For the first generation of politically minded post-war children reaching adulthood in the mid-1960s, the publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times newspaper was cause for considerable shock and celebration.
The shock resulted from the disruption to the comfortable assurances of America's leaders, and their supporters in New Zealand, when discussion turned to events in Southeast Asia. It was necessary, they were told, to fight against communist forces because if there was a failure to do so these forces, backed by China and Russia, would sweep down to Singapore and beyond to threaten our way of life.
This was the so-called Domino Theory. The propaganda disseminated from Washington and Wellington argued New Zealand's interests were also threatened and we had an obligation to support our wartime ally's assistance to the legitimate South Vietnamese Government.
New Zealand's anti-Vietnam War protest movement was at its most vigorous in the late 1960s, so local interest was very real. In the space of eight years, from 1964, New Zealand sent 3500 military personnel to serve in South Vietnam, although troop numbers reached a maximum at any one time of 543.
Nevertheless, 37 were killed on active service and 187 wounded. A legacy of disease attributed to the use of the defoliant Agent Orange lives on today and serves as a reminder of their sacrifice. It was New Zealand's first independent war, in the sense it was not fighting in support of the United Kingdom, and by the early 1970s it had aroused considerable local feeling.
One of the reasons for this was the publication, in June 1971, of the Pentagon Papers, which appeared to destroy the credibility of those who promoted the engagement.
The papers were a secret internal study of war planning, intervention, and other military activity commissioned by the US Defence Department in 1967, covering the period from the end of World War 2 to the then present day. Analysts were given access to all classified documents, and produced 47 volumes of material. One of the experts was Dr Daniel Ellsberg. He came to realise the material showed America had embarked on an unwinnable war, one based on the false premise of the Domino Theory, and the American people had been misled by military and political lies. He decided to copy some of the most damaging revelations and leak them to The New York Times in the hope it would encourage President Richard Nixon to end the US' involvement.
One of the most important disclosures Dr Ellsberg made concerned the so-called Tonkin Gulf Incident. The US claimed the North Vietnamese attacked American destroyers standing off the coast in 1964. The attack was unprovoked, the US said. This gave the Defence Department the argument it wanted to escalate the offensive against North Vietnam.
The US Congress narrowly agreed, effectively giving the president virtually unlimited power to wage war. In fact, the Tonkin Gulf Incident was a fabrication. The Pentagon Papers also showed a long history of miscalculation, bureaucratic arrogance, false propaganda and public and political deception over the course of the war, including proof of previously denied bombing of Laos and US raids into North Vietnam.
Dr Ellsberg and an assistant were arrested (though never convicted) and the Government attempted to prevent publication but was over-ruled by the US Supreme Court.
This month, the Pentagon Papers were officially declassified. They are likely to interest only historians, but contain disclosures that throw new light on the way the secret world was in the 1950s and 1960s. One example is at the height of the Cold War, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the US located thousands of nuclear weapons in 15 countries around the world (not always with their host's knowledge) and, frequently, in the face of outright denial when challenged.
The Pentagon Papers were the Wikileaks of their time, but had far greater impact and were far more important than anything so far revealed by the publication of diplomatic cables.
In New Zealand, the anti-Vietnam War protest movement was bolstered, the Norman Kirk-led Labour Party (elected in 1972) was the chief beneficiary, and our persistent wariness of American military intentions was founded 40 years ago this month, all on Dr Ellsberg's public-spirited whistle-blowing.
