Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, died on June 16, 2023, at the age of 92. The cause, his family said in a statement, was pancreatic cancer.
Ellsberg was a Vietnam War-era military analyst who worked for the RAND Corporation, a think tank that advises the U.S. government. In 1971, he obtained a copy of the Pentagon Papers, a classified government report that detailed the history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
After revealing the government’s lies about Vietnam, Ellsberg spent six decades as an anti-nuclear activist, getting arrested as many as ninety times in civil-disobedience protests.
Ellsberg helped formulate U.S. nuclear strategy and he drafted the top-secret operational plans for general nuclear war issued by President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Before he released the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was planning to reveal that 600 million people would be killed in the Soviet Union and China, from injuries and fallout in a nuclear first strike launched by the U.S. When Tropical Storm Doria hit the New York area in August 1971, the death-toll estimates and other documents about nuclear war were lost.
“Like many whistleblowers today, Ellsberg was initially persecuted. The government charged him with violation of the Espionage Act and other charges carrying a maximum total sentence of 115 years,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “When asked if he regretted his action, Ellsberg famously said, ‘How can I measure the jeopardy I’m in, to the penalty that has already been paid by 50,000 American families and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese families?’
“The Nixon administration also used extrajudicial means to attack Ellsberg, directing the intelligence agencies to dig up dirt on him. The White House convened a squad called ‘the Plumbers’ to raid his psychiatrist’s office, setting the stage for further dirty tricks in the 1972 campaign,” said Kennedy, who is challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. “When the illegal activities of the Plumbers were revealed, charges against Ellsberg were dismissed.”
“In the last decade, other journalists and whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, and many more have shown courage similar to Ellsberg,” said Kennedy. “Their stories have not had such a happy ending. My administration will change that. Instead of prosecuting whistleblowers, my Department of Justice will investigate the crimes and corruption they reveal. That is one of the ways I will restore truth and transparency to the United States government.”
Ellsberg believed that the Pentagon Papers showed that the U.S. government had been misleading the public about the war, and he decided to share the report with the press and gave copies to The New York Times and The Washington Post, which published excerpts of the report in June 1971.
In the statement, Ellsberg family said that in the months since the diagnosis, “he continued to speak out urgently to the media about nuclear dangers, especially the danger of nuclear war posed by the Ukraine war and Taiwan.”
“Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an antiwar activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more. He will be dearly missed by all of us,” according to the statement
Ellsberg never ran for office and only occasionally appeared on TV but he altered the course of U.S. history in a way few private citizens ever have.
The publication of the Pentagon Papers caused a major scandal, and the mammoth disclosure helped to end the longest U.S. war of the 20th century.
It also prompted a landmark Supreme Court decision on freedom of the press and provoked a response from President Richard Nixon that led directly to the scandals that ended his presidency. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, who had known Ellsberg as a military analyst years earlier, labeled him “the most dangerous man in America.” Both Nixon and Kissinger feared the revelations would torpedo their secret negotiations with Hanoi and Beijing.
Ellsberg was charged with espionage and theft, but he was never convicted because of illegalities in the investigation.
Nixon directed various government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, to find ways to discredit Ellsberg. In one conversation with his Attorney General John Mitchell (captured on the White House taping system in 1971) Nixon says: “Don’t worry about his trial. Just get everything out. Try him in the press. Everything, John, that there is on the investigation, get it out, leak it out. We want to destroy him in the press. Is that clear?”
To that end, the White House created a covert squad known as “the plumbers” because they were hired to stop leaks of government documents that were embarrassing the administration — particularly those leaked by Ellsberg. The operatives broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in Los Angeles but failed to find his file. When these and other illegal activities came to light, a federal judge overseeing Ellsberg’s trial dismissed the charges. They were never reinstated.
In the years since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg has become a respected figure in the anti-war movement. He has written several books about the war, and he has continued to speak out against government secrecy.
Ellsberg’s death is a loss for the world. He was a courageous man who risked his life to expose the truth about the Vietnam War. His legacy will live on as a reminder of the importance of speaking truth to power.
Ellsberg was born in Chicago in 1931. He graduated from Harvard University in 1953 and then served in the U.S. Navy.
After leaving the Navy, Ellsberg worked for the RAND Corporation. He was a consultant to the Defense Department and the State Department.
In 1964, Ellsberg began working on the Pentagon Papers. He was one of the analysts who wrote the report.
Ellsberg has written several books about the war, including “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” and “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.”
Ellsberg has continued to speak out against government secrecy. He is a member of the board of directors of the Sunshine Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for government transparency.
Ellsberg is a controversial figure, but he is also a respected one. He is a hero to many people who believe that the government should be held accountable for its actions.