Neil Sheehan

{{Infobox person

| name = Neil Sheehan

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = Cornelius Mahoney Sheehan

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1936|10|27}}

| birth_place = Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|1|7|1936|10|27}}

| death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.

| death_cause =

| education = Harvard University

| years_active =

| spouse =

| occupation = Journalist

| website =

}}

Cornelius Mahoney Sheehan (October 27, 1936 – January 7, 2021) was an American journalist. As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series of articles revealed a secret United States Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and led to a U.S. Supreme Court case, {{ussc|name=New York Times Co. v. United States|volume=403|page=713|year=1971}}, which invalidated the United States government's use of a restraining order to halt publication.{{cite web|title=New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)|url=http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/403us713.htm|access-date=December 5, 2005}}

He received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his 1988 book A Bright Shining Lie, about the life of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.{{cite news |title=Pulitzer Prize-winning author Neil Sheehan dies at 84 |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/pulitzer-prize-winning-author-neil-sheehan-dies-at-84/article33527087.ece |work=The Hindu |date=8 January 2021 |language=en-IN}}

Early life

Sheehan was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts on October 27, 1936. His father, Cornelius Joseph Sheehan, worked as a dairy farmer; his mother, Mary (O'Shea), was a housewife. Both immigrated to the United States from Ireland.{{cite news|title=Neil Sheehan Dies at 84; Times Reporter Obtained the Pentagon Papers|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/media/neil-sheehan-dead.html|first=Janny|last=Scott|date=January 7, 2021|access-date=January 8, 2021|newspaper=The New York Times}} He was raised on a dairy farm near Holyoke. Sheehan graduated from Mount Hermon School (later Northfield Mount Hermon) and Harvard University with a B.A. in history (cum laude) in 1958. He served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962, when he was assigned to Korea and then transferred to Tokyo; there, he did work moonlighting in the Tokyo bureau of United Press International (UPI).

Career

Following his discharge, Sheehan spent two years covering the war in Vietnam as UPI's Saigon bureau chief. In 1963, during the Buddhist crisis, Sheehan and David Halberstam debunked the claim by the Ngô Đình Diệm regime that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam regular forces had perpetrated the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, which U.S. authorities initially accepted. They showed instead that the raiders were Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Nhu out to frame the army generals. In 1964, he joined The New York Times and worked the city desk for a while before returning to the Far East, first to Indonesia and then to spend another year in Vietnam.{{cite web |title=Neil Sheehan Biography and Interview |publisher=American Academy of Achievement |url=https://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/#interview |access-date=February 25, 2025 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014054134/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan |archive-date=October 14, 2018}} Sheehan was one of numerous U.S. and international journalists who received valuable information from Pham Xuan An, a 20-year veteran correspondent for Time Magazine and Reuters, later revealed to also be a spy for the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam.{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/2007/12/11/spy-saigon-vietnam-books-cx_daa_1211perfectspy.html|title=The Spy Of Saigon|website=Forbes.com|access-date=January 7, 2021}}

In the fall of 1966, he became the Pentagon correspondent. Two years later, he began reporting on the White House. He was a correspondent on political, diplomatic, and military affairs. After being notified of their existence by Marcus Raskin and Ralph Stavins at the Institute for Policy Studies, Sheehan copied the Pentagon Papers for the Times on March 2, 1971,[http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/4284-1/Neil+Sheehan.aspx Author Profile] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012002236/http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/4284-1/Neil+Sheehan.aspx |date=October 12, 2012 }}; C-SPAN; October 22, 1988{{Cite news|last=Young |first=Michael |title=The devil and Daniel Ellsberg: From archetype to anachronism (review of Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg) |newspaper=Reason |page=2 |date=June 2002 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_2_34/ai_85701104 |access-date=July 2, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090830070005/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_2_34/ai_85701104/ |archive-date=August 30, 2009 }}{{cite web|last=Italie|first=Hillel|url=https://apnews.com/article/daniel-ellsberg-vietnam-war-pentagon-papers-12f57b417c372c1b8760a21d447cb502|title=Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon Papers exposing Vietnam War secrets, dies at 92|website=Associated Press of New York|date=June 16, 2023|access-date=June 26, 2023}}{{cite web | title=Behind the Race to Publish the Top-Secret Pentagon Papers|last=Chokshi|first=Niraj | website=The New York Times | date=December 20, 2017 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/pentagon-papers-post.html | access-date=June 26, 2023}}{{cite web | last1=Sanger | first1=David E. |last2=Scott|first2=Janny|last3=Harlan|first3=Jennifer|last4=Gallagher|first4=Brian|title='We're Going to Publish': An Oral History of the Pentagon Papers | website=The New York Times | date=June 9, 2021 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/09/us/pentagon-papers-oral-history.html|archive-date=June 13, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613071158/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/09/us/pentagon-papers-oral-history.html| access-date=June 26, 2023}} against leaker and Vietnam-era acquaintance Daniel Ellsberg's wishes. He made the copies with the help of his wife Susan in numerous copy shops in Boston, then they flew with the copies to a hotel room at The Jefferson in Washington for reading, before mailing them to his editor James L. Greenfield's apartment, then he worked with Greenfield and a large team of editors, writers and lawyers on organizing the copies for publication in the New York Hilton Midtown, as he would later reveal in 2015.{{cite web | title=How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers |last=Scott|first=Janny| website=The New York Times | date=January 7, 2021 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/pentagon-papers-neil-sheehan.html | access-date=June 25, 2023}} The U.S. government tried to halt publication and the case, New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713), saw the U.S. Supreme Court reject the government's position and establish a landmark First Amendment decision. The exposé would earn The New York Times the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

