the study raised a troubling question: How did powerful and sophisticated men around the president entrap themselves while inducing others to do their will? Even in the early years, Washington’s public optimism hid a private pessimism.
IN JANUARY SIXTY-EIGHT, on Tet, the lunar new year, the enemy struck the US Embassy and capitol cities of the provinces during a massive surprise attack. The Tet Offensive caught the White House and the military off guard. The strength, length and intensity of the attack prolonged the shock, writes Kenworthy. Two months later, amid mounting pressure, a growing divide deepened in the US.
I arrived in Can Tho, the capitol of the Mekong Delta, a week before the Tet Offensive began. A scary indoctrination for my year in Nam. Although there were many others during the year, the Tet Offensive stands as the strongest and loudest sustained attack in that city and the headquarters compound where I lived.
Dad was a quiet hawk when I went to Nam. But early in the crazy year of sixty-eight, even he turned against it. But he supported me, revealing his change of heart after I came home.
The DVD includes special features about recreating the era and the filming of The Post as well as writers and producers discussing the importance of the story.
Rereading The Pentagon Papers before seeing the film amplified the experience. Although this book includes over a hundred key documents, I just read the ten original articles, analysis and editorials as published by The New York Times forty-seven years ago this summer.
Although there is no excuse for it in any event, lying to the American people did not begin with the current administration, which takes falsehoods to a new level. Our tragic experience in Vietnam compounded itself on a building mountain of lies and misrepresentations. Let’s call it wishful thinking.
March 13, 2022
The only reason I know of these papers is because of watching the film, ‘The Post’. I’m a huge fan of Meryl Streep.
If that is my failing, so-be-it. The exposure of these papers is an event of modern history. Why is this never talked of in school?
This was hard reading, I had to put it aside for several days. I decided to take notes but that led to more confusion; far beyond the depth and detail of anything I've read before.
My summary: proof of how far the politicians will go to hoodwink the public.
If that is my failing, so-be-it. The exposure of these papers is an event of modern history. Why is this never talked of in school?
This was hard reading, I had to put it aside for several days. I decided to take notes but that led to more confusion; far beyond the depth and detail of anything I've read before.
My summary: proof of how far the politicians will go to hoodwink the public.
March 29, 2009
It's long, it's boring...and its the key to unlocking the mysteries of vietnam and watergate.
bye bye tricky dickie.
too bad the country did not learn anything , and has repeated the mistake in Iraq.
bye bye tricky dickie.
too bad the country did not learn anything , and has repeated the mistake in Iraq.
April 27, 2025
I’m sort of breaking a rule here. Usually if something was so rough that I skipped parts, it gets no better a score than a 2/5, however, I can’t deny just how impressive and full of information The Pentagon Papers is.
The problem is, it was so dry, and a bit misleading. It projects itself as “the Wikileaks of its day” and “the secret history of the Vietnam War,” but almost none of this was really secret nor very interesting. Again, I’ll forgive it a little as some of this is a reader error looking for some deep cold war era lore, but a lot of it was just summarizations of documents in an extremely matter of fact way, regurgitating numbers and thought processes, and staying focused was an absolute chore. Don’t let the 800 pages fool you; like half of them are simply the very documents that the main narrative summarizes attached to each section, being the parts I skipped. Furthermore it seems pretty typical for someone who knows the U.S.’s dishonest history in the name of “fighting communism.” In other words, nothing here was very eye-opening, but again, that might just be because of how used to discovering how bad my country is at truly doing the right thing. Some of the documents to this day still aren’t released, and I imagine 95% of the population, being Americans or Soviets, really couldn’t be bothered by such a thing in their time anyway, so long their day to day life isn’t disrupted.
The authors certainly put together a massive and solid collection of info, but all I’m really gonna say is, I don’t think it’s exactly worth reading. There are far better books out there that give a decent overview of the Vietnam War. I’d seek those out instead.
