Yesterday marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers, secret documents stolen by Daniel Ellsberg, and released to the NY Times and Washington Post.
The administration of Richard Nixon tried to stop the release, but lost in the Supreme Court, and this enraged Nixon, and started him down the road of illegality, leading to the Watergate scandal a year later.
Ellsberg, still alive and kicking, remains a symbol for those who believe that Vietnam was an illegal war, wrongly prosecuted, and it started to turn the country against the war on a larger scale than ever before.
The revelation of government manipulation and deceit under various administrations also had the deleterious effect of undermining faith in our government, a cynicism which remains prevalent today!