Welcome back to the dirt show, half a century ago, half a century ago, I was one of the lawyers

in the Pentagon papers case.

You may remember that Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska actually went on the floor of the

Senate and read the Pentagon's papers into the congressional record because he knew under

the Constitution he could not be held accountable for anything he did on the floor of the Senate.

His version of Mike Gravel, version was then published by press in Boston, I represented

them, I represented him, I wrote the brief in the United States Supreme Court and litigated

the case, I'll never forget what happened in the Supreme Court.

The former dean of the Harvard Law School, Erwin Griswald, who was a very honorable man

and somebody I liked very much, he's the guy who brought me to Harvard and you know, advocated

my tenure.

He was then the solicitor of the United States and he represented to the justices that if

the Pentagon papers were unsealed and allowed to be disclosed, it would have tremendous

negative effects on our national security and he documented all the effects that would

have on national security.

I didn't believe it, a lot of other people didn't believe it, Erwin Griswald may have believed

it, he may have been briefed on it, eventually I read the Pentagon papers and there was just

nothing in it particularly that endangered security in the United States when it was published.

Obviously names and sources were redacted but the Pentagon papers were an important document

that helped bring about an end of the Vietnam war.

So since that time I've been very, very suspicious of government claims of need for secrecy

and I am very, very suspicious of the current claim that the Justice Department is making

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