The problem is, it was so dry, and a bit misleading. It projects itself as “the Wikileaks of its day” and “the secret history of the Vietnam War,” but almost none of this was really secret nor very interesting. Again, I’ll forgive it a little as some of this is a reader error looking for some deep cold war era lore, but a lot of it was just summarizations of documents in an extremely matter of fact way, regurgitating numbers and thought processes, and staying focused was an absolute chore. Don’t let the 800 pages fool you; like half of them are simply the very documents that the main narrative summarizes attached to each section, being the parts I skipped. Furthermore it seems pretty typical for someone who knows the U.S.’s dishonest history in the name of “fighting communism.” In other words, nothing here was very eye-opening, but again, that might just be because of how used to discovering how bad my country is at truly doing the right thing. Some of the documents to this day still aren’t released, and I imagine 95% of the population, being Americans or Soviets, really couldn’t be bothered by such a thing in their time anyway, so long their day to day life isn’t disrupted.
The authors certainly put together a massive and solid collection of info, but all I’m really gonna say is, I don’t think it’s exactly worth reading. There are far better books out there that give a decent overview of the Vietnam War. I’d seek those out instead.
February 13, 2018
I feel like the takeaway here should be that war is bad and politicians are untrustworthy and the military is part of a vast industrial complex that we should be trying to dismantle.
But as usual things are more complicated. The United States has its tentacles in all kinds of places, there are all these "partnerships" and "friendships" and complicated relationships and nothing is black and white and a whole lot of people are still debating this war.
I guess my true takeaway is there really were no good options here. And maybe we need more of a bird's eye view of history than what we currently seem to have in our mainstream culture.
But as usual things are more complicated. The United States has its tentacles in all kinds of places, there are all these "partnerships" and "friendships" and complicated relationships and nothing is black and white and a whole lot of people are still debating this war.
I guess my true takeaway is there really were no good options here. And maybe we need more of a bird's eye view of history than what we currently seem to have in our mainstream culture.
September 2, 2021
This is a heavy book, not an easy readable writing style. That said it is am important read for anyone delving into the Vietnam War. I would recommend reading this after you have read 2-3 other books about the war; it will make more sense.
June 24, 2020
I listened to this audible version of the Pentagon papers. The papers are available in a variety of formats. This particular presentation includes very exacting summaries of the papers. Those summaries are followed by the critical documents directly from the assembled papers. So no you will not read the 7000 or so documents here in their totality thank goodness.
It is also important to note that the Pentagon papers do not cover the entire Vietnam war. The end in approximately 1968. But most of us do know how the story ended.
I was especially interested in reading the portion regarding the early and middle 1960s. I was in high school during that time and do not remember a lot of the details. It was also during that time that there was extreme management of information by the government. It took a while for a lot of people to figure out that they were being pretty seriously misled by the government.
But what is most telling Here is that a good deal of the secret government intelligence throughout was pretty convinced that this was a war that we were not going to win or at the very least were not winning. That the domino theory was mostly bunk.
What is most telling is reading the internal documents directly to see how the men in power and they were all man at that time talked about The war and how to fight it. What were people saying behind the scenes?
It is also important to note that the Pentagon papers do not cover the entire Vietnam war. The end in approximately 1968. But most of us do know how the story ended.
I was especially interested in reading the portion regarding the early and middle 1960s. I was in high school during that time and do not remember a lot of the details. It was also during that time that there was extreme management of information by the government. It took a while for a lot of people to figure out that they were being pretty seriously misled by the government.
But what is most telling Here is that a good deal of the secret government intelligence throughout was pretty convinced that this was a war that we were not going to win or at the very least were not winning. That the domino theory was mostly bunk.
What is most telling is reading the internal documents directly to see how the men in power and they were all man at that time talked about The war and how to fight it. What were people saying behind the scenes?
June 11, 2024
A comprehensive report of American involvement in Viet-Nam through three administrations.
American involvement was heavily influenced by: Its experience in fighting the Korean War;
Protecting America's standing as a world power; preventing the spread of communism; Fear of military intervention from China; Reliance on bombing to pressure North Vietnam into peace negotiations; and protests and war weariness of the American people.
The bulk of the book concerns the thinking and actions of the Johnson administration. Where it clearly states leaders and policy makers found themselves in a no win situation. Warnings of this came as early as the latter months of 1964. (The CIA had this one right all along.) After month's of bombing leading to large ground troop involvement it became clear in mid-1966, we weren't going to win.
