The pair photocopied them at night, one page at a time over a period of months.Įllsberg showed the material to a few senators who had been critics of the war. McNamara toward the end of that period.Įllsberg and a Rand colleague, Anthony Russo, had access to a copy of the 7,000-pages of classified documents and historical narrative kept at Rand. The study covered the years from 1945 to 1968, and had first been commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert S. Since 1969 he had been one of dozens of analysts studying and writing about the decisions behind the escalating U.S. A "hawk" before going to Vietnam in 1965, Ellsberg had since turned against the war and the official justifications given for it. And it would provoke a response from President Richard Nixon that led directly to the scandals that ended his presidency.īy the time he got to the Pentagon, Ellsberg, then 40, was a Marine Corps veteran with a Harvard doctorate who had worked for the Defense and State departments and the Rand Corporation. It would also prompt a landmark Supreme Court decision on freedom of the press. Known as the "Pentagon Papers," Ellsberg's mammoth disclosure would help to end the longest U.S. history in a way few private citizens ever have.Īs a military analyst working on a Pentagon project in 1971, Ellsberg chose to release to the public an extensive, documentary record of U.S. He will be dearly missed by all of us," according to the statementĮllsberg never ran for office and only occasionally appeared on TV. "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. 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." In March, Ellsberg posted on his Facebook page that doctors diagnosed him with inoperable pancreatic cancer on Feb. The cause, his family said in a statement, was pancreatic cancer. actions during the Vietnam war, died Friday at this home in Kensington, Calif. In this Jfile photo, Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense Department researcher who leaked top-secret Pentagon papers to the press, speaks to an unofficial House panel investigating the significance of the war documents.ĭaniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers that detailed U.S.
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