Neil Sheehan in The Vietnam War
Neil Sheehan (1936–) is an American journalist who worked as a reporter for the New York Times during the Vietnam War.
In 1966, he became the newspaper's Pentagon correspondent and also reported on the White House. He's best known for obtaining and publishing the top-secret documents in the "Pentagon Papers."
In 1971, Sheehan obtained a top-secret study of American strategies in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, a U.S. military analyst, leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to Sheehan and several other news correspondents, but it was Sheehan who first published the secret government documents in the pages of the New York Times. The publication of the Pentagon Papers greatly accelerated the erosion of public support for the war.