Neil Sheehan ( October 27, 1936 – January 7, 2021) has died. A giant of old-school American print journalism, Sheehan began his career in the Tokyo bureau of the UPI in 1962. He was in Japan with the US Army, and the reporting was a moonlighting gig. When he was released from the service, the UPI took him on his payroll, and sent him to Saigon. In 1964, he returned to the US to take a job in New York, on the city desk of the Times . But that must have seemed boring to him. By 1966 (I'm skipping some career points), he was in Washington for the NYT, covering the Pentagon. It was that assignment that got him into the history books in a big way. See below: After Neil Sheehan’s death, secret interview reveals how he got Pentagon Papers (msn.com) Here is where the new revelation, a post-mortem disclosure of an old Sheehan interview, sheds some new light. Sheehan says in the interview that Ellsberg was very wary of letting Sheehan make any copies of the famous re...
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Is there a "most important" decision of the Supreme Court in a given year? Such a question depends, of course, on what one means by "importance." Just to satisfy my own obscure sense of fun, I'll run through the 70s, beginning then as my own political awareness began, and defining importance by my own nonappealable subjectivity. Maybe some time next week I'll move on to the '80s, if I can bear the excitement. 1970, Goldberg v. Kelly -- procedural due process rights and welfare entitlements. 1971, New York Times v. United States -- Pentagon Papers case. 1972, Gottschalk v. Benson -- software and patentability. 1973, Roe v. Wade -- abortion rights. 1974, U.S. v. Nixon -- executive privilege. 1975, Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores -- securities fraud. 1976, Gregg v. Georgia -- capital punishment 1977, Moore v. City of E...