Political and military leaders recognized the problems of defeating the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong - safe infiltration of troops and supplies coming in from Laos and Cambodia; safe military aid entry from the Soviets through Haiphong; a very determined uncompromising North Vietnam government; inability to protect the rural populace; a very slow build up of an effective South Viet-Nam military; and rampant corruption in the South Viet-Nam government. Yet, the Johnson administration had no way out.
There are a lot of parallels here that replayed in our "global war on terror" experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
American involvement was heavily influenced by: Its experience in fighting the Korean War;
Protecting America's standing as a world power; preventing the spread of communism; Fear of military intervention from China; Reliance on bombing to pressure North Vietnam into peace negotiations; and protests and war weariness of the American people.
The bulk of the book concerns the thinking and actions of the Johnson administration. Where it clearly states leaders and policy makers found themselves in a no win situation. Warnings of this came as early as the latter months of 1964. (The CIA had this one right all along.) After month's of bombing leading to large ground troop involvement it became clear in mid-1966, we weren't going to win.
Political and military leaders recognized the problems of defeating the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong - safe infiltration of troops and supplies coming in from Laos and Cambodia; safe military aid entry from the Soviets through Haiphong; a very determined uncompromising North Vietnam government; inability to protect the rural populace; a very slow build up of an effective South Viet-Nam military; and rampant corruption in the South Viet-Nam government. Yet, the Johnson administration had no way out.
There are a lot of parallels here that replayed in our "global war on terror" experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
July 11, 2018
This was amazing. I have been wrapped up in learning all the things I did not know from my school instructors or from TIME magazine, and this helped, along with so many books on the sixties - "Days of Rage" for example, and books on the war. But to read actual words of the players was fascinating. And now, in this time of political turmoil, to see how a president cares so much about winning elections (and not just the president but anyone elected) and NOT what is best for the country is sad.I don't fully fault Johnson though and that is clear here; he did really want to do half of the things he did regarding the war, he knew it was a boondoggle but HE WANTED TO WIN. It was so sad to realize that many of the people who were "underlings", researchers or desk workers if you will, could have told the policy makers how wrong their assertions were. The words of George Ball come to mind. He was the only one who had a position of authority that was named in many works on the war, but he never wavered from his stance that this was not a winnable war. The number of people that should take responsibility for the deaths of thousands of soldiers as well as Vietnamese people is amazing. And yet we continue to play these war games - for status, for position in the world, and for perceived wrongs done to us.
July 22, 2024
I listened to this book via Audible.
The sheer length of this book is incredibly daunting, but the contents are so intriguing that it's worth reading, even if you skip through the supporting documents. The transcripts from the court cases at the end are almost worth the read by themselves.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initiated a study of the Vietnam War going back to the 1940s. In 1971, parts of the study were leaked to The Washington Post and The New York Times, who began publishing articles based on the study and supporting documents. This book includes the articles and some of the supporting documents, as well as additional commentary. It's incredibly eye-opening to see behind the curtain at what was going on during the war and how decisions were made, frequently with faulty assumptions or off of hunches. It's also a view into a different world, in the wake of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, where leaders did not want to let history repeat itself, so instead made new decisions that hopefully we won't repeat.
If you have the time and inclination to go through this lengthy tome, I highly encourage it. It's a fascinating contemporary look at history as it was being made.
The sheer length of this book is incredibly daunting, but the contents are so intriguing that it's worth reading, even if you skip through the supporting documents. The transcripts from the court cases at the end are almost worth the read by themselves.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initiated a study of the Vietnam War going back to the 1940s. In 1971, parts of the study were leaked to The Washington Post and The New York Times, who began publishing articles based on the study and supporting documents. This book includes the articles and some of the supporting documents, as well as additional commentary. It's incredibly eye-opening to see behind the curtain at what was going on during the war and how decisions were made, frequently with faulty assumptions or off of hunches. It's also a view into a different world, in the wake of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, where leaders did not want to let history repeat itself, so instead made new decisions that hopefully we won't repeat.
If you have the time and inclination to go through this lengthy tome, I highly encourage it. It's a fascinating contemporary look at history as it was being made.
