Top Secret: National Security and the Right to Know

On Sunday, March 16, 1969, President Richard Nixon and about six senior national security advisers approved a proposal to bomb neutral Cambodia. Their decision, and the 15-month bombing operation that followed, remained secret for more than three years from most officials of the executive branch, from all but a few members of Congress, and from the public.

The proposal to bomb Cambodia was not a new one. Ever since President Lyndon Johnson had escalated the American intervention in Vietnam in 1965, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had repeatedly recommended such an action, as well as ground operations in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. To the extent that these proposals were known, there was substanti...