The Pentagon Papers is the common name for the “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force,” a classified history of United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1967 (National Archives, Pentagon Papers release page). Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara ordered the study on June 17, 1967. Its chairman, Leslie H. Gelb, delivered it to McNamara’s successor, Clark Clifford, on Jan. 15, 1969 (Gelb memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, Jan. 15, 1969). Portions reached the press in June 1971, which led to Supreme Court litigation over prior restraint (New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713). The complete report was declassified and released by the National Archives on June 13, 2011 (NARA press release NR11-138). This entry describes the study as its own cover memorandum and outline record it, and traces the report’s path to full release.
McNamara’s tasking and the task force’s method
Gelb’s covering memorandum, routed through Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul C. Warnke and Deputy Assistant Secretary Morton Halperin, states the original assignment. McNamara directed that a task force “study the history of United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to the present.” His guidance was that the studies be “encyclopedic and objective” (Gelb memorandum, p. 1). The task force was to have six full-time professionals and three months.
The work took a year and a half. Gelb recorded that 36 professionals took part, drawn from the military services, the State Department, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and outside research institutions, with an average of four months each (Gelb memorandum, p. 2). Most, he wrote, could not finish the studies they began, and nearly every study had several authors.
The sources were limited by design. The task force had full access to OSD files, access to CIA materials and “some use” of State Department cables and memoranda. It had no access to White House files. Its guidance prohibited interviews with the principal participants (Gelb memorandum, p. 1). Gelb described the result as “a history based solely on documents.” He warned that this approach was bound to produce distortions, and that newspapers, periodicals and books had been used only to supplement the classified record (Gelb memorandum, p. 1).
Gelb also assessed the uneven quality of the parts. The studies covering 1945 to 1961 (Parts I, II, III and IV.A) he called “generally non-startling,” because many records from that period were lost or not kept, apart from the Geneva Conference era. From 1961 onward, the records were “bountiful.” He singled out the first Kennedy year, the 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, ground-force deployments, the bombing of North Vietnam, relations with the Saigon government and negotiations (Gelb memorandum, p. 2).
Gelb wrote the Summary and Analysis sections himself.
The structure of the report
The outline attached to Gelb’s memorandum, dated Jan. 10, 1969, divides the report into six parts and an index (OSD Vietnam Task Force, “Outline of Studies”). Gelb’s memorandum describes “thirty-seven studies and fifteen collections of documents contained in forty-three volumes.” The volume counts written into the outline itself add to 47, including the index, the figure the National Archives gives for the report (NARA press release NR11-138). The records examined here do not explain the difference between the two numbers.
| Part | Title in the outline | Volumes |
|---|---|---|
| Index | Final Report and Index | 1 |
| I | Vietnam and the U.S., 1940–1950 | 1 |
| II | U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War, 1950–1954 | 1 |
| III | The Geneva Accords | 1 |
| IV | Evolution of the War (Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson commitments) | 26 |
| V | Justification of the War (public statements and internal documents) | 11 |
| VI | Settlement of the Conflict (negotiations and histories of contacts) | 6 |
Part IV is the core narrative. Its 16 volumes on the Johnson years cover National Security Action Memorandums 273 and 288, military pressures against North Vietnam in 1964, the ROLLING THUNDER bombing program, the March 1965 landing of Marine combat units at Da Nang, the ground-force build-up and the air war in the North (Outline of Studies, Part IV.C). Part V collects public statements from the Truman through Johnson administrations and internal documents from the Roosevelt through Kennedy administrations. Part VI.C records secret contacts with North Vietnam, including the “Polish Track” and the “Moscow-London Track.” The Gulf of Tonkin incidents of August 1964, which fall in the period covered by Part IV.C.2.b, are the subject of a separate National Security Agency history described in DeClassified Now’s entry on the NSA’s Gulf of Tonkin study.
Classification, the 1971 disclosures and the courts
The report’s volumes are marked “TOP SECRET – Sensitive” (Part IV.A.1, 2011 release). In June 1971, portions copied by Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND Corporation analyst, with the help of his colleague Anthony Russo, were published by The New York Times, beginning June 13 (Richard Nixon Presidential Library, “50th Anniversary Release: Pentagon Papers”). The government sought injunctions against the Times and The Washington Post. The Supreme Court heard argument on June 26, 1971, and decided the case on June 30. The per curiam opinion held that the government had not met the “heavy burden” required to justify a prior restraint. The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justices John M. Harlan and Harry A. Blackmun dissenting (New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713).
The disclosures also produced administrative traffic inside the government. A Secretary of Defense “Regrading Action” dated June 23, 1971, notified the State Department that Gelb’s covering memorandum had been downgraded from Confidential to Unclassified when separated from its enclosure. The attached outline remained Confidential. The notice records that the memorandum had been forwarded in 1969 to officials identified only as “Mr. Bundy” and “Mr. Katzenbach” (OSD Regrading Action, June 23, 1971, in the 2011 release, Index volume).
Ellsberg and Russo were charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. Their trial began Jan. 3, 1973. Judge William M. Byrne Jr. dismissed the charges after disclosures of government misconduct and illegal evidence gathering (Nixon Library, “50th Anniversary Release”).
Three incomplete versions of the report circulated before 2011. These were the newspaper excerpts, the Senator Gravel Edition and a redacted edition issued by the House Committee on Armed Services in 1971 after declassification review (NARA press release NR11-138). According to the National Archives, the Gravel Edition omitted 80 percent of the documents in Part V.B. Neither the Gravel Edition nor the House version included significant portions of the account of peace negotiations (National Archives, Pentagon Papers release page).
The 2011 release
On June 8, 2011, the National Archives announced that it would release the full report on June 13, 2011, the 40th anniversary of the Times’s first story. The release was made jointly with the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon presidential libraries (NARA press release NR11-138). The report came out as Gelb presented it to Clifford, with its supplemental documentation. It comprised about 7,000 pages in 48 archival boxes, with no redactions relative to earlier releases (National Archives, Pentagon Papers release page). The Archives stated that about 2,384 pages, or 34 percent of the report, were opened for the first time compared with the Gravel Edition (NARA press release NR11-138).
Each page of the released copy carries the stamp “Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3,” under NND project number 63316 (2011 release, Index volume). Section 3.3 of that order governs automatic declassification of records of permanent historical value that are 25 years old or older. The report is published online as PDF files under National Archives Identifiers 5890484 through 5890532.
Sources
- OSD Vietnam Task Force, “Final Report, OSD Vietnam Task Force & Index,” including Leslie H. Gelb, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, Jan. 15, 1969; “Outline of Studies,” Jan. 10, 1969; and OSD Regrading Action, June 23, 1971 (National Archives Identifier 5890484)
- National Archives, “Pentagon Papers” (release page and file list, Identifiers 5890484–5890532)
- National Archives, press release NR11-138, “National Archives and Presidential Libraries Release Pentagon Papers,” June 8, 2011
- New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)
- Richard Nixon Presidential Library, “50th Anniversary Release: Pentagon Papers”