What are the Pentagon Papers?

The Pentagon Papers (officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967) is A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, of the history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers 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 "demonstrated, among other things, that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had systematically lied (not only to the public but also to Congress), about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance". The report was declassified and publicly released in June 2011.

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". The study comprised 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). McNamara stated that he wanted to leave a written record for historians, to prevent policy errors in future administrations.

One report claimed that McNamara planned to give the work to his friend Robert F. Kennedy, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.