PART III
RICHARD NIXON SAT IN BED with breakfast on a tray, scanning the Washington Post and New York Times. It was early Sunday morning. He liked the photo from Tricia’s wedding in the Times. He was still in a very good mood.
In the afternoon, the president met with aides to prepare for the week ahead. The Times’s Vietnam story was not at the top of the agenda, though it was briefly discussed.
“We must be exceedingly careful not to overreact,” warned Charles Colson, Nixon’s top legal advisor.
Nixon agreed. Though infuriated by leaks, he thought this particular leak might not be too damaging. After all, the McNamara study only covered the years up to 1968, before Nixon even took office.
“The key for us is to stay out of it,” Nixon said, “and let the people who are affected cut each other up.”
Later, he would very much wish he had stuck to that position.
* * *
James Goodale, the New York Times lawyer, carried a portable radio down to the lake near his family’s Connecticut home. He tuned to the news, expecting to hear about the earthshaking story on the front page of the Times.
All the talk was about Tricia Nixon’s wedding.
Harrison Salisbury, a Times reporter, had friends over that morning. They were all Times readers, he knew. No one said a word about the Pentagon Papers.
“The story is a bust!” he thought.
But as the day went on, the media’s attention started shifting from Tricia to the McNamara study. That afternoon in California, Tony Russo came home from a day in the park. He turned on the radio and heard the news.
“Oh, my God,” he said. “It has hit.”
Robert Ellsberg cheered aloud when he heard the Pentagon study had been published. “Instantly I knew what it was,” he recalled. “Of course, I couldn’t tell anybody about it.”
His mother’s reaction was less enthusiastic. “Oh, God,” she thought. “Oh, no.”
In La Tuna prison in Texas, Randy Kehler read that day’s Times with a smile. Now he knew why Ellsberg had been so eager to send him a subscription.
In offices around Washington, D.C., several people opened safes to see if their copies of the Pentagon Papers were missing. All over the country, speculation about the source of this historic leak began. Washington insiders knew it had to be someone among the select few who had access to McNamara’s study—and someone who had turned against the war.
“This has got to have been Dan Ellsberg,” thought former State Department official William Bundy.
The reaction at Rand was the same. “We all knew in our gut that it was Dan,” a former colleague remembered.
Harry Rowen sat at his desk, fielding call after call about Rand’s possible connection to the leak. “I don’t need this,” he said, slamming down the phone. “I just don’t need this.”
* * *
A little after three o’clock that afternoon, Kissinger phoned Nixon from California.
“It is unconscionable,” Kissinger said of the Pentagon Papers story.
“It’s unconscionable on the part of the people that leaked it,” Nixon agreed. “Fortunately, it didn’t come out on our administration.”
That was a key point, Kissinger agreed. “This is a gold mine of showing how the previous administration got us in there.”
“Huh,” said Nixon, laughing, “Yeah!”
But the more they talked about it, the angrier Nixon became.
“This is treasonable action on the part of the bastards that put it out,” he told Kissinger.
“Exactly, Mr. President.”
“Doesn’t it involve secure information?” Nixon asked of the Pentagon Papers.
“It has the highest classification, Mr. President.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“It’s treasonable,” said Kissinger.
The next step, they agreed, was to consult with Attorney General John Mitchell about possible legal action.
* * *
On Monday, June 14, the New York Times continued its series on the Pentagon Papers under the headline: “A CONSENSUS TO BOMB DEVELOPED BEFORE ’64 ELECTION.” The story described how Johnson had decided to expand American involvement in Vietnam while telling the public he sought “no wider war.” Top secret documents were printed along with the story, providing irrefutable evidence.
Their work done at the Hilton, Sheehan and his staff scrambled to evacuate room 1106.
“If the police come we’ll be arrested!” shouted a secretary.
“Don’t worry,” Sheehan said. “I’m the only one who will go to jail.”
They managed to shove all the potentially incriminating papers into an enormous suitcase. A young reporter, Bob Rosenthal, lugged the two-hundred-pound case toward the door. Sheehan handed Rosenthal twenty dollars and told him to catch a cab to the back entrance of the Times building. If the FBI was there, Rosenthal was to drive right past.
He made it into the building without incident. Inside, the editors were preparing a third day of Pentagon Paper stories—and wondering when they’d hear from President Nixon.
