Daniel Ellsberg
| Daniel Ellsberg link Amazon NNDB Sourcewatch Spartacus Website Wikileaks Wikiquote (Whistleblower, activist, author) | |
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| Born | April 7, 1931 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | 16 June, 2023 |
| Alma mater | Harvard University, Cambridge University |
| Children | Robert, Mary, Michael Ellsberg |
| Spouse | Carol Cummings |
| Exposed | The Pentagon Papers |
A feted whistleblower who exposed some details of how the US government was waging the Vietnam War. The fact that he was not persecuted has lead several commentators to suggest that he may not in fact have been all he appears to be. Specifically, the Pentagon Papers may have been a limited hangout. | |
Daniel Ellsberg was a former United States military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released The Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.
The Pentagon Papers
- Full article: The Pentagon Papers
- Full article: The Pentagon Papers
After returning from Vietnam, Ellsberg went back to work at the RAND Corporation. In 1967, he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. Because he held an extremely high-level security clearance, Ellsberg was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents. They revealed that the government had knowledge all along that the war would not likely be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed that high-ranking officials had a deep cynicism toward the public, as well as disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians. Webster Tarpley suggests that the Pentagon papers were a limited hangout.
Later Life
Since the end of the Vietnam War he has been a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era and unlawful interventions. In 2002 he published Secrets.[1]