Smiling politely, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara reminded Mississippi's Senator John Stennis to swear him in as a witness before the subcommittee investigating military "muzzling." McNamara wanted everything on the record for the showdown he knew was coming. Then McNamara respectfully declined to name the particular censors who had deleted particular passages from particular speeches by military leaders. To justify his position, McNamara read a letter from President Kennedy asserting that such information would be "contrary to the public interest" and invoking the right, long upheld by the courts, of "executive...
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