On June 13, 1971, readers of the New York Times woke up to an explosive story. A top-secret US government study of the Vietnam War, dubbed the “Pentagon Papers,” decisively showed how the US executive branch lied about the war to both the US people and Congress. The Times, thanks to whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, had the study in its possession and was printing stories based on it. Those stories did not cast the US war machine in a flattering light.

The papers only implicated his predecessors, but President Richard Nixon reacted strongly anyway. In an unprecedented move, the administration actively sought to stop first the New York Times and then the Washington Post from printing the Pentagon Papers. Nixon became obsessed with the whistleblower Ellsberg, leading an illegal campaign against him that would help to ultimately bring down his presidency.

The Pentagon Papers have a double significance today, half a century since their initial publication. The papers were the center of a landmark battle for press freedom. They reveal how far the government is willing to go not just against a whistleblower but against the free press reporting their revelations. But the substance of what the Pentagon Papers actually revealed also can’t be overlooked. Ellsberg risked a life in prison to expose the Vietnam War as a crime of massive proportions, a crime that was possible in part thanks to the bipartisan lying of successive administrations over decades. It was the crime of the war itself that led to the American government’s attacks on press freedoms.