On June 13, 1971, The New York Times published a classified 7,000-page Dept. of Defense study on American decision-making in Vietnam and Southeast Asia after RAND employee Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst and one of the study's authors, photocopied the papers and shared them with Times reporter Neil Sheehan.

The leak was a blow to the U.S. government, revealing its efforts—dating as far back as the Truman Administration in 1945—to interfere in Southeast Asia to stem the spread of communism, as well as lies told to the American public by Lyndon B. Johnson to continue the Vietnam War.

The Nixon Administration accused the press of illegally publishing government secrets. However, the courts ruled in the journalists' favor, establishing a landmark First Amendment decision that redefined the relationship between the First and Fourth Estates.

“In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War," Justice Hugo L. Black wrote in his opinion, "the newspapers nobly did that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.”

Incensed by the ruling, Nixon then hired a group of "plumbers" to prevent future leaks, setting into motion a chain of events that would forever change the American presidency.

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