Daniel Ellsberg, who died this Friday at the age of 92 in Kensington (California), marked a change in the world of the disclosure of State secrets in the pre-internet era and was the most relevant predecessor of figures such as Andrew Snowden or Chelsea Manning . He earned being described by Henry Kissinger as “the most dangerous man in America.”
Disillusioned with the Vietnam War, Ellsberg, who was a military analyst, leaked in 1971 the so-called “Pentagon papers”, a voluminous and ultra-secret story about the war in that Asian country in which he exposed the lies with which the administration hid from the Americans the tragic disaster in the military conflict.
The family confirmed his death in a statement. Ellsberg announced last March in an email sent to his friends and followers that he had pancreatic cancer and that he had declined chemotherapy. He promised that the time he had left to live would be spent doing talks and interviews about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dangers of a nuclear filth, and the importance of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects free speech and press.
The disclosure of 7,000 pages of deceptions by successive governments that overused their authority, disregarded Congress, and deceived the American people, only plunged a country already wounded and confronted by the war and enlistments en masse.
His leak led the White House to take illegal steps to discredit him, stop leaks, and attack perceived enemies. All of this led to a series of crimes known as the Watergate scandal that disgraced President Richard Nixon and forced his resignation in 1974.
It also led to a dispute over freedom of expression that led to a clash between the Nixon government and The New York Times, whose publication of the Pentagon papers led to a complaint by the executive as an act of espionage that had endangered national security. . The Supreme Court endorsed, however, the freedom of the press.
Born in Chicago, raised in Detroit, a promising piano player, and educated at Harvard, Ellsberg was an unlikely peace activist. After college he served in the Navy, where he wanted to prove his energy and emerged as a fervent, calculating cold warrior who worked in the Department of Defense, a military analyst at the Rand Corp., and an adviser to the State Department, from where he was sent to Saigon. , then the capital of South Vietnam, to assess counterinsurgency efforts.
Crossing the territory of Vietnam, coupled with US and South Vietnamese troop patrols, he became increasingly disillusioned with that war effort. He came to the conclusion that there was no chance of victory and that this conflict was lost.
He then devoted his life to activism, which spanned from the Pentagon papers leak, which is when Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, turned him into the most dangerous guy, to his death, decades of work advocating for freedom press and integrated into the anti-nuclear movement.
Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in June 1967, that voluminous report contained pages of historical analysis and supporting documents illustrating how the government had expanded its role in Vietnam through four presidents.
There it was evident how the country’s leaders had hidden their doubts and setbacks in Vietnam and how they had misled the citizens about a troop buildup that eventually brought half a million Americans to that remote country.
Ellsberg, one of three dozen analysts who helped prepare the Top Secret report, had access to a copy at the Rand Corp, a research organization affiliated with the Air Force. As his opposition to the war grew, he began removing papers from his office. Every day he would take a suitcase full and photocopy them with the help of his friend Anthony Russo, whose girlfriend owned an advertising agency, including a Xerox photocopier.
Hoping to speed up the end of the war, he contacted senators and tried to share the documents through official channels. When all efforts were in vain, he called reporter Neil Sheehan of The New York Times, which led to the publication of the story on June 13, 1971.
The publication sparked a huge anti-war backlash, horrified Ellsberg’s former colleagues at Secretary of Defense and caught the White House on the wrong foot. On the third day, the Nixon administration succeeded in having the publication blocked.
This led to a confrontation with the press. Meanwhile, The Washington Post began releasing articles on its own and was also banned from continuing. Then the two great heads came together and resorted to justice. On June 30, the Supreme Court indicated that the publication could continue.
Ellsberg and Russo were charged with a string of crimes (theft, conspiracy, espionage). 115 years in prison were at stake. But the jury never reached an agreement on a verdict, and Judge William Matthew Byrne declared a mistrial in 1973, severely criticizing the government’s attitude.
Among other things, he learned that by order of the White House, the psychiatrist’s office that treated Ellsberg was robbed and evidence of illegal wiretapping was found. Official recordings recorded in the Oval Room revealed that Nixon arranged for his advisers to ruin the leaker’s reputation. “You have to stop it no matter what,” they said.
In addition, Nixon ordered the creation of a unit, which they called “the plumbers”, to develop a whole series of clandestine initiatives to repair the mess. These “plumbers” are the ones who illegally raided the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, which is what led to the demise of President Nixon.
“When I copied the Pentagon papers, in 1969, I had every reason to believe that I would spend the rest of my life behind bars,” he wrote in his farewell email in March. “It was a fate I would have gladly accepted if it meant hastening the end of the war, unlikely as that seemed,” he added.
