OPINION: They’ll serve you salmon and potato salad.

By: Bryan Hecht

In 1971, New York Times writer Neil Sheehan, and later the Washington Post, published The Pentagon Papers, classified Department of Defense documents that charted American involvement in Vietnam across four presidential administrations. The papers were leaked to the Times by RAND corporation employee Daniel Ellsberg and would become the biggest modern case of government whistleblowing up to that point in history. The Papers revealed that the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations had all lied to the public about Vietnam, sending more troops and maintaining an optimistic public image even as it became clear they could not win the war. Worried about the potential of future leaks that could harm his presidency (Moran), injunctions from the Nixon administration citing national security concerns were made to the Times against the publication of the Papers, launching a First Amendment Supreme Court case that ultimately ruled in favor of The Times and The Washington Post citing that "the vague word 'security' should not be used 'to abrogate the fundamental law [freedom of the press] embodied in the First Amendment," (Oyez).

Now more than 50 years old, The Pentagon Papers case has been canonized in America's memory as one of the most outstanding achievements in journalism and a triumph of the free press over a suppressive government. In this story, the journalists were the good guys, and the suits at the government were the bad ones. 

Perhaps no form of media embodies this better than Steven Speilberg's 2017 nominated film The Post. The film stars Hollywood A-listers Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as The Washington Post's Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham and tells the story of The Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers after The Times was forced to stop publication of the Papers via a U.S. District Court restraining order. The film features an orchestral score from John Williams, who sets the tone for the film fit with all the pomp and sincerity of his previous work on Lincoln, The Patriot, and Schindler's List. What results is a modern-day portrait of the Vietnam years and its journalism, uncomplicated and very black-and-white. 

The morality of publishing the Papers is never questioned in the film; only the legality of that decision causes conflict among our cast of characters. Painted with the rose-tinted brush of hindsight, The Post's characters give little credence to whether there is a genuine national security risk posed by the leaks, as, after all, they are characters written through the lens of 2017 where the Supreme Court and the fall of the Nixon administration in the past 50 years have thoroughly debunked those concerns for them. What the audience is left with is not an account of the politically turbulent decision-making of journalists at that time but a piece that cements this journalism as some of the greatest and most important ever done. Undertaken courageously by Bradlee and Graham, they had the foresight the stiffs on the Post's board did not to undergo a good and moral publishing endeavor that was as obviously moral then as it is now and which no one in their right mind could question as such. Capped off with a nomination for Best Picture at that year's Oscars, it is safe to say The Post's interpretation of The Pentagon Papers case has become the dominant narrative and one that is entirely uncontroversial. "It's worth recalling that the newspapers' victory in the Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case was not inevitable. In fact, the Court's decision was not unanimous; three Justices dissented" (CITRON), which I believe reflects what is an all too rosy view of the issue as delivered by The Post.

This is not to suggest that The Post gets the spirit of The Pentagon Papers wrong. Daniel Ellsberg, Neil Sheehan, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham should all be viewed as national heroes. Instead, it is that the sentimentalism of The Post and other "legacy coverage" of the Pentagon Papers reveals American media's hypocritical tendency to view retrospective whistleblowing favorably due to 20/20 hindsight while condemning or giving morally ambiguous portrayals to the efforts of modern whistleblowers, like Wikileaks, who are doing the same things but whose moral and legal legacy has yet to be decided so permanently and conclusively in the annals of history. Though Wikileaks is very similar to The Pentagon Papers incident in practice and consequence, the currency of the points Wikileaks deals with makes it so that modern media and government officials portray the website as a gravely serious and sinister enterprise, while the Pentagon Papers have been lionized as good and moral journalism.