* * *
It wouldn’t be long. Not if Kissinger had anything to say about it.
“I tell you Bob, the president must act—today!” Kissinger started pounding the table with his fists, yelling directly at Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman. “There is wholesale subversion of this government under way.”
Years later, after the Nixon presidency had come crashing down, Kissinger would claim he had never had strong feelings one way or the other about the Pentagon Papers.
“Unfortunately for Henry,” Haldeman noted, “it was recorded.”
When Nixon came in, Kissinger launched into a lecture about how the president didn’t seem to grasp the danger of allowing top secret documents to be leaked to the press.
“It shows you’re a weakling, Mr. President,” charged Kissinger.
Nixon ordered his staff to cut off all contact with the New York Times. “Don’t give ’em anything!” he ordered. “I just want to cool it with those damn people, because of their disloyalty to the country.”
Later, with his top domestic advisor John Ehrlichman, Nixon talked about taking stronger action. Ehrlichman explained that Attorney General Mitchell kept calling, asking permission to tell the Times to immediately halt publication of the Pentagon Papers—and threaten prosecution if they refused.
“You mean to prosecute the Times?” asked Nixon.
“Right.”
“Hell, I wouldn’t prosecute the Times. My view is to prosecute the goddamn pricks that gave it to them.”
“Yeah,” said Ehrlichman, “if you can find out who that is.”
Nixon called Mitchell at his apartment.
“What is your advice on that Times thing, John?” Nixon asked. “You would—you would like to do it?”
“I would believe so, Mr. President.”
* * *
The Times stories were getting more and more attention as the day went on. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird appeared on television condemning the newspaper for printing secret military documents.
The phone at the Ellsbergs’ apartment rang almost constantly. Reporters, Ellsberg figured, following up rumors that he was somehow linked to the leak. He didn’t pick up.
Dan and Patricia were laying low for now, enjoying the nation’s growing fascination with the Pentagon Papers. And while the content of the secret study was certainly interesting, what was really sparking the nation’s interest was the mystery—where did theTimes get this explosive document?
That night, they dropped by a friend’s place for a dinner party. Everyone was having fun trying to guess the identity of the leaker.
“Patricia and I listened,” Ellsberg recalled, “without contributing much.”
* * *
James Goodale had been expecting to hear from the attorney general all day. At seven o’clock, he finally decided to go home.
But he couldn’t relax, couldn’t sit still. “Something must be going on,” he said to himself. He picked up the phone and called the office.
“We have received a phone call from the Justice Department to stop publishing,” an editor told him.
Goodale raced back to the Times building and rode the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. He could hear the yelling even before he got to the office where the top editors were gathered. It was a hot night. The air conditioners were off, since the executive offices were normally empty at this hour. Everyone had jackets off, ties loosened. They were arguing about the telegram that had just arrived from the attorney general.
“The material published in the New York Times on June 13, 14, 1971,” Mitchell’s message began, “contains information relating to the national defense of the United States and bears a top secret classification.
“As such, publication of this information is directly prohibited by the provisions of the Espionage Law,” Mitchell charged. “Moreover further publication of information of this character will cause irreparable injury to the defense interests of the United States.
“Accordingly, I respectfully request that you publish no further information of this character and advise me that you have made arrangements for the return of these documents to the Department of Defense.”
The type for the next day’s Times—including more Pentagon Papers material on page one—was already set. The printers were waiting for word to start the presses. Most of the Times staff wanted to go ahead; some argued the other side. There was a lot of shouting.
“You can’t stop publishing if someone sends you a telegram,” Goodale contended. “If there is a court order, that’s something else. But this is not a court order. There is no penalty for disobeying a telegram.”
In any case, the editors knew a decision of this magnitude had to be made by the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, who had recently left on a trip to England. It was two o’clock in the morning, London time, when they got Sulzberger out of bed and on the speakerphone.
“What does Louis say?” Sulzberger asked, referring to Louis Loeb of the Times’s law firm, Lord, Day & Lord.
“He’s opposed to further publication,” one of the editors explained.
Abe Rosenthal jabbed Goodale in the ribs, urging, “For God’s sake say something!”
“It would be a very great mistake to stop publishing,” Goodale said.
“Do we increase our risk by refusing to follow the government’s request?” asked Sulzberger.
Yes, Goodale conceded.
Sulzberger mulled this over a moment.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s continue to publish.”