Was the press wrong for publishing The Pentagon Papers?

If this happened now, MAGA world would say it's fake news, traitorous, and a threat to national security.

You’re the only one saying that, as that belief (or something else similar to it) obviously never leaves your mind. Hell I wouldn’t be saying this at all but for your urging.

yes

The left causing the war to be extended killed more people. That is why the presidents then just didn't do them like Iran to begin with.

You do know that Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia and bombed the North with the “Christmas Bombing”, right?

Was Nixon “the left”?

I'll circle back on that.

Ok, so what's your gotcha?

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WTF? The government lied and 50 plus thousand kids died on a war they knew was not winnable and had no purpose but to create a permanent untouchable industrial military complex

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Making his point.

Off topic but, many years ago I visited the Smithsonian and they had a temporary display of things left at "The Wall Memorial".

There was a six pack of Schlitz, four full in the ringer and two empty, bent, laying next to the others with a note.

Hey John, Promised when we got back stateside we would get together for some beers. Promise made, promise kept, rest easy my friend.

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Was the press wrong for publishing The Pentagon Papers?

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Yes, they were wrong. They were either used as pawns or wittingly treasonous.

Most people do not understand what the Pentagon Papers were. Robert McNamera was an extremely close ally with the Kennedys. They regarded him as among the most talented people in the JFK Administration. He was a hold over as Sec of Def under LBJ, and heavily responsible for the direction the Vietnam War subsequently took.

By 1967, it was evident that direction was a disaster, a fact which threatened to ruin McNamera. Further, no one trusted LBJ. McNamera realized LBJ would throw him under the bus with quickness when the time came. In fact, in my opinion, considering McNamara during the LBJ administration may well have been the worst Secretary of Defense in US history, it's a little surprising, LBJ didn't toss him out by by 1966/67. I think what saved McNamara was that LBJ was even more inept at addressing/understanding the war effort.

The dude could see the writing on the wall. He needed a massive CYA "insurance policy." He also wanted something that would put him in good stead with RFK, when RFK became president. So unbeknownst to anyone within LBJ's cabinet, McNamera assigned his closest allies to assemble a critical report analyzing origins and management of the Vietnam war ... under the pretense that "future Administrations could see where mistakes were made." How politically altruistic. SMH

The result, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, was a propagandized/slanted piece designed to (1) criticize the war effort, (2) identify and emphasize general LBJ admin and antecedent mistakes, and (3) minimize McNamara's role in those mistakes (obviously a practical impossibility. But best attempts were made).

After the Tet offensive, McNamara stepped down, but the report continued to be assembled without any Cabinet Level awareness. It was completed about a year later, and submitted to the Nixon administration.

At a point where the Nixon administration was attempting to bring Vietnam to an end with threats of escalation, the Pentagon Papers were viewed as undercutting, and a morale threat. Obviously, their publication in the New York Times had the same effect.

So you had publication of propaganda designed to shade truths pertinent to McNamera, and spread blame throughout the LBJ administration. It was publicized with false intimation of it representing Nixon administration criticism, and a Nixon administration cover-up. Had Ho Chi Minh been heading the NYT, he could not have spun the story better.