© shutterstockVietnam Memorial
The latest Steven Spielberg film,
The Pentagon Papers, made me wonder about the historical significance of this glorious episode of whistleblowing and victorious struggle for freedom of the press. The leaking and publishing in 1971, by the
New York Times then the
Washington Post, of excerpts from this 7000-page classified report on the Vietnam War (requested by Robert McNamara before leaving the Department of Defense in 1967) is comparable to the exposure by the same
Washington Post of the Watergate scandal one year later. The Watergate scandal passes today as evidence of the independence of the American media as a necessary counter-power against government abuses.
But in reality, it simply illustrates the increasing involvement of the media in deep political warfare.Likewise we must go beyond the public and Spielbergian narratives on the Pentagon Papers to understand what was really at stake. In both scandals, I believe the leadership of both the
New York Times and the
Washington Post, the two biggest propaganda machines in the US, were acting not only in the service of truth, but also in service of a power deeper than the deep state they were exposing. After all, there are so many truths to choose from to make the front pages.
And in matters of foreign policy, many suspect that the final choice is often determined by the ultimate question: Is it good for Israel?In this article, I am not going to demonstrate, but simply hypothesize, that
the leaking and revelation of the Pentagon Papers, and more broadly the role of the media establishment in the anti-Vietnam movement, were in the interest of Israel. At that moment Israel was starting to face a unified international front against its illegal occupation. There was a real threat that the US would force Israel to withdraw, as required by UN Resolution 242. But I will go further and suggest that the Vietnam War itself, not just the protest against it, served the interests of Israel, regardless of other factors that motivated it. There is, of course, no contradiction between these two theses, since the anti-Vietnam-war movement presupposes the Vietnam war. Significantly, until around 1969, the
Washington Post's editorials were unequivocally pro-war.
Comment: See Also: