Mr. Gobin Stair 1912-2008.
Publisher of the Pentagon Papers - The Senator Gravel Edition
In the summer of 1971 Senator Mike Gravel tried to shop around the complete Pentagon Papers, but was unwilling to find a publisher until he came to Gobin Stair and the Beacon Press. The reason was simple, few had the courage to stand up to the Nixon administration. The irony of the situation is that Stair was unsure of whether to publish the Pentagon Papers until Nixon called him at his home in a ham-handed effort to supress publication.
The Pentagon Papers were a review of US decision's regarding Vietnam assembled in 1967 at the behest of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Thirty six men worked on the top-secret documents, including Daniel Ellsberg of the Rand Corporation, a government think-tank. The documents revealed that the government knew early on that the Vietnam war was not winnable and that continuing the war would result in deaths of many American soldiers; moreso than the government ever admitted publically. By 1971 Ellsberg was disallusioned with the government's actions and attempted to leak the Pentagon Papers to Senators Fullbright and McGovern but found no success. Finally he approached the New York Times and the Washington Post and these newspapers published portions of the papers until stopped by Nixon administration injuctions. Temporarily thwarted by Nixon and the courts, Ellsberg turned to Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska who used a procedural motion to enter a substantial portion of the Pentagon Papers into the congregational record.
Believing that the widespread distribution of the papers would change the direction of the war Senator Gravel approached numerous publishers but no one would touch the project. Senator Gravel then approached The Beacon Press, the publishing arm of the Unitarian-Universalist Association (UUA). As Beacon Press Director, Stair was unsure of the project as publishing the 4,100 page tome was going expensive and he believed it to be unlikely to be a commercial success. It wasn't until Nixon called Stair at his home in Massachusetts that the decision was made. As Stair later recalled, "I got a phone call at home from Richard Nixon. He said, 'Gobin, we have been investigating you around Boston, and we know you are apparently a pretty nice and smart guy. I hear you are going to do that set of papers by that guy Gravel.'" While Nixon wasn't so direct as to insist that Stair not publish the Pentagon Papers, the message was loud and clear: moving ahead would mean trouble for the Beacon Press and the Unitarian-Universlist Association.
On August 4th, 1971 Senator Gravel agreed to publish the Pentagon papers in a letter addressed to Stair. The weight of the matter is in plainly apparent in the letter as Senator Gravel did what he could to provide cover and legitimacy to the effort. Despite Senator Gravel's involvement, Nixon and his administration would continue to harass the UUA for several years until the Watergate story brought down his presidency.
Stair remained with the Beacon Press until his retirement in 1975. Since then he resided in Kingston, MA and became a well known abstract artist.