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4.2.12 WC: 191694 was decided against him by the Supreme Court. I was one of his lawyers throughout the litigation. The release and publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was perhaps the single most important event in turning American public opinion against the Vietnam War. While the New York Times and the Washington Post were fighting in court to continue publishing portions of the Papers, Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska was taking more direct action: he convened an emergency night-time meeting of his subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds—hard to imagine a committee less relevant to the Pentagon Papers—and placed the Papers in the public record. The “Gravel Edition” of the Pentagon Papers was then published by Beacon Press of Boston. I represented Beacon Press and, subsequently, Senator Gravel in litigation that eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. I also conferred with my teacher and dear friend Alexander Bickel, who was lead counsel for the Times in the Pentagon Papers case. Our cases shared a common constitutional approach and so we exchanged ideas and drafts. The difficulty of defending an absolutist view was well illustrated by an exchange between Justice Potter Stewart and Professor Bickel. Stewart asked Bickel about “a hypothetical case:” “Let us assume that when the members of the Court go back and open up this sealed record we find something there that absolutely convinces us that its disclosure would result in the sentencing to death of a hundred young men whose only offense had been that they were nineteen years old and had low draft numbers. What should we do?” Bickel fumbled: “T wish there were a statute that covered it.” (p. 46) Justice Stewart persisted: “You would say the Constitution requires that it be published, and that these men die, is that it? Finally, Bickel answered his hypothetical directly. “No, I’m afraid that my inclinations to humanity overcome the somewhat more abstract devotion to the First Amendment in a case of that sort.” The lawyer for the government, Solicitor General Erwin Griswold (former Dean of the Harvard Law School) did not regard Justice Stewart’s case as hypothetical. “T haven’t the slightest doubt myself that the material which has already been published and the publication of the other materials affects American lives and is a thoroughly serious matter.” [22 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017209