Pentagon Papers at 50 and Trump’s DOJ surveillance

Fifty years ago the first excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, the top secret Defense Department study on U.S. decision-making in Vietnam, were published in the New York Times and then a week later in The Washington Post.  The report, which was leaked to the press by Rand analyst Daniel Ellsberg, showed that the U.S. government knew that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable and would cost many lives. This hour we look back on the Pentagon Papers, their impact on the war and public opinion and issues they raised about government secrecy, transparency, and the freedom of press. ELIZABETH BECKER is our guest, a journalist who covered the US bombing in Cambodia and author of You Do Not Belong Here, a biography of the women war correspondents of the Vietnam War. Then, we discuss the recent revelations that President Trump’s Department of Justice surveilled Democratic lawmakers and journalists in a leak investigation with former DOJ lawyer, now Temple Law professor, CRAIG GREEN.