<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> U.S. Const . amend . I </Td> </Tr> <P> New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the First Amendment . The ruling made it possible for The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers to publish the then - classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment . </P> <P> President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession . The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information . The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of The New York Times to print the materials . </P> <P> By 1971, the United States had been overtly at war with North Vietnam for six years . At this point, 59,000 American soldiers had died and the government was facing widespread dissent from large portions of the American public . In 1967 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara commissioned a "massive top - secret history of the United States role in Indochina". Daniel Ellsberg, who had helped to produce the report, leaked 43 volumes of the 47 - volume, 7,000 - page report to reporter Neil Sheehan of The New York Times in March 1971 and the paper began publishing articles outlining the findings . </P>

Who won the new york times v united states