The Pentagon Papers

The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Released by Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study, they were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of ''The New York Times'' in 1971. A 1996 article in ''The New York Times'' said that the ''Pentagon Papers'' had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."

The ''Pentagon Papers'' revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scope of its actions in the Vietnam War with coastal raids on North Vietnam and Marine Corps attacks—none of which were reported in the mainstream media. For his disclosure of the ''Pentagon Papers'', Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property; charges were later dismissed, after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.

In June 2011, the documents forming the ''Pentagon Papers'' were declassified and publicly released.

Contents

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara created the Vietnam Study Task Force on June 17, 1967, for the purpose of writing an "encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War". McNamara claimed that he wanted to leave a written record for historians, to prevent policy errors in future administrations, although Les Gelb, then director of Policy Planning at the Pentagon, has said that the notion that they were commissioned as a "cautionary tale" is a motive that McNamara only used in retrospect. McNamara told others, such as Dean Rusk, that he only asked for a collection of documents rather than the studies he received.Gelb, Les and Gladstone, Brooke (January 12, 2018)
What the Press and "The Post" Missed
On The Media. Motives aside, McNamara neglected to inform either President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk about the study. One report claimed that McNamara had planned to give the work to his friend, Robert F. Kennedy, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. which he later denied, though admitting that he should have informed Johnson and Rusk.

Instead of using existing Defense Department historians, McNamara assigned his close aide and Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton to collect the papers. McNaughton died in a plane crash one month after work began in June 1967, but the project continued under the direction of Defense Department official Leslie H. Gelb. Thirty-six analysts—half of them active-duty military officers, the rest academics and civilian federal employees—worked on the study. The analysts largely used existing files in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In order to keep the study secret from others, including National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, they conducted no interviews or consultations with the armed forces, with the White House, or with other federal agencies.

McNamara left the Defense Department in February 1968, and his successor Clark Clifford received the finished study on January 15, 1969, five days before Richard Nixon's inauguration, although Clifford claimed he never read it. The study consisted of 3,000 pages of historical analysis and 4,000 pages of original government documents in 47 volumes, and was classified as "Top Secret – Sensitive". ("Sensitive" is not an official security designation; it meant that access to the study should be controlled.) The task force published 15 copies; the think tank RAND Corporation received two of the copies from Gelb, Morton Halperin and Paul Warnke, with access granted if at least two of the three approved.

Organization and content of the documents

The 47 volumes of the papers were organized as follows:

I. Vietnam and the U.S., 1940–1950 (1 Vol.)

:A. U.S. Policy, 1940–50

:B. The Character and Power of the Viet Minh

:C. Ho Chi Minh: Asian Tito?

II. U.S. Involvement in the Franco–Viet Minh War, 1950–1954 (1 Vol.)

:A. U.S., France and Vietnamese Nationalism

:B. Toward a Negotiated Settlement

III. The Geneva Accords (1 Vol.)

:A. U.S. Military Planning and Diplomatic Maneuver

:B. Role and Obligations of State of Vietnam

:C. Viet Minh Position and Sino–Soviet Strategy

:D. The Intent of the Geneva Accords

IV. Evolution of the War (26 Vols.)

:A. U.S. MAP for Diem: The Eisenhower Commitments, 1954–1960 (5 Vols.)

::1. NATO and SEATO: A Comparison

::2. Aid for France in Indochina, 1950–54

::3. U.S. and France's Withdrawal from Vietnam, 1954–56

::4. U.S. Training of Vietnamese National Army, 1954–59

::5. Origins of the Insurgency

:B. Counterinsurgency: The Kennedy Commitments, 1961–1963 (5 Vols.)

::1. The Kennedy Commitments and Programs, 1961

::2. Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961–63

::3. The Advisory Build-up, 1961–67
::4. Phased Withdrawal of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, 1962–64

::5. The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May–Nov. 1963

:C. Direct Action: The Johnson Commitments, 1964–1968 (16 Vols.)
::1. U.S. Programs in South Vietnam, November 1963–April 1965: NSAM 273 – NSAM 288 – Honolulu

::2. Military Pressures Against NVN (3 Vols.)
:::a. February–June 1964

:::b. July–October 1964

:::c. November–December 1964

::3. Rolling Thunder Program Begins: January–June 1965

::4. Marine Combat Units Go to DaNang, March 1965

::5. Phase I in the Build-Up of U.S. Forces: March–July 1965

::6. U.S. Ground Strategy and Force Deployments: 1965–1967 (3 Vols.)

:::a. Volume I: Phase II, Program 3, Program 4

:::b. Volume II: Program 5

:::c. Volume III: Program 6

::7. Air War in the North: 1965–1968 (2 Vols)

:::a. Volume I

:::b. Volume II

::8. Re-emphasis on Pacification: 1965–1967

::9. U.S.–GVN Relations (2 Vols.)

:::a. Volume 1: December 1963 – June 1965

:::b. Volume 2: July 1965 – December 1967

::10. Statistical Survey of the War, North and South: 1965–1967

V. Justification of the War (11 Vols.)

:A. Public Statements (2 Vols.)

::Volume I: A – The Truman Administration

:::::B – The Eisenhower Administration

:::::C – The Kennedy Administration

::Volume II: D – The Johnson Administration

:B. Internal Documents (9 Vols.)

::1. The Roosevelt Administration

::2. The Truman Administration: (2 Vols.)

:::a. Volume I: 1945–1949

:::b. Volume II: 1950–1952

::3. The Eisenhower Administration: (4 Vols.)

:::a. Volume I: 1953

:::b. Volume II: 1954–Geneva

:::c. Volume III: Geneva Accords – 15 March 1956

:::d. Volume IV: 1956 French Withdrawal – 1960

::4. The Kennedy Administration (2 Vols.)

:::Book I

:::Book II

VI. Settlement of the Conflict (6 Vols.)

:A. Negotiations, 1965–67: The Public Record

:B. Negotiations, 1965–67: Announced Position Statements

:C. Histories of Contacts (4 Vols.)

::1. 1965–1966

::2. Polish Track

::3. Moscow–London Track

::4. 1967–1968

Actual objective of the Vietnam War: Containment of China

Although President Johnson stated that the aim of the Vietnam War was to secure an "independent, non-Communist South Vietnam