Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan (born October 27, 1936 in Holyoke, Massachusetts) is an American journalist.
As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series in the Times revealed a secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and resulted in government attempts to halt publication. The resulting case, New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713),...
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Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan (born October 27, 1936 in Holyoke, Massachusetts) is an American journalist.
As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series in the Times revealed a secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and resulted in government attempts to halt publication. The resulting case, New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713), saw the Supreme Court reject the government's position, and became a landmark First Amendment decision. This exposé would earn The New York Times a Pulitzer Prize.
Born on a farm in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Sheehan graduated from Mount Hermon School (later Northfield Mount Hermon) and Harvard University with a B.A. in 1958, served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962. In 1962 he began working at the United Press International's Tokyo bureau, and spent the next two years covering the war in Vietnam as UPI's bureau chief.
In 1964, he joined The...
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