Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg was as an analyst for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's classified study of the war in Vietnam, a report which became known as the Pentagon Papers. Believing that the war was unwinnable and immoral, Ellsberg and his co-defendant Anthony Russo secretly copied the 7000-page report and provided it to the New York Times and Washington Post. After articles about the papers were published, Ellsberg surrendered to the authorities on June 28, 1971. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the newspapers' right to publish the articles, the Nixon administration brought criminal charges against Ellsberg and Russo. After a lengthy break in the proceedings while the Supreme Court considered the implications of the wiretapping of one of the defendants and his lawyer by the government, the trial court judge Matthew Byrne declared a mistrial.