Neil Sheehan Hedrick Smith James L Green Popular Books

Neil Sheehan Hedrick Smith James L Green Biography & Facts

The Pentagon Papers, officially titled The History of U.S. Decision-Making in Vietnam, 1945–1968, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. Released by Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study, they were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that Lyndon B. Johnson's administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress." The Pentagon Papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scope of its actions in the Vietnam War with coastal raids on North Vietnam and Marine Corps attacks—none of which were reported in the mainstream media. For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property; charges were later dismissed, after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg. In June 2011, the documents forming the Pentagon Papers were declassified and publicly released. Contents Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara created the Vietnam Study Task Force on June 17, 1967, for the purpose of writing an "encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War". McNamara claimed that he wanted to leave a written record for historians, to prevent policy errors in future administrations, although Leslie H. Gelb, then director of Policy Planning at the Pentagon, has said that the notion that they were commissioned as a "cautionary tale" is a motive that McNamara only used in retrospect. McNamara told others, such as Dean Rusk, that he only asked for a collection of documents rather than the studies he received. Motives aside, McNamara neglected to inform either President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk about the study. One report claimed that McNamara had planned to give the work to his friend, Robert F. Kennedy, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. McNamara later denied it, though he admitted that he should have informed Johnson and Rusk. Instead of using existing Defense Department historians, McNamara assigned his close aide and Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton to collect the papers. McNamara wanted the study done in three months. McNaughton died in a plane crash one month after work began in June 1967, but the project continued under the direction of Defense Department official Les Gelb. Thirty-six analysts—half of them active-duty military officers, the rest academics and civilian federal employees—worked on the study. They worked to produce 47 studies answering a list of 100 questions that McNamara (via his secretaries) had sent them, which included questions such as "How confident can we be about body counts of the enemy? Were programs to pacify the Vietnamese countryside working? What was the basis of President Johnson's credibility gap? Was Ho Chi Minh an Asian Tito? Did the U.S. violate the Geneva Accords on Indochina?" Some of the analysts included Daniel Ellsberg, Morton Halperin, Paul Warnke, future generals Paul F. Gorman and John Galvin, historian Melvin Gurtov, economists Hans Heymann and Richard Moorstein, and future top diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who drafted a volume. The analysts largely used existing files in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In order to keep the study secret from others, including National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, they conducted no interviews or consultations with the armed forces, with the White House, or with other federal agencies. McNamara left the Defense Department in February 1968, and his successor Clark Clifford received the finished study on January 15, 1969, five days before Richard Nixon's inauguration, although Clifford claimed he never read it. Gelb said in 1991 that he presented the study to McNamara in early 1969, when the latter was president of the World Bank, but McNamara did not read it then, and as late as 2018 Gelb did not know if McNamara ever read the study later in his life. The study consisted of 3,000 pages of historical analysis and 4,000 pages of original government documents in 47 volumes, and was classified as "Top Secret – Sensitive". ("Sensitive" is not an official security designation; it meant that access to the study should be controlled.) The task force published 15 copies; the think tank RAND Corporation received two of the copies from Gelb, Morton Halperin and Paul Warnke, with access granted if at least two of the three approved. Organization and content of the documents The 47 volumes of the papers were organized as follows: I. Vietnam and the U.S., 1940–1950 (1 Vol.) A. U.S. Policy, 1940–50 B. The Character and Power of the Viet Minh C. Ho Chi Minh: Asian Tito? II. U.S. Involvement in the Franco–Viet Minh War, 1950–1954 (1 Vol.) A. U.S., France and Vietnamese Nationalism B. Toward a Negotiated Settlement III. The Geneva Accords (1 Vol.) A. U.S. Military Planning and Diplomatic Maneuver B. Role and Obligations of State of Vietnam C. Viet Minh Position and Sino–Soviet Strategy D. The Intent of the Geneva Accords IV. Evolution of the War (26 Vols.) A. U.S. MAP for Diem: The Eisenhower Commitments, 1954–1960 (5 Vols.) 1. NATO and SEATO: A Comparison 2. Aid for France in Indochina, 1950–54 3. U.S. and France's Withdrawal from Vietnam, 1954–56 4. U.S. Training of Vietnamese National Army, 1954–59 5. Origins of the Insurgency B. Counterinsurgency: The Kennedy Commitments, 1961–1963 (5 Vols.) 1. The Kennedy Commitments and Programs, 1961 2. Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961–63 3. The Advisory Build-up, 1961–67 4. Phased Withdrawal of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, 1962–64 5. The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May–Nov. 1963 C. Direct Action: The Johnson Commitments, 1964–1968 (16 Vols.) 1. U.S. Programs in South Vietnam, November 1963–April 1965: NSAM 273 – NSAM 288 – Honolulu 2. Military Pressures Against NVN (3 Vols.) a. February–June 1964 b. July–October 1964 c. November–December 1964 3. Rolling Thunder Program Begins: January–June 1965 4. Marine Combat Units Go to DaNang, March 1965 5. Phase I in the Build-Up of U.S. Forces: March–July 1965 6. U.S. Ground Strategy and Force Deployments: 1965–1967 (3 Vols.) a. Volume I: Phase II, Program 3, Program 4 b. Volume II: Program 5 c. Volume III: Program 6 7. Air War in the North: 1965–1968 (2 Vols) a. Volume I b. Volume II 8. Re-emphasis on Pacification: 1965–1967 9. U.S.–GVN Relations (2 Vols.) a. Volume 1: December 1963 – June 1965 b. Volume 2: July 1965 – December 1967 10. Statistical Survey of the War, North and South: 1965–1967 V. Justification of the War (11 Vols.) A. Public Statements (2 Vols.) Volume I: A – The Truman Administration B – The Eisenhower Administration C – The Ken.... Discover the Neil Sheehan Hedrick Smith James L Green popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Neil Sheehan Hedrick Smith James L Green books.