February 16, 2018
I've had this book on my shelf for years, but with the release of the movie The Post I decided it was time to read it. It is an exceptional look behind the scenes and into the minds and motivations of the major players in America's involvement in Vietnam, up to the spring of 1968. When I was about three-quarters of the way through I realized I had the feeling of reading a novel in which the characters make one erroneous decision based on fear and that leads to one decision after another that sucks them deeper into a whirlpool they can't figure any way out of – so they decide Let's keep doing what we're doing; it isn't working, but maybe it will work if we do it on a bigger scale. Tragically, this isn't a novel, and their well-intentioned actions cost tens of thousands of lives and began a distrust of government among Americans that has only gotten deeper over the decades since. This is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how America got into the Southeast Asia quagmire.
May 9, 2020
This, as always, is very interesting and makes for some fascinating reading. The eternal mystery is why in the hell did he have this material collected into the format it was? I don't think that will ever be answered. I had to stop this read before I could finish because I'm in the middle of so many darn books and I have read this twice before, so this was a luxury I can no longer afford. For any interested in that period, it's probably essential reading. One interesting tidbit. There are some conspiracy theorists out there who claim this was an intentional plant on the part of various high ranking Skull & Bones members (the McBundys, etc.) and that Ellsberg was in on it, was supposed to find it, and let the card fall where they did. All part of the centuries long nefarious plot that's been underway since the Russell Trust, if not before. You can take that or leave it. Whatever the case, recommended.
August 14, 2018
Reading the Pentagon Papers is like watching a movie and the ending is already known. Guided by the Domino Theory (if Vietnam fell to communist so would the rest of Asia), the US government acted as if Vietnam was the last redoubt. The book has the actual memos and papers written by those US government officials involved in directing the war. Many actors act as "push on" no matter the cost in lives and treasure. Others hint the possibility the US was not winning the war and probably had no strategy to do so. The South Vietnamese government was more worried about who was in power rather than actually governing the country. A sad, sad war, wasted lives yet a defining period in our history. Thank you to those who obtained, fought and published the Pentagon Papers.
November 27, 2022
I do NOT recommend this book if you are interested in learning about the history of the Vietnam war. It's very tedious, filled with acronyms and jargon that only US military people know and not at all written as a narrative. It's basically a collection of memos and letters between American officials, so in that sense you can gleam why they made the decisions they did, but the book overall does a bad job of explaining the Vietnam war. The book only goes up to 1968, stopping around the time of the Tet Offensive. I learned a lot, but I wasted a lot of time on insignificant points of history. Don't make this your starting point if you're interested in learning about the Vietnam war, pick another book or watch something.
February 19, 2024
This collection of documents, covering the real history of the Vietnam War by the New York Times and Washington Post is such an importante book to read. Covering the war from 1945-1968, shows how each president, despite their good intentions, lead to the massive debacle that was Vietnam. Ot is very important to know what your government is doing, so that in the moment or in the future; the people can call out and criticize it's government and hold it accountable no matter whether it is a war, an economic depression, or the stripping of rights, government needs to be held accountable to the people. That is the lesson of the Pentagon Papers.
February 18, 2019
Being a history buff myself who recently moved to the US, I was intrigued by the complexity of the American war effort in Vietnam and its impact on present day politics. Hopeful to read more about the hidden side of those military operations from the public eye, I became quickly disinterested due to somewhat boring nature of plain military reports.
Given the very extensive coverage of the war at the lowest level, I would only recommend the book for anyone who is very passionate about the topic as it is very easy to lose interest after a while.
Given the very extensive coverage of the war at the lowest level, I would only recommend the book for anyone who is very passionate about the topic as it is very easy to lose interest after a while.
