Neil Sheehan

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 US Supreme Court case New York Times Co v United States 403 US 713 1971 which invalidated the United States governments use of a restraining order to halt publication 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 Sheehan was born in Holyoke Massachusetts on October 27 1936 His father Cornelius Joseph Sheehan worked as a dairy farmer his mother Mary OShea was a housewife Both immigrated to the United States from Ireland He was raised on a dairy farm near Holyoke Sheehan graduated from Mount Hermon School later Northfield Mount Hermon and Harvard University with a BA in history cum laude in 1958 He served in the US 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 Following his discharge Sheehan spent two years covering the war in Vietnam as UPIs 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 US authorities initially accepted They showed instead that the raiders were Special Forces loyal to Diệms 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 Sheehan was one of numerous US and international journalists who received valuable information from Pham Xuan An a 20year veteran correspondent for Time Magazine and Reuters later revealed to also be a spy for the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam Source Article Neil Sheehan from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30