It was the Times, not the Post, that first got the papers from Daniel Ellsberg. A Post reporter, not Bradlee, got sloppy seconds from Ellsberg.
Neither paper was ever threatened with criminal prosecution. The government brought a civil action against the Times for an injunction that was winding its way through the courts when the Post started to publish, so they knew there would be no criminal prosecution and there was not.
Nixon didn't care about the publication because it was all about lies told by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The study was complete before Nixon took office. Kissinger talked Nixon into taking action so as not to set a national security precedent that would affect future administrations.
But you probably won't hear any of this if you see the movie because it's not about the truth; it's about Hollywood/leftist truth and their pathological hatred of Nixon that still exists after decades.
I wonder if there are any Doors songs on the soundtrack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephen_Morrison
Morrison was commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964, which sparked an escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War.
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In 1963, Morrison took command of the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard, flagship of a 3rd Fleet Carrier Division in the Pacific, and based at Naval Air Station Alameda, California. Morrison was in command of the Carrier Division during the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, which resulted effectively in the true beginning of the Vietnam War by President Lyndon Johnson.[6]
Which also shows how badly Nixon handled not only the Watergate affair, but the Pentagon Papers as well. The study was pretty much a big fat nothingburger except that it showed how deceitful Democrats had been prior to Nixon being elected in 1968. Had he done basically nothing in either case, he never would’ve been drummed out of office in my opinion.
The hype in the ads on TV about how this was “the biggest coverall in government history” is laughable. They’re so desperate to make journalists appear to be righteous heroes of the truth when in fact they’re propagandists of the highest order today.