The situation in Vietnam was not going in America’s favor. The two sides were at a standstill roughly around the 17th parallel, but the U.S. forces were withdrawing, while the Viet Cong were starting to operate out of neighboring Cambodia. So at the urging of his National Security Adviser President Richard Nixon assented to “Operation Breakfast,” a full-on air assault on strategic targets on Cambodia. The operation was supposed to be kept away from the American public, and it was for a while, until an enterprising New York Times reporter uncovered it.

On this day, May 9, 1969, William Beecher, a correspondent with the Times with some good contacts in the government, published a front story accurately describing the campaign of bombings over the neutral Cambodia.

Beecher recalled in a later interview the idea that such an act might take place first arose from a series of “what-if” conversations with his high level contacts. As reports started dripping out Vietnam about bombings in the South Vietnamese side of the Cambodian border, his suspicions grew the bombings were not just limited to just that one side. “I went to two very well plugged in men [and]  laid out what I believed to be the whole scenario,” Beecher recalled. “The State Department official said: ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ And then told me he had no comment. His facial expression suggested otherwise. The White House official said, ‘I’ve never lied to you Bill. And I won’t now. So let’s change the subject.’”