Page 208 - Stand Down Vietnam
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“Journalism is really a fourth branch of government”
Neil Sheehan
American journalist,
New York Times
Sheehan is an American journalist who worked as a
reporter for the New York Times during the Vietnam War.
In 1966, he became the newspaper's Pentagon
correspondent reporting on the White House.
He is best known for obtaining and publishing the top-
secret documents in the "Pentagon Papers."
In 1971, Sheehan obtained a top-secret study of
American strategies in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, a U.S.
military analyst, leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to
Sheehan and several other news correspondents, but it
was Sheehan who first published the secret government
documents in the pages of the New York Times.
The publication of the Pentagon Papers greatly
accelerated the erosion of public support for the war.
