"The U.S. role in Indochina, in the years immediately after the second world war, was at first ambivalent... American involvement deepened gradually over the next two decades, with each Administration bequeathing to its successor a conflict whose dimensions were never fully revealed to the Congress or to the American people." — The Pentagon Papers, leaked excerpt published June 1971
The leaking of the Pentagon Papers most directly damaged public trust by:
- A
Revealing that the U.S. was secretly winning the war
- B
Disclosing the names of CIA operatives in Saigon
- Ccheck_circle
Showing that successive administrations had misled the public about the war's scope and prospects
- D
Exposing Soviet financing of antiwar protests
Explanation
Daniel Ellsberg's leak revealed that Johnson and earlier administrations had been candid in private about a darker military picture than they shared publicly. The other options misrepresent the document's content.