M6

The Pentagon Papers

Professor Sandy Higgins

HIS122

Due July 11, 2021

The Pentagon Papers

Analysis of the Pentagon Papers reveals one of the most controversial actions in the American history. Before the papers got posted, Americans held a lot of trust in their government related to the political activities, economic improvements, and political improvements experienced in the area. Issues began when the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers that contained classified information realted to country’s operation in war. Prior to the release of the papers, the Vietnam war had always been controversial as all Amercians were interested in knowing their government’s involvement in the war. The document’s release was connnected to the war’s activities that had been focused on to determine whether the USA’s role had been positive or worsened the war for civilians. This paper shall assess the impact of the release of the Pentagon Papers and how it affected the history of the country.

The Pentagon Papers, a 7000 page document, were written by Daniel Ellsberg and got commission under the directives of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The papers contain an explanation of the involvement of America in the Vietnam war and how it affected the stability of both countries as it took place between 1940s to 1950s. It was evident that there was use of nuclear power to eliminate the progress of the war that had not gotten solved before. Robert McNamara ensured the involvement of America during the Vietnam war got explained effectively to eliminate any confusions and to prove that America was protecting itself and its allies. McNamara’s involvement enusred he was able to explain to all government officials the war’s proceedings since he was the secretary of defense at the time.

The Kennedy administration had been controversial and got exposed to a lot of issues on matters of national security. The writing of the Pentagon Papers was an effective way of handling the war as the president’s administration involvemnet would get explained effectively. McNamara enusred the Pentagon Papers involved all step by step explanations of the government’s involvement in the Vietnam war. The papers were supposed to remain confidential yet they got leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. Before the papers had been released, the American population had not been fully aware of their government’s involvement in the war. It was mainly noted that the president had executed some actions yet the exact activities were not fully explained to Americans.

Ellsbergs’ release of the papers was a whistleblowing action that enusre all American citizens were aware of their presidents’ involvemnet. The papers’ release was more controversial since Neil Sheehan died after the paper’s release. Sheehan was the reporter who worked with Ellsberg to release the papers. Thre were negative dealings between Sheehand and Ellberg since Sheehan had made copies of the papers even without the permission from Ellsberg. Ensuring American residents’ knowledge was the main action to generate the papers since the US had undertaken decision-making activities without proprly informing the public. The involvement of US presidents in the Vietnam war indicated how Americans had not been aware of their governmnet’s action of engaging in foreign war activities.

The New York Times played a critical role in handling the release of the papers since it was clear that the government’s involvement in external affairs was the main problem during the historical period. Since the papers contained classified information, the U.S. Department of Justice got a restrainign order against the New York Times to prevent it from publishing any of the content (Daly, 2021). The action inicated a negative action by the U.S. government since it was oppressing the media and using its power to execute no sharing of the classified data. It was cleare that these presidents “Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson”, were all involvd in lying to the public concerning tehir administrations’ involvement in the Vietnam war.

In the papers, it was revealed that Kennedy’s administration had been involved in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese president. There was controversy since the US government had previously informed Americans that it had nor involvement in the Vietnamese president’s assassination. It is clear that the papers revealed the US government’s mistake of lying to its citizens and feeding them with non-factual information related to the war with Vietnam. There was contradiction between the US government’s official statement and the impact on the country. It was difficult to ensure the public trust and faith in the government as the news leaked and inidcated the negative impact of the US government.

The papers further revealed that the U.S. government had escalated the negative impact of the Vietnam war. All the presidents mentioned that had gotten involved in the war to display their influence and to strengthen their political agendas. The involvement of the U.S. government is in itself a controversial issues since the Vietnam war had not started with American involvement. The U.S. government had noted cases of communism spreading from China as it was gaining victory over North Vietnam. The U.S. government the collaborated with the South Vietnamese government to ensure the communism activities would not progress into other parts of Asia as that would have been a detrimental action for politics and business (BBC, n.d.). The US government ensured it did all it could to promote its agenda in Asia.

The Pentagon Papers indicated that the U.S. had been involved in unjust war activities in Vietnam. Ellsberg had hoped to release the papers to ensure the public became aware of the governmnet’s involvement in the war. The aciton would have reduced the government’s collaboration with foreign nations and reduce the negative impact of the war in the environment at the time. Ellsberg was against the ware since he thought it wasted the government’s resources, led to loss of innocent lives, misled the trust of Americans, and generally created an aggressive war environment. Ellsberg knew the matter was critical and informed U.S. senators hoping their knowledge would reduce occurrence of the war.

The main plan Ellsberg had was to reduce the involvement of the US government in the war. This action would have been possible as the public knew of the negative activities the government had and the possible methods of handling the issues. President Nixon’s administration had also fueled the war with Vietnam as it was evident that the support of the war and creation of policies for increasing the war’s impact were the main actions that the president’s administration used. Ensuring knowledge improvement of the war by the public would have forced the government to reduce is executive actions that were detrimental to national security and could not provide any tangible benefits for American citizens.

The papers revealed that all the presidents mentioned had lied to Americans concerning their actions by creating non-factual reasons for taking part in the war. All the external actions taken by the U.S. government were involved in ensuring the public did not know that the U.S. had escalated the war’s activities. It was evident that the U.S. had been immoral in handling the war activities since the hidden agendas was mainly beneficial to the presidents. There were detrimental actions like use of toxic chemicals, numerous bombings, and displacement of South Vietnamese citizens as their country needed more resources to fight with North Vietnam.

It is evident that Ellsberg was a patriot that believed in ensuring the safety Americans. This occurred more so when Ellsberg had discovered the U.S. government was lying to its citizens and the presidents were using public resources to further their agendas. Since the government had block the New York times from publishing the papers, Ellsberg worked with the Washington post to promote public knowledge improvement. Performance of whistleblowing activities is the main technique of handling improvement of the public. The action promotes knowledge improvement for all persons involved to ensure the services and resources used by the government are for the benefit of all citizens.

In surmise, government actions should not get performed freely without considering the impact on civilians. All persons elected in to office have a responsibility for their people to ensure the improvement of all persons and the possibility of ensuring protection of all citizens. Executive actions taken to benefit persons in office are detrimental to national security and every person aware of such activities should perform as Ellsberg did in reducing negativity for civilians.

Reference

BBC. (n.d.). Reasons for US involvement in Vietnam. Retrieved 10 July 2021 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zv7bkqt/revision/2 .

Daly, C. B. (2021). Fifty years ago the Pentagon Papers shocked America — and they still matter today. Retrieved 10 July 2021 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/13/fifty-years-ago-pentagon-papers-shocked-america-they-still-matter-today/ .