Curbing the Press
Why the government and the media haven't been this antagonistic since the Pentagon Papers case
The disillusioned young Pentagon analyst whose leak of top-secret documents provoked one of the nation's most dramatic showdowns between the press and government is now 75 years old. His hair is white, and he wears bifocals.
But Daniel Ellsberg's life remains defined by his historic role as the "leaker in chief"--his own description--who in handing over to the New York Times and the Washington Post the classified Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War contributed to the ultimate demise of the Nixon administration. These days Ellsberg--still an energetic activist--finds himself watching with a mix of fascination and alarm as reporters and the Bush administration careen toward another possible constitutional showdown over the guarantees of the First Amendment and the powers of the president during wartime.
Confrontation. On June 13 it will have been 35 years since the New York Times began publishing excerpts from the voluminous Defense Department documents provided by Ellsberg. They revealed the military's decades-long strategy in Southeast Asia and its clandestine effort to expand the Vietnam War. The Washington Post followed days later. The blockbuster disclosures and decision by two influential newspapers to publish the documents despite fierce legal pressure from the Nixon administration unleashed a high-stakes wartime confrontation not seen before or since. Until, perhaps, now. "There are so many dimensions that are almost an exact replay," Ellsberg, an ex-marine, said in an interview in Washington, where he'd come from his home near Berkeley, Calif., for the funeral of a fellow veteran.
And yet, 2006 is not 1971. The atmosphere feels distinctly different, the concept of national security more ominous. While the Pentagon Papers may have dominated the news of their day, now myriad press/government conflicts are grabbing headlines. With a more conservative federal judiciary, the realities of a post-9/11 world, and enduring public skepticism toward the media, the Bush administration appears convinced that this time the scales might just tip in the government's favor.
The struggle has the feel of a multifront war--a string of conflicts Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press calls "the worst I've seen in 30 years." The tension has renewed debate about how far the First Amendment goes to protect reporters who base stories on leaked information that may uncover wrongdoing but could compromise national security.
Nixon invoked national security when he asked the high court to stop the presses to prevent publication of Ellsberg's documents. Bush administration lawyers have avoided Nixon's unsuccessful tack--the U.S. Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case said the government failed to meet the "heavy burden" required to censor the press. But the administration has moved aggressively on other fronts, investigating leaks it asserts have harmed national security, firing a CIA officer suspected of leaking, and even suggesting that reporters could for the first time be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act.
"We're seeing battles between the press and government playing out more frequently and heatedly than in the past," says Eric Lichtblau, the New York Times reporter who, with colleague James Risen, last year broke the story about the National Security Agency's secret warrantless domestic spying program. The FBI is searching for sources who provided Risen and Lichtblau with information that officials said damaged national security, and it remains possible the pair will be called before a grand jury and ordered to reveal their sources. (Both say they will protect their sources.) Meanwhile, the CIA is trying to find out who leaked information to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest for her Pulitzer-winning story about secret U.S. prisons overseas for suspected terrorists.
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