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McNamara commissioned a secret Vietnam War study
In 1967 then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara commissioned a secret government study on American involvement in Vietnam. -
Completion of the Secret Government study project
When completed in 1968, the project comprised 47 volumes containing more than 7,000 pages. The work was labeled classified, and only 15 copies were made. -
Daniel Ellsberg
In early 1971 Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND Corporation employee who had worked on the project, secretly made copies of the documents and passed them to reporters for the New York Times. -
NY Times began to publish the "Pentagon Papers"
On June 13, 1971, after several months of review, the Times began to publish these so-called “Pentagon Papers.” -
Nixon Admin addresses National Security Concerns
After the first three installments were published, the Nixon administration, citing national security concerns, obtained a restraining order barring further publication of the Papers. When the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the order, the Times made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case the next day (June 26). The Court issued its opinions on June 30; in all, the entire legal process had taken only 15 days.