Ellsberg, Daniel, 1931–2023,
American political activist, b. Chicago, grad. Columbia Univ. (B.S., 1952,
Ph.D., 1959). After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, he worked for the Rand
Corporation (1959–64; 1967–70), conducting studies on defense
policies. Originally a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, he became a committed
opponent of U.S. policy. In 1971 he gave the New York Times
access to a secret history of the Vietnam War, commissioned by the Dept. of
Defense, which revealed that the government had repeatedly misled the
American people about the escalation of the war. The government attempted to
prevent the publication of the report, which became commonly known as the
Pentagon Papers;
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the New York Times Co. v.
United States (1971) that the publication of the papers
was permissible. The government attempted to prosecute Ellsberg for the
release of the report. The charges were dismissed in 1973 when it was
revealed that White House officials had burglarized the offices of
Ellsberg's psychiatrist in an effort to discredit him (see Watergate affