Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg    (whistleblower)
Born	April 7, 1931 Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater	Harvard University, Cambridge University
Children	• Robert • Mary • Michael Ellsberg
Spouse	Carol Cummings
Exposed	The Pentagon Papers
Member of	Belmarsh Tribunal, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, RAND/Notable Participants, WhoWhatWhy

Daniel Ellsberg is 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

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 Defense Secretary 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.

 

Legal Case

Name	Plaintiff(s)	Defendant(s)	Start	End	Description
Hedges v. Obama	Daniel Ellsberg Chris Hedges Noam Chomsky Jenifer Bolen Kai Wargalla Birgitta Jónsdóttir Alexa O'Brien	Barack Obama Leon Panetta John McCain John Boehner Harry Reid Eric Cantor Nancy Pelosi US Department of Defense Mitch McConnell United States of America	13 January 2012	28 April 2014	The plaintiffs challenged the 2012 NDAA contending that indefinite detention on "suspicion of providing substantial support" to groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban was so vague as to allow unconstitutional, indefinite detention of civilians based on vague allegations. The Court of Appeals struck down an initial agreement, and the US Supreme Court concurred, arguing that the plaintiffs could not prove they would be affected by the law, so had no standing to contest it.

 

A Document by Daniel Ellsberg

Title	Document type	Publication date	Subject(s)	Description
Document:Ex-Intelligence Officers, Others See Plusses in WikiLeaks Disclosures	statement	7 December 2010	Wikileaks	A statement of support for Wikileaks. "The big question is not whether Americans can 'handle the truth.' We believe they can..."

 

Quotes by Daniel Ellsberg

Page	Quote	Date	Source
Corporate media	“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel [Edmonds]? The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the [corporate] media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told “don’t touch this...””	2014	Global Research
Operation Gladio/B	“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel [Edmonds]? The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the [corporate] media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told "don’t touch this..."”

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Munich Security Conference/2019	15 February 2019	17 February 2019	Munich Bavaria Germany	The 55th Munich Security Conference, which included "A Spreading Plague" aimed at "identifying gaps and making recommendations to improve the global system for responding to deliberate, high consequence biological events."

 

Event Witnessed

Event	Description
Truth And Reconciliation Committee on the Assassinations Of The 1960s	A call for a Truth And Reconciliation Committee

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:How to identify CIA limited hangout operation	article	18 June 2013	Webster Tarpley	Citing the Pentagon Papers as an example, Tarpley suggests that both Wikileaks and the Snowden affair are limited hangout operations by the CIA.
Document:The "Pentagon Papers" leak was a CIA op	blog post	7 June 2006	Ashton Gray
Document:Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 11	blog post	17 September 2020	Craig Murray	Dan Ellsberg, doyen of whistleblowers, had at first been inclined to believe the US Government on Iraqi WMD, just as he had first been inclined to believe the government on deaths caused by Wikileaks releases. In both cases it had proved they were making it up.

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