system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 the pentagon papers content and while it was so negatively viewed

Can someone please ELI5 what the pentagon papers actually said that was so upsetting to the American public. 

No matter where I search, nowhere can I find a detailed and understandable explanation as to what the papers said, that wasn't part of the deal the US entered Vietnam in the first place.
gpt
Here's a quote from the New York Times concerning the Pentagon Papers:

>They demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.

Basically the Pentagon Papers disclosed that the government had been lying about the aims, causes, and scale of the Vietnam War.

A modern equivalent would be if the War in Iraq really was for oil, Bush lied about the WMDs, and that the US had also secretly bombed Iran and Syria.