ROSENTHAL RAN TO THE ELEVATOR and jumped off on the third floor, where about 150 staff members were gathered.
“Go ahead!” Rosenthal shouted.
The group gave a huge cheer, then dispersed to their jobs. The presses began rolling a few minutes later.
Goodale called Louis Loeb to update him, and to suggest the law firm begin preparing to be in court in the morning. That was not going to happen, Loeb informed Goodale. The firm of Lord, Day & Lord would no longer be representing the New York Times.
Goodale briefly wondered if he could handle the case himself. The answer was no. “My court experience,” he later said, “consisted of two uncontested divorce cases.”
It was nearly midnight. He started making phone calls.
* * *
Tuesday’s Times featured another front-page story by Neil Sheehan, this time highlighting Johnson’s secret plans to send Americans into ground combat in Vietnam. But the even bigger headline reported on the attorney general’s late night telegram: “MITCHELL SEEKS TO HALT SERIES ON VIETNAM BUT TIMES REFUSES.”
The Pentagon Papers showdown was now the lead story on the radio and television news. Ellsberg was thrilled with the attention the story was getting—but not quite ready to reveal his own role. A reporter from Newsweek cornered Ellsberg, telling him he was going to be on the cover of the upcoming issue.
“We’re convinced you’re the source,” the reporter said.
“I’m glad it’s out,” Ellsberg answered, smiling. “I’m flattered to be suspected of having leaked it.”
And he did plan to take public responsibility for the leak. Just not yet. First he had to get the whole report out to the public. “It wasn’t any one page or volume or individual revelation that was so dramatic,” he later explained. “It was the tenacity and nature of the patterns of deceit.”
If Nixon was able to shut down the Times, Ellsberg was going to need a backup plan.
* * *
“This is a very bad situation,” Nixon told his staff in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning. “This guy is a radical that did it. A radical, we think.”
“Ellsberg?” Haldeman asked.
“No, we don’t know who the hell he is. But maybe it’s him.” Nixon pounded his desk. “Now goddamn it, somebody’s got to go to jail.”
June 16, 1971. Editors of the New York Times discuss an order from a federal judge halting publication of material contained in the Pentagon Papers.
Haldeman assured Nixon that taking the Times to court was a good next step.
“Neil Sheehan is a vicious antiwar type,” Nixon moaned. “And if they’re going to go to this length, we’re going to fight with everything we’ve got. And I—I’m just—I just—we’ll just take some chances.”
At Nixon’s order, the Justice Department went to the federal court in New York City to demand an injunction against the Times—a legal order to stop publication of the Pentagon Papers.
* * *
Goodale was in his office later that morning when the call came in. The Times was to show up in court by noon. He alerted Alexander Bickel and Floyd Abrams, respected constitutional lawyers who had agreed to take the case. Bickel and Abrams had spent the entire night preparing. When they showed up at Goodale’s office, their eyes were swollen and red. The three lawyers took a cab to the courthouse downtown.
The courtroom was crowded, largely with antiwar protestors who hissed as the government lawyers argued that the Times was violating the Espionage Act. Alexander Bickel countered that the paper was protected by the First Amendment, and that this was the first time in American history the government had tried to silence a newspaper.
“But there has never been a publication like this in the history of the country,” Judge Murray Gurfein, a recent Nixon appointee, pointed out.
Gurfein then asked if the Times would voluntarily stop printing for a few days, to give him time to study the case. Goodale said he’d have to ask. He ran to a phone booth in the hall and called Harding Bancroft, the paper’s executive vice president.
“The judge wants us to stop publication voluntarily,” Goodale told Bancroft. “Please tell me what to do.”
“I’ll check and call you back.”
Goodale hung up and waited in the stifling booth. People lined up to use the phone. Some started shouting and banging on the glass door. Goodale wouldn’t budge. Sweat soaked through his shirt. He picked up the phone and called Bancroft back.
“Harding,” Goodale said, “we can’t stop publication, it would be terrible.”
“I agree.”
