The 37th president s administration. This portion is about one hour 20 minutes. Right from the beginning and until late in 1971 for a couple of years, i always thought for the pentagon papers to have any effect, they should be the basis for congressional hearing. Precisely because i knew they did not tell the whole story for an adequate story. I knew a lot of what was excluded from them and what you needed was oral testimony preferably under oath. Of people who really knew the decisionmaking at the time and could explain what was the implications of these papers. When things were written down, it was a brief for mcnamara to argue with other people to present mcnamaras preferred policy. It did not usually express what mcnaughton thought was appropriate policy or what he thought to expect work for considerations. He was writing lawyers briefs for mcnamara to present. That was one example. I knew in many other cases that it did not answer many of the questions. What you wanted was testimo