Video: 'Freedom of the Press: New York Times v. United States'

(Wednesday, June 30, 1971, 2:30 p.m. EDT; New York Times Co. v. United States) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers could publish articles based on the then-classified Pentagon Papers on the origins of the Vietnam War, rejecting government injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint.

President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession.

The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information.

By a vote of 6 to 3, the court held that any attempt by the government to block news articles prior to publication bears “a heavy burden of presumption against its constitutionality.”

In a historic test of that principle — the first effort by the government to enjoin publication on the ground of national security — the court declared that “the government has not met that burden.”

The Times resumed publication of the documents the next day, July 1, 1971.