THOSE WHO SPEAK THE TRUTH MUST BE INSANE - THE PENTAGON PAPERS

 

I could never understand why Richard Nixon did not erase his own audio tapes. They reveal how filthy and wicked and cruel and dangerous the American president was.

 

Thousands of innocent men, women and children were murdered in Viet Nam under Richard Nixon's authority and, on one of Nixon's own tapes (played on the PBS POV documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America) we hear President Nixon telling Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig that the war in Viet Nam was "seventy percent to save American face."

 

Thousands of men, women and children were slaughtered in Viet Name to save American face and, when Daniel Ellsberg secreted the Pentagon papers to the New York Times and then to the Washington Post, Richard Nixon shut down freedom of the press.

 

It took one man to save thousands more from being murdered by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and his henchmen.

 

The current leakers may not be as pure as Daniel Ellsberg was. I don't know if Snowden and others have done good or not. I am only pointing out how corrupt and evil and dangerous our own authorities can be and how vitally important it is to dare to tell the truth - and how costly to those who dare to do it.

 

After the Penatgon Papers were published, people shunned Daniel Ellsberg. They would not sit near him or speak to him. Your so-called friends will slink away. People do not want to know the truth. This is true to this day. The few who dare to speak the unpopular truth are called liars, insane. They must be stifled. They must be suppressed. They must be silenced, discredited.

 

Yet, without the few who dare to speak the truth, all of human civilization is heading for the abyss. Without the whistle blowers and the determined fools who will not shut up, life on earth will become too ugly to bear.

 

Rather than face impeachment, Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. One man and the very few who stood with him, brought down the criminal president without firing a shot. No guns, no violence.

 

Truth is the most powerful weapon on earth, and villains fear it.

 

Phyllis Carter

 

 

New York Times Co. v United States

Two days after The New York Times first published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon government asked for and received a Supreme Court injunction against the newspaper, arguing that publication of the documents posed "a grave and immediate danger to the security of the United States."

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg leaked a copy of the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers to New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan. Sheehan and his fellow New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith spent weeks studying the documents and writing articles about them. On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began to publish excerpts of the documents. President Nixon argued that the entire report was top secret, and on June 15, the federal government asked the court for an injunction, claiming for the first time in American history the right to prevent communications from reaching the public. The government argued that to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers would pose "a grave and immediate danger to the security of the United States." The government won a temporary injunction from the courts to stop The New York Times from publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers.

More than a dozen other newspapers, including The Washington Post, also received copies of the Pentagon Papers and published excerpts. The Washington Post and two other papers were also enjoined, but, as one lawyer said, trying to stop publication was like "herding bees," and during the last two weeks of June, newspaper after newspaper published articles about and excerpts from the top-secret report. On June 30, the Supreme Court reversed the injunctions against The New York Times and The Washington Post, ruling six to three that publication of the documents was not a threat to national security, but rather was in the public interest and protected by the First Amendment. Justice Hugo Black wrote, "The press was to serve the governed, not the governors."

The case marked the first time in American history that the U.S. government had tried to restrain the press in the name of national security; the Supreme Court's decision re-emphasized the right and duty of the press to keep a watchful eye on government.

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