February 7, 2025
Wer die Vergangenheit (aner)kennt. kennt die Zukunft (Wolfgang Bittner/Effenberger Jonas Tögel) :
3. Weltkrieg m.E. 2026: j-lorber.de! Gerd Gutemann! Walter Lutz, Kurt Eggenstein, M Kahir (Viktor Mohr)
Politisch, militärisch u/o soziologisch top:
Daniele Ganser, Peter S. Goodman, Jan van Helsing, Wolfgang Bittner, Marcus Klöckner, Peter Orzechowski, Thomas Röper, Alex Demirovic, Collin McMahon, Noam Chomsky, Ullrich Mies, Rainer Mausfeld, Frank Böckelmann, Jens Wernicke, Wolfgang Gehrcke, Michael Lüders, Jaroslav Langer, Bernd Hamm, Jonas Tögel, Benjamnin Abelow
3. Weltkrieg m.E. 2026: j-lorber.de! Gerd Gutemann! Walter Lutz, Kurt Eggenstein, M Kahir (Viktor Mohr)
Politisch, militärisch u/o soziologisch top:
Daniele Ganser, Peter S. Goodman, Jan van Helsing, Wolfgang Bittner, Marcus Klöckner, Peter Orzechowski, Thomas Röper, Alex Demirovic, Collin McMahon, Noam Chomsky, Ullrich Mies, Rainer Mausfeld, Frank Böckelmann, Jens Wernicke, Wolfgang Gehrcke, Michael Lüders, Jaroslav Langer, Bernd Hamm, Jonas Tögel, Benjamnin Abelow
April 29, 2019
This book is not for everyone. Actually, it isn't even for most people.
It redefines 'dry'. It is like reading a legal document at times.
Although this is on purpose to retain the authenticity of the original documents, it is hard to slog through.
I found the oral and written arguments from the court case at the end of the book very interesting though.
You likely need to really love this topic to appreciate this book.
It redefines 'dry'. It is like reading a legal document at times.
Although this is on purpose to retain the authenticity of the original documents, it is hard to slog through.
I found the oral and written arguments from the court case at the end of the book very interesting though.
You likely need to really love this topic to appreciate this book.
June 19, 2019
Neil Sheehan's introduction gives many reasons NOT to read this book! His introduction is very dry and very detailed, and he states that the Papers are an incomplete historical record. In addition, having lived through this period and having read a good deal about the Vietnam War, nothing Sheehan mentions in the Introduction is new or enlightening. If you want to learn more about the Vietnam War, I would read a different book, perhaps Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie".
April 3, 2021
Not the most entertaining book I ever read. But it was one of the most informative. Even though it tells the whole story of America's involvement in Vietnam from the end of WW Two to 1968. It also shows the process of how the government, through a study, meeting, debates, reports, consultations decide what shape American foreign policy will take. For better or worse.
It is highly recommended for anyone that is interested in the Vietnam War, or the study of Foreign Policy.
It is highly recommended for anyone that is interested in the Vietnam War, or the study of Foreign Policy.
September 20, 2023
Difficult book to read and concentrate on. Best to read concurrently with Daniel Ellsberg’s A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
Can’t help but think that should there be a similar Pentagon papers on the Afghanistan & Iraq war, it would read horribly similar to this one on Vietnam. There would be the same "colossal misjudgment" and arrogance of American leaders.
History does repeat itself, sigh.
Can’t help but think that should there be a similar Pentagon papers on the Afghanistan & Iraq war, it would read horribly similar to this one on Vietnam. There would be the same "colossal misjudgment" and arrogance of American leaders.
History does repeat itself, sigh.
May 6, 2018
Based on leftist journalists investigations, The Pentagon Papers is a collection of articles about the Vietnam War up to and including 1968. Appendix include two Supreme Court cases against the New York Times and the Washington Post by the US government. The articles take a stand opposing the war in Vietnam and many blame the US for responsible for the war.
October 11, 2019
This was a terrific overview of the decision making related to the Vietnam War throughout the Truman - Johnson Presidencies. I thoroughly enjoyed it. For anyone born to my generation, it is a book that should be read. It helped me understand what my country did, why it did it, and helped paint a picture of a war that I did not understand. I highly recommend this book.
July 7, 2020
Well worth picking up even if you read a slimmer volume of The Pentagon Papers or the original investigative articles in the 1970s. Notable in the 2017 edition: a 12 page introduction by Neil Sheehan, whose front page story led the saga, a succinct timeline stretching back to President Truman, and appendixes comprising analysis, comment, thumbnail biographies and annotation of documents.
February 8, 2023
This book is dry reading, but all the details are interesting. The most interesting part for me is how the longer a war continues it is continually ramped up by the joint chiefs who seem to be the real folks in charge in this country. The difference in the wars we have today is the news media is now a spokesperson for the war instead of objectively reporting it.
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