Fighting for the Press

Book excerpt: On June 13, 1971, the New York Times published the first of the Pentagon Papers, a series of top-secret Defense Department documents exposing U.S. government policies on the unpopular war in Vietnam. James C. Goodale, then the young chief counsel for the Times, was there leading the legal team every step of the way. This is his compelling, never-before-told story of what happened behind closed doors -- the strategies, the decisions, the larger-than-life characters from the worlds of law, politics, journalism, and the military. Besides recounting the story behind the Pentagon Papers, Goodale notes Barack Obama has threatened to pursue Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, just as Nixon went after Neil Sheehan and the New York Times. Goodale warns that this threat, if effected, may criminalize newsgathering.