Wikileaks is a website that allows for the anonymous leaking of documents by whistleblowers that has contributed to leaks that have toppled corporations and shifted perspectives on many world governments. The website was founded by Australian hacker-activist Julian Assange, who has been incarcerated in a London prison since 2019, awaiting potential extradition to the United States, where he would face Espionage Act charges (Reuters). These charges are the result of a 2010 leak, the largest in Wikileaks and maybe U.S. military history, that released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents and State Department cables concerning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, colloquially known as 'The Afghan War Diaries.' This leak followed the release of a video from 2007 from the same source who was revealed to be 22-year-old U.S. Army Private and soon-to-be Fort Leavenworth military prison inmate, Chelsea Manning. 

That leak, which Assange dubbed 'Collateral Murder,' showed "two U.S. Apache helicopter pilots allegedly executing people on the ground in Iraq, including two Reuters correspondents" (Columbia). The Afghan War Diaries were released in conjunction with articles from The New York Times, German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, and long-time Assange collaborator The Guardian, drawing comparisons in its coverage and document dump to The Pentagon Papers, most notably from Daniel Ellsberg himself, who described the leak as being "on the scale of his leaking of the 'Pentagon Papers'," (Norton-Taylor). A valid comparison exists between the two instances of government whistleblowing, but this is a comparison that the government and some American media don't encourage.

There is no better point of comparison for this than looking once again towards Hollywood. The Wikileaks-Assange biopic film The Fifth Estate, released just three years after the Afghan War Diary in 2013, deals with the morality and legality of that whistleblowing in a very different way than The Post. Notably, The Fifth Estate was written by screenwriter Josh Singer, who was also the co-writer of The Post, allowing for a pretty one-to-one comparison in the media's depiction of the two leaks. 

The Fifth Estate is a more controversial film than The Post. Disowned by Assange himself and based on a book by Wikileaks ex-pat Daniel Berg, there are lots of questions as to the factual accuracy of The Fifth Estate and its portrayal of Assange's character. In an internal memo released by Wikileaks itself, the website calls the film "biased" and "fictitious" and that it "appears in the context of ongoing efforts to bring a criminal prosecution against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange." There are various inaccuracies and simplifications in the plot of the film itself, as well as in Assange's refutations of it, and parsing all of these would take a long time and ultimately be a distraction. For these purposes, The Fifth Estate is a valuable record of how Wikileaks was viewed in 2013. Even if it is a bad movie critically and a bad representation of history, most importantly, the film is also exceedingly unsentimental. 

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Julian Assange as a manipulative, vindictive jerk who places work above all else and is overbearing and deceptive. The film makes stark conclusions about his character rather than lionizing him and makes sure to show that he is an egotist who wants credit for Wikileaks. Erratic, rude, and reckless, could all also describe his behavior in the film. One character describes him as a "mad prophet," and another states that though Assange "changed the world…[but] he made it all about him." Even Daniel Berg, whose memoir was the basis for the script, comes out looking like an obsessive workaholic who served as a "yes-man" to some of Assange's worst behaviors. When we compare this to how the journalists and whistleblowers in The Post are depicted, the contrast is stark. Sure, compared to Assange, Bradlee, Ellsberg, Graham, and Co. were always going to be less controversial (for one, none of them have ever faced sexual assault allegations or been found to have helped interfere in American elections), but I think both films forget, or choose to ignore, how similar the case of Wikileaks and The Pentagon Papers really was.

Julian Assange is controversial, but let's not forget that Daniel Ellsberg was dubbed the "Most Dangerous Man in America" by Henry Kissinger after the Pentagon Papers leak (LYBARGER). Obviously, the more apt comparison would be between Ellsberg and Manning, who was the whistleblower in the Afghan Diaries case, but because Assange is being charged with Espionage Act accomplice charges, the legal system is essentially viewing him in the same light as a whistleblower. Given this and that The Fifth Estate barely discusses Chelsea Manning, it seems to compare Assange to Ellsberg in addition to Bradlee, Sheehan, and Graham is more productive for understanding how modern whistleblowing versus whistleblowing in the past is viewed, as Assange's role in the leaks fulfilled similar functions to all of them as whistleblower, author, and publisher of the Afghan Diaries. 