He told Gurfein of the decision. The judge issued a temporary restraining order, barring the Times from printing more of the Pentagon Papers until the trial was concluded.
Round one to President Nixon.
* * *
The next morning, in the newsroom of the Washington Post, assistant managing editor Ben Bagdikian stepped out of a meeting and was handed a slip of paper. He read the short note:
“Call Mr. Boston from a secure phone.”
The name sounded fake. There was a phone number with a 617 area code. Boston. Bagdikian thought he knew what this might be about. He ran out of the building and across the street to a row of pay phones. He dropped in a coin and dialed the number on the note. Someone picked up.
“An old friend has an important message for you,” a man’s voice said. “Give the number of a pay phone where the friend can call in a few minutes.”
Bagdikian leaned to the phone beside him and read off the number on the dial. The man on the other end hung up. The phone next to him rang. Bagdikian picked up.
“If I can get you what you want, will you print them?”
Bagdikian recognized Daniel Ellsberg’s voice; they’d met many times over the years to talk politics and Vietnam.
Bagdikian couldn’t commit the Post, not without checking. “I’ll have to call you back.”
Ellsberg instructed Bagdikian to get confirmation from his bosses, and then to travel immediately to Boston and check into a particular motel under the name Mr. Medford. He was to bring a large suitcase.
* * *
The front page of that day’s New York Times updated Americans on the unfolding drama: “JUDGE, AT REQUEST OF U.S., HALTS TIMES VIETNAM SERIES.” If Bagdikian could get his hands on the Pentagon Papers, would the Washington Post risk printing this same material?
Bagdikian didn’t know. He called Ben Bradlee, the paper’s executive editor, and laid out the situation.
“If we don’t publish,” Bradlee said, “there’s going to be a new executive editor of the Washington Post.”
Bagdikian caught the next flight to Boston and checked into the motel. As soon as he walked into his room on the third floor the phone started ringing. The familiar voice named an address in Cambridge at which he was to pick up “the material.”
“Do you have back trouble?” Ellsberg asked. “This stuff is very heavy.”
“I’m not worried,” Bagdikian lied. Actually, his back had been killing him lately. Small price to pay, he figured.
That night, he got in a taxi and gave the driver the Cambridge address. The unlighted, tree-lined street was so dark they couldn’t make out house numbers. The driver got out and struck a match and went door to door, holding up the flame to read the numbers. He finally found the right one.
Bagdikian knocked. A woman opened the door.
“Dan Ellsberg said I could pick up some things here,” Bagdikian said.
The woman pointed to two large boxes. He carried them to the cab and drove back to the motel. He lugged the boxes out of the elevator and down the corridor toward his room.
Someone stepped out of the vending machine nook holding a bucket of ice. It was Daniel Ellsberg.
“He was haggard,” Bagdikian recalled, “and complained of a terrible headache.”
They went into Bagdikian’s room and shut the door. The air conditioner was broken and the room was boiling. Patricia Ellsberg was there. They opened one of the boxes and spread documents out on both of the twin beds.
It took most of the night to get the papers somewhat organized. Bagdikian then tried to cram them into the suitcase he’d brought. They didn’t fit; he’d have to take the boxes on the plane. Ellsberg suggested they find some string to tie up the boxes. The motel clerk didn’t have any string, but told them to check out by the fence around the pool, where guests sometimes tied up their dogs. They found a few pieces of rope, just enough for the job.
Bagdikian headed to the airport for an early flight to Washington. He bought two tickets, one for him and one for the boxes, and flew home with the Pentagon Papers on the seat beside him.
Patricia Ellsberg, who had gone home for the night, drove back to the motel to pick up her husband. She came into the room and they turned on the TV to watch the morning news.
The first thing they saw on-screen was the front porch of their house. Press photographers were there, snapping photos. Two FBI agents stood at the door, knocking. The FBI was looking for a man named Daniel Ellsberg, the announcer explained, hoping he could help with their investigation of the Pentagon Papers leak.
Patricia stated the obvious. “We can’t go back.”
June 18, 1971. Antiwar demonstrators outside Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg’s apartment house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.