Pentagon Papers

Ellsberg's “Magic Potion” to Stop the War

Thomas Oliphant | Summer 2021

As a young reporter for the Boston Globe, I stumbled onto the existence of the Pentagon Papers.

The author was the first reporter to break the story of the secret history of the Vietnam war that became known as the Pentagon Papers. The story was part accident, part reward for curiosity.

How We Exposed the Secret Pentagon Papers

Hedrick Smith | Summer 2021

The New York Times reporter who spent months in hiding analyzing the Pentagon Papers remembers how they broke the story.

“Let’s Go,” Said Mrs. Graham. “Let’s Publish”

Leonard Downie | Summer 2021

After we published the Papers at the Washington Post, the Supreme Court decision in our favor has underpinned American freedom of the press.

Secret Coup in the White House

Ray Locker | October 2020

Recently declassified documents reveal that Alexander Haig and other White House staff actively worked to remove Richard Nixon — the President they worked for — from office.

Editor's Note: Ray Locker is the author of Haig's Coup: How Richard

Letter From The Editor

Oliver Jensen | October 1971

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Featured Authors

Acheson, Dean

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was an attorney and statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 under President Harry Truman. A key architect of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Acheson stressed the importance of multilateral organizations in the fight against totalitarianism. Prior to his service in the Truman Administration, Acheson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, worked at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for one year under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Ambrose, Stephen E.

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II.

Becker, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books. Her history When The War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge won accolades from the Robert F. Kennedy book award, while her recent biography of female conflict journalists You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War won the 2022 Sperber Book Prize and Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize. She is also the author of America’s Vietnam War: A Narrative History for young adults.

Blight, David W.

David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Recently, Blight has written A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which won the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.

Brinkley, Douglas

Douglas Brinkley, a distinguished professor of history at Rice University and Contributing Editor of American Heritage, has written more than 20 books, most recently The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Harper 2009) and The Reagan Diaries (HarperCollins 2007). Brinkley earned his B.A from Ohio State University University in 1982, and his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1989.