A young journalist witnesses history with Pentagon Papers
centerforinvestigativereporting.org | Jun 13th 2011
Robert Rosenthal worked with The New York Times team on the Pentagon Papers
series in 1971. Image courtesy Ariane Wu/Center for Investigative Reporting
When the phone rang at the The New York Times on a Saturday afternoon 40
years ago, I picked it up after a couple of rings.
"Foreign desk," I said.
There was an excited, agitated man on the other end: "I need to speak to
Neil Sheehan, I need him right away, and it's urgent. I have to talk to
him."
I was on the periphery to one of journalism's most important moments. The
Times was a few hours away from printing the first installment of the
Pentagon Papers in the edition of June 13, 1971.
And for weeks, I had been part of the team secretly cloistered at the Hilton
Hotel. I knew where Sheehan, the lead reporter on the project, was, but I
wasn't about to say where.
"Who is this, please?" I asked.
"This is Daniel Ellsberg, and I need Sheehan. It's urgent."
At that moment, I had no idea who Ellsberg was, but I knew he was very
agitated, and I thought it might be important. Times editors were huddled
around a desk a few feet away from me. There was an intense air of
excitement and anticipation around all of us. No newspaper had ever done
what The Times was about to do: publish a multi-part series based on
still-classified "top secret" documents.
I interrupted the editors.
"There's a guy on the phone who's incredibly excited and he says he has to
talk to Sheehan, and he said his name is Daniel Ellsberg," I said.
Two of the editors took a step back and began waving their arms in a
circular motion, saying, "No. No. No." I saw one of them mouth, "It's the
source."
I remember thinking, "Holy shit."
"Tell him you don't know where he is and hang up," one of them said.
A few hours later, I watched as a team of foremen in the pressroom wheeled
in the pages of type that had been set secretly for the Sunday edition's
first installment.
When the papers came off the press, I grabbed a few, took a cab from the
West 43rd Street Times building and went to the Hilton on 6th Avenue. I was
so excited I could barely breathe as I knocked on the door of a room where
Sheehan and other reporters and editors on the project were waiting for the
bulldog edition.
They all grabbed at the A section as I tossed them on a bed. They all read
quietly, shaking their heads. Months of work were in their hands. They were
looking for typos, checking out the headlines, reading work they all almost
knew by heart.
By Sunday night, there was almost zero reaction to the first day's
installment. The mood was fairly grim at the Hilton. Monday's installment
with the headline, "Vietnam Archive: A Consensus to Bomb Developed Before
'64 Election, Study Says," also did not generate much reaction.
But from the Nixon White House, a reaction was coming.
Late on the afternoon of June 14, a telegram was sent to The Times. I was in
the third-floor wire room of The Times newsroom. This was where all the
stories came in from the wire services and from Times correspondents around
the nation and world. The room chattered with clacking keys, and sheets of
paper spewed from dozens of machines.
The Times may have been told a telegram was coming from Attorney General
John Mitchell. For some reason, I was right there and watched as the type
came pounding across the page addressed to "Arthur Ochs Sulzberger,
president and publisher of The Times."
The telegram said The Times on June 13 and 14 had published "information
relating to the national defense of the United States and bears a top secret
classification. As such, publication of this information is directly
prohibited by the provisions of the Espionage Law. ..."
The telegram concluded:
"Accordingly, I respectfully request that you publish no further information
of this character and advise me that you have made arrangements for the
return of these documents to the Department of Defense."
This was another holy shit moment. I tore the telegram off the machine and
ran to the foreign desk and handed it to Jim Greenfield, foreign editor of
The Times.
Sulzberger was on his way to London. Within a few minutes, Greenfield said,
"Come with me," and I was riding an elevator to the publisher's office on
the 11th floor of The Times. Sulzberger was due to land at Heathrow Airport,
and Tony Lewis, the London bureau chief, was sent to the airport, where he
was waiting for Sulzberger with an open phone line.
I sat in the room holding a phone with Tony Lewis on the other end. In the
room were Greenfield; Harding Bancroft, executive vice president of The
Times; Managing Editor A.M. Rosenthal, who is not related to me; Times Vice
Presidents James Goodale and Sydney Gruson; and others.
The argument about whether to publish or not, and what advice to give
Sulzberger, was explosive. I remember some of it, but mostly I remember
thinking, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm sitting here. The Kingdom and the
Power. The Kingdom and the Power."
I was 22 years old, and this was a graduate school education you could not
find anywhere.
Sulzberger's plane finally landed. I don't recall who took the phone from
me; it may have been Bancroft or Goodale. Downstairs in the newsroom, word
had spread that the Nixon administration was trying to halt publication of
the Pentagon Papers. This was truly a historic moment. The foreign desk was
surrounded by pressmen, wearing ink-stained coveralls and little hats they'd
made out of newsprint. Deadlines were going by. The press run had actually
been stopped.
The decision was made to publish. Everyone crowded into the elevator. It was
silent and you could smell the tension and the lingering cigarette smoke.
Abe Rosenthal knew my father very well. He had been his journalism professor
at City College in New York. He was in front of me in the elevator. He could
barely turn, but he did. He looked me in the eye and said, as he punctuated
every word with a poke to my chest, "Don't ever ... repeat ... a word ...
you heard tonight ... to a living person... not even your father."
I think I nodded. Remembering that moment makes me wide-eyed today.
We reached the third floor.
Rosenthal strode into the newsroom. He pumped his fist in the air and
yelled, "We are going to publish!" The pressmen cheered. I felt a rush of
adrenaline going up and down my spine. I got chills.
The next morning, the headline in The Times read: "Mitchell Seeks to Halt
Series on Vietnam but Times Refuses." The third installment of the Pentagon
Papers headline was, "Vietnam Archive: Study Tells How Johnson Secretly
Opened Way to Ground Combat."
That Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Murray Gurfein ordered The Times to
halt publication of the Pentagon Papers. On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled
in favor of The Times, and after 15 days, the series resumed. During those
days, Ellsberg had eluded the FBI, and papers across the country published
versions of the study.
As a very young man, I learned values during those months that have framed
my entire career. Investigative reporting, and the role of journalism, is
crucial to democracy and, if done well, has value to every American.
Original Page:
http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org/blogpost/a-young-reporter-witnesse
s-history-with-pentagon-papers-4867
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