The dossier first leaked out in 1971 on the front page of the New York Times, triggering strong waves of protest against the US War in Vietnam. The then American President Lyndon Johnson finally decided not to run for reelection.

The documents revealed by the former US marine Daniel Ellesberg show that the Johnson administration lied systematically not only to the American public but also to Congress about the US war of aggression against Vietnam.

The ‘Pentagon Papers’ was officially entitled ‘United States-Vietnam relations, 1945-1967: A study prepared by the Department of Defence’. It recorded in detail the US military and political involvement in Vietnam during this period.

The then Secretary of Defence Mc Namara had the dossier compiled in June 1967 in order to write an ‘encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War’.