In 1970, Sheehan reviewed Conversations With Americans by Mark Lane in the New York Times Book Review. He called the work a collection of Vietnam War crime stories with some obvious flaws which the author had not verified. Sheehan called for more thorough and scholarly work to be done on the war crimes being committed in Vietnam.{{cite news|last=Sheehan|first=Neil|title=Conversations with Americans|work=The New York Times|date=December 27, 1970|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/27/archives/conversations-with-americans-conversations-with-americans.html|access-date=January 16, 2018}}

Sheehan published an article in the New York Times Book Review on March 28, 1971, entitled "Should We have War Crime Trials?". He suggested that the conduct of the Vietnam War could be a crime against humanity and that senior U.S. political and military leaders could be subject to trial. In response, the Pentagon prepared a detailed rebuttal justifying its conduct of the war and exonerating senior commanders, however, the rebuttal was never released due to the belief that it would only exacerbate the issue.{{cite book|last=Hammond|first=William|title=The U.S. Army in Vietnam Public Affairs The Military and the Media 1968-1973|publisher=U.S. Army Center of Military History|year=1996|url=https://history.army.mil/html/books/091/91-2/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120913060001/http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/091/91-2/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 13, 2012|isbn=978-0160486968|pages=493–4}}{{PD-notice}}

Sheehan published his first book, The Arnheiter Affair, in 1972. Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, the subject of the book, proceeded to bring an action for libel against Sheehan but was ultimately unsuccessful. Sheehan then secured an unpaid leave from the Times to work on a book about John Paul Vann, a dramatic figure among American leaders in the early stages of the war in Vietnam. Two years later, in November 1974, Sheehan was badly injured in a road accident on a snowy mountain road in western Maryland. Sheehan's wife, the veteran New Yorker staff writer Susan Sheehan, chronicled details of the accident and its emotional, legal, and financial impact in a 1978 article for the magazine.{{cite magazine|last1=Sheehan|first1=Susan|title=The Accident|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/09/25/the-accident-2|access-date=August 24, 2015|magazine=The New Yorker|date=September 25, 1978}} The time and effort spent fighting three libel suits in connection with his first book that endured until 1979, and Sheehan's lengthy recovery from his injuries, delayed work on his Vietnam book. After the Times ended his unpaid leave in 1976, he formally resigned from the newspaper to continue work on the book.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/15/magazine/when-will-the-book-be-done.html|title=When Will The Book Be Done?|first=Susan|last=Sheehan|date=April 15, 1990|access-date=January 7, 2021|website=The New York Times}} Author of Is There No Place On Earth For Me? which won the Pulitzer Prize For Nonfiction in 1983.

