The 1970s version of the WikiLeaks scandal came the New York Times deciding to publish formerly secret government documents on its conduct in the war in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. Marine commander and a military analyst for the RAND Corporation was that decade’s Julian Assange. Ellsberg’s job at RAND allowed him access to a number of classified documents, which to him painted a picture of a callous military, aware that victory in Vietnam was not achievable but unwilling to admit it in public. Ellsberg could not find anyone to support him and examine the documents, and so decided to leak them to the Times.

On this day, June 13, in 1971, after a 15-day delay imposed by the Nixon administration finally reversed by the Supreme Court, the New York Times began publishing in installments some 7,000 pages of the “Pentagon Papers.”

Ellsberg’s revelations proved an embarrassment for President Richard Nixon as much for their content as for Nixon’s reaction to them. All sorts of extreme measures were conceived and undertaken to eliminate Ellsberg. Nixon operatives broke into Ellsberg’s psychologists’ office in search of possibly discrediting information (this became tied in with the larger Watergate scandal.) Nixon even flew in several CIA commandos from Cuba and tasked them to take out Ellsberg, dead or alive. That plan was dropped because of the threat of civilian casualties.