New York Times Co. v. United States  New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the First Amendment. The ruling made it possible for "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" newspapers to publish the then-classified "Pentagon Papers" without risk of government censorship or punishment. 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. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of "The New York Times" to print the materials. By 1971, the United States, although never having declared war, had been engaged in a war with North Vietnam for six years. At this point, about 58,000 American soldiers had died and the government was facing widespread dissent from large portions of the American public. In 1967 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara commissioned a "massive top-secret history of the United States role in Indochina". Daniel Ellsberg, who had helped to produce the report, leaked 43 volumes of the 47-volume, 7,000-page report to reporter Neil Sheehan of "The New York Times" in March 1971 and the paper began publishing articles outlining the findings. The black article appeared in the "Times" Sunday edition, on June 13, 1971. By the following Tuesday, the "Times" received an order to cease further publication from a District Court judge, at the request of the administration. The government claimed it would cause "irreparable injury to the defense interests of the United States" and wanted to "enjoin "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" from publishing the contents of a classified study entitled "History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on the Vietnam Policy."" The government sought a restraining order that prevented the "Times" from posting any further articles based upon the "Pentagon Papers". In addition to The New York Times Company, the Justice Department named the following defendants: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, president and publisher; Harding Bancroft and Ivan Veit, executive vice presidents; Francis Cox, James Goodale, Sydney Gruson, Walter Mattson, John McCabe, John Mortimer and James Reston, vice presidents; John B. Oakes, editorial page editor; A. M. Rosenthal, managing editor; Daniel Schwarz, Sunday editor; Clifton Daniel and Tom Wicker, associate editors; Gerald Gold and Allan M. Siegal, assistant foreign editors; Neil Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E. W. Kenworthy and Fox Butterfield, reporters; and Samuel Abt, a foreign desk copy editor.