Why did the Pentagon Papers increase America's distrust of the government?

1 Answer
Mar 6, 2017

It revealed the false pretext because of which the USA went to war in Vietnam.

Explanation:

The War in Vietnam started in 1964 after the USS Maddox was supposedly fired at by Northern Vietnamese troops. It led to the Gulf of Tonkin(the location where the incident had occurred) resolution which granted President Johnson the power to escalate the war without any limit.

Daniel Ellsberg with his Pentagon Papers denounced the fake reasons behind the war. They were released in 1971, they covered more than thirty years of History of the Department of Defense.