The Founding Fathers cannot have intended a President and his small group of appointed advisors to perform like a monarch surrounded by his court. As if the people’s representatives and the people themselves were a general nuisance, and the job is to keep the whole tiresome bunch quiet: manipulate them.

martha gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) American novelist, journalist war correspontent
Letter (1971) to Daniel Ellsberg
    (Source)

An open letter Gellhorn wrote to Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg, a military analyst, leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to the media, a top-secret Defense Department study of US goverment decision-making in the Vietnam War. He was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, but due to government misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, all charges were dismissed in 1973.

More importantly, the US government, under Richard Nixon, tried to impose a preemptive injunction to stop the Papers' publication by US media. The Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. United States that such prior restraint of publication was unconstitutional.

 
Added on 29-May-26 | Last updated 29-May-26
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