25.What were the Pentagon Papers? Did they influence the outcome of the Vietnam War?

The pentagon papers were a record of everything that was going on during the Vietnam war both in the media and non- publicized information. After the publication of the papers the American people were even less supportive of the Vietnam war which influenced Nixon's decision to remove troops from vietnam.

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.

Completed in 1969 published in the New York times in Discussed how the U.S. falsely portrayed its intentions in the Vietnam war. They revealed the knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was admitted publicly.

The papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale of the Vietnam War with the bombings of nearby Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which were reported in the mainstream media. Although President Lyndon B. Johnson insisted that the aim of the Vietnam War was to secure an "independent, non-Communist South Vietnam", a January 1965 memorandum by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that the real U.S. goal was "not to help friend, but to contain China."

Daniel Ellsberg leaked the papers. Supreme court allowed printing because freedom of the press. Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped.

President Nixon's first reaction to the publication was that since the study embarrassed the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, not his, he should do nothing. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and Nixon obtained a federal court injunction forcing the Times to cease publication after three articles.

Published at a time when support for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was steadily eroding, the Pentagon Papers confirmed many people’s suspicions about the active role the U.S. government had taken in building up the conflict.

DBQ

Questions What were the Pentagon Papers? How did Nixon react? How did the American people react?