New York Times publishes first excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — a secret Defense Department study documenting decades of government deception about the Vietnam War

The New York Times published the first excerpts from a 7,000-page top-secret Defense Department study on June 13, 1971, after Daniel Ellsberg — a former analyst at the RAND Corporation who had worked on the study — gave copies to the Times and later the Washington Post. The study, commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967, documented that the Kennedy, Johnson, and earlier administrations had systematically misled Congress and the public about the origins, scope, and prospects of the Vietnam War. The Times published three installments before the Nixon administration went to federal court seeking to stop further publication.