Assange's legal troubles are touched on toward the end of the film and are framed as an indication of Assange being a radical who pushed things too far in his strict adherence to a no-editing and redaction policy with leaks. Conversely, the investigation into Ellsberg's conduct is largely glossed over in The Post. Because the legal system didn't find Ellsberg guilty, it seems the film has no interest in dredging up those old debates and, in doing so, giving credence to the idea that Ellsberg may have committed criminal offenses damaging to The United States. However, a history lesson that The Post doesn't seem interested in telling is that Ellsberg only escaped prosecution because of a mistrial that was declared after evidence was revealed "that the Nixon White House had agents break into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in a search for ways to discredit him," (Memmott). So, in reality, Ellsberg faced similar charges to Assange and Manning under the Espionage Act and, in all likelihood, could and would have been convicted of them if the government hadn't interfered. Also, if you think that Assange displayed reckless disregard for Chelsea Manning in the way he leaked the documents, it is important to not forget that Neil Sheehan illicitly copied and then published The Pentagon Papers without Ellsberg's permission after Ellsberg first let him read the Papers for a story he thought would not include actual copies of the confidential material (Scott).

There are many more moments of synchronicity between the two films. Meryl Streep's Katharine Graham gets her shining moment in the third act of The Post, where she decides to forsake the advice of the board and publish the Papers even though they can't confirm publication won't pose a risk to United States informants and military personnel, or result in legal action that would topple The Post's public offering attempt. This scene is played as courageous and triumphant. Compare this to the third act of The Fifth Estate, where Assange decides to publish the Afghan Diaries in their entire un-redacted form against the advice of Berg and breaking his promise to the Guardian, Times, and Der Spiegel, as he had been advised doing so could hurt agents in the field. This moment is played as an indication that Assange is manipulative, reckless, and extreme. The first scene shows Graham's ideals of the free press being more important than possible security concerns being championed. The latter one shows Assange's ideals of publishing unedited content in its purest form being treated as narrow-minded and dangerous.

That condemnation reflects a larger media narrative about Assange. Sanford J. Ungar, who served as a court reporter for the Washington Post in the 70s and wrote a prominent book on The Pentagon Papers, reflects this view that Assange's ends don't justify his means. "The Wikileaks documents do not radically alter our understanding of the war. They document what we've known for years - not enough troops, too many civilian casualties, a corrupt and inefficient Afghan government, and an uncertain ally in Pakistan. The Pentagon Papers revealed that much of what the public had been told about the war in Vietnam was flat wrong and in many cases deliberately so," he writes (Martin). 

This is a cop-out of an argument. Sure, the Afghan Diaries were not the first time the public discovered that the government was corrupt and lying to them. That credit can and should be given to The Papers. They also weren't the first time people knew corruption and deceit happened in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But, just because The Papers or anyone else did it first doesn't mean that the Afghan diaries don't achieve much of the same goals and reinforce the public's understanding of Bush-era deceptions and war crimes. Corruption anywhere should be revealed, and there is always a public interest in doing so.

Ungar writes further in admiration of The Papers and Ellsberg's behavior that "The Pentagon Papers took the blinders off" (Martin). He says that one of the paramount differences between the two cases is how the Wikileaks documents are so large in scale that they fail to be of service to giving the public the clear and specific narrative that The Papers does. However, the Papers were also the largest leak of government secrets for their time, and at the time, their 47 volumes seemed just as excessive and hard to summarize. Over decades, the narrative of the Pentagon Papers has been condensed to its most essential information, and much of the more peripheral findings have been lost to history. So it doesn't seem to be that scale is the thing that allows the Pentagon Papers to be viewed as a success and Wikileaks as misguided. Rather, it's the continued relevance of Wikileaks to modern times and the fact that it can't be placed into a nice neat box and labeled as history that makes it seem so scary to some. Discussions about the Afghan Diaries today, more than a decade later, reveal this on a micro-level. It took only about a paragraph or two earlier to condense much of what the leak is remembered for. Conversely, Ungar was writing the day after the leak preferably came out. It seems insane to make conclusions about the scope and importance of the findings in that short of a time frame, especially for a leak the size of the Diaries. Of course, the message of the Diaries at that point wouldn't be as condensed and easily understood as the Papers. The difference between The Papers and Wikileaks is one of currency and not as much else as many try to say.

