20. Under Nixon, deception of the American people over Vietnam continued
Although the Pentagon Papers did not cover activities of the Nixon Administration regarding the Vietnam War, early in his presidency he authorized further expansion of the war, to be conducted covertly, while the American public was informed otherwise. Nixon authorized the execution of Operation Menu in early 1969. The operation was the extended carpet bombing of Cambodia using, for the first time, B-52 heavy bombers. The bombing was ordered in March and by May 1969, The New York Times had the story, and in an article published on May 9 citing unnamed sources revealed the operation to the American people.
Some of the same people in the Department of Defense responsible for the Pentagon Papers were working on the Cambodian operation, and Nixon suspected one of them, Morton Halperin, an aide to Henry Kissinger, of being the source of the story. Halperin’s phones were tapped, illegally, at Nixon’s order to the FBI. It was the first illegal telephone surveillance ordered by the Nixon Administration on the grounds of “national security” and the taps remained in place for nearly two years. The bombing raids in Cambodia drove the North Vietnamese forces they were targeting westward over the next four years, and the bombers flew deeper into Cambodia to follow them.