He argues that Nixon may have hated the press, but in this case had good cause to sue it as well. Thus, the case may have been even more important than was thought at the time, if that's possible, because the government challenge was not as specious as many believed. He argues that while the government's position had merit, its prosecution was flawed, and this made it easier for the courts to side with the press. Much of this, Rudenstine says, was the doing of Robert Mardian, an important figure in the Nixon Justice Department who insisted that his lawyers argue that the mere fact that the papers were classified warranted prior restraint, without the government's even having to prove that they were properly classified, let alone that any harm would result. Later, having won one round against the Times but then quickly losing two others, the government changed strategy and set about trying to show that harm could result to military, intelligence, and diplomatic activities by the publication of the remaining documents.
Security also lies in the values of our free institutions.
A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know. There were fierce fights within the newspapers about whether to publish, and also fights within the government about how to respond. Rudenstine captures both of them well. So we learn that Mardian distrusted and disliked Whitney North Seymour, the U.S. Attorney in New York, and thought him weak and inept, and that Seymour, in turn, considered Mardian a bit of a lunatic. The house attorney for the Times , James Goodale, ended up at war with the outside counsel, Louis Loeb, who argued that publishing the documents would be both criminal and unpatriotic.