Even if you look back at Ungar's coverage of The Papers case, the way he discusses Ellsberg reveals that this kind of lionization is a product of time gone by and does not reflect the sentiments that were contemporary in 1971. He writes, "The press, which became weary of him early in the game, did not make a hero of Ellsberg; nor did Democratic politicians, who sought to avoid him like the plague, nor the public, which has largely refused to endorse his much-misunderstood act of defiance," (Ungar). It could be said that Ellsberg in 1971 was treated much by the media and by the government in many ways like Assange is today. Assange has gained his supporters as a result largely of the prosecution attempts against him. This mirrors Ellsberg, too, who "was, of course, a hero to no one before the Justice Department began pursuing him after newspaper publication of the Pentagon Papers" (Ungar).

And here comes the ultimate question. When The New York Times published the Afghan Diaries alongside Wikileaks, why wasn't there a repeat of the Pentagon Papers case? The situation is essentially identical to the 70s, with The New York Times once again publishing classified government secrets that the government clearly believes it has a compelling interest in restricting publication of. Why didn't The New York Times receive an injunction on their ability to publish the Afghan Diaries, and why weren't they charged with Espionage Act violations like Assange was? The Espionage Act charges against Assange do not just pertain to his attempts to help Manning hack government computers but were made against him simply for promising to publish the leaked documents, which the government says counts as abetting that crime. But The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel published the documents, too, so why aren't they in trouble in the same way?

Looking back at The Post gives us our answer. First, let's consider why The Post had to step in to publish in lieu of The Times in the first place. It was because The New York Times received an injunction and, per federal law, had to honor this injunction. While ultimately, that injunction and further precedents in the case were deemed unconstitutional by The Supreme Court, the case of The Pentagon Papers shows that American media like The New York Times can be controlled if necessary. The Supreme Court's decision in New York Times Company v. The United States does not apply universally and is specific to the case of The Pentagon Papers. If The New York Times tries to publish government secrets tomorrow that can be proven to harm and endanger American forces, they could still be stopped from publishing them, and prior restraint can be used. 

By comparison, Wikileaks is a website that operates beyond the borders of the U.S. and is not under its prosecutorial jurisdiction. It's not hard to see why the government chose to throw the book at them instead. If you need more proof that, in many ways, Assange and Wikileaks are operating above the law of The United States, look no further than the continued struggle of the American government to extradite Assange from London to stand for his Espionage charges, which could amount to 175 years in prison if convicted. There was no reason to take such drastic measures against the mainstream press because they do have to answer to the American legal system. While The Post may be a story of journalists standing up to the government and re-establishing their independence, the fact that that story can be told to an American audience by the media with such triumph and to Oscar acclaim only indicates further how little the government sees the mainstream press as a threat to itself.

On the other hand, the media chooses to show Wikileaks as a more sinister and radical force because the government has fed that narrative and done so because it knows it has no control over the website. The Post is the past. A settled, comfortable history in the eyes of today's government. Wikileaks is now, and if it's dangerous to anything, it's dangerous to governments like America that have something to hide. It certainly isn't dangerous to the public, to the people who deserve to know these things. If you don't believe it, you can take it from the mouth of Daniel Ellsberg, who called the charges against Assange the most significant "attack on the freedom of the press [and] the First Amendment, since [his] case in 1971…[and an even] stronger attack…against editors, publishers, and journalists themselves," (Democracy Now!). Wikileaks has set new precedents and written its own raw modern history, one that isn't yet comfortable for the powers that be to accept. However, there is a good chance that in another 50 years, when Assange is dead, and the dust has settled, we will get a new media perspective on his case that will paint him in a different light and ordain him as a journalistic hero alongside Ellsberg, Sheehan, Graham, and Bradlee.

Works Cited

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