Although he received an advance of $67,500 (of which he was entitled to $45,000 prior to publication) from Random House in 1972, Sheehan – a "dreadfully slow" writer who "[chased after] the last fact" – mainly subsisted on lecture fees and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1973–1974), the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Studies at the University of Chicago (1973–1975), the Lehrman Institute (1975–1976), the Rockefeller Foundation (1976–1977), and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1979–1980) for the remainder of the 1970s.{{Cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1988/10/09/16-years-of-solitude/aefe6641-0675-4682-bdeb-405a4457dd86/|title=16 YEARS OF SOLITUDE|first=William|last=Prochnau|date=October 9, 1988|access-date=January 7, 2021|website=Washingtonpost.com}} According to William Prochnau, the latter fellowship marked a significant "turning point" for the book, as Sheehan "talked about Vietnam all day long every day" with Peter Braestrup after abandoning several hundred manuscript pages later characterized as a "false start" by Susan Sheehan.{{Cite web|url=http://search.marquiswhoswho.com/logon|title=Marquis Biographies Online|website=Search.marquiswhoswho.com|access-date=January 7, 2021}} When Sheehan finished "three-fifths of the manuscript" in the summer of 1981, the initial advance was renegotiated and raised to $200,000 with a projected delivery date of 1983, while William Shawn of The New Yorker agreed to excerpt the finished manuscript and advance funds as needed.

Still beset by health problems (including a pinched nerve and osteoarthritis), he eventually completed the book, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, in 1986. Edited by Robert Loomis and published in 1988, it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prizes in Biography and History and received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/General-Nonfiction "General Nonfiction"]. Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved March 25, 2012. It also won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1988 "National Book Awards – 1988"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 25, 2012. In 1990, Sheehan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/}}{{cite news|last=Roberts |first=Roxanne |date= May 4, 2003 |title= You Have A Dream |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/05/04/you-have-a-dream/64bb0f12-305d-4f0c-ad42-f29ca099ea87/ |newspaper= The Washington Post}}{{cite web |date=2003 |title=Neil Sheehan Biography Photo |url= https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/|quote= Awards Council member Neil Sheehan presents Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, with the Academy's Golden Plate Award during the 2003 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C.}}

Later life

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?288939-1/qa-neil-sheehan Q&A interview with Sheehan on A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, September 20, 2009], C-SPAN}}

Sheehan released the book, After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon, in 1992.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L5VuAAAAMAAJ|title=After the War was Over: Hanoi and Saigon|publisher=Random House|year=1992|last=Sheehan|first=Neil|isbn=9780679413912}} It was inspired by his visit to Vietnam three years earlier. He published his last book, A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, in 2009. It detailed the story of Bernard Schriever, who was the father of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Personal life

Sheehan was introduced to his wife, Susan Margulies, by fellow reporter Gay Talese.{{cite news|title=Neil Sheehan, N.Y. Times reporter who obtained Pentagon Papers and chronicled 'Bright Shining Lie' of Vietnam, dies at 84|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/neil-sheehan-ny-times-reporter-who-obtained-pentagon-papers-and-chronicled-bright-shining-lie-of-vietnam-dies-at-84/2021/01/07/86794382-f943-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html|first=Harrison|last=Smith|date=January 7, 2021|access-date=January 9, 2021|newspaper=The Washington Post}} She wrote for The New Yorker at the time, and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Is There No Place on Earth for Me? in 1983. They married in 1965, and had two daughters (Catherine and Maria).

Sheehan died on January 7, 2021, at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 84, and suffered from complications of Parkinson's disease in the time leading up to his death.

Books

The Pentagon Papers as published by the New York Times (1971), {{ISBN|9780552649179}}
The Arnheiter Affair (1972) – about Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, a U.S. Navy officer relieved of command in 1966{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VeQLAAAAIAAJ|title=The Arnheiter Affair|publisher=Random House|year=1972|last=Sheehan|first=Neil|isbn=9780394473635}}
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988), {{ISBN|9781407063904}}
After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon (1992), {{ISBN|9780679745075}}
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon (2009), {{ISBN|9780679745495}}

In popular culture

Sheehan was portrayed by Jonas Chernick in The Pentagon Papers (2003),{{cite news|title=The Pentagon Papers|url=https://variety.com/2003/tv/reviews/the-pentagon-papers-2-1200542977/|first=Michael|last=Speier|date=March 5, 2003|access-date=January 8, 2021|magazine=Variety}} and Justin Swain in The Post (2017).{{cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/5a1dee5109e95|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403001634/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/5a1dee5109e95|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 3, 2019|title=The Post (2017)|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=January 8, 2021}} He appears as himself in Ken Burns' 2017 documentary series The Vietnam War.{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/about/credits/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822041228/http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/about/credits/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 22, 2017|title=Credits – The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick|publisher=PBS|access-date=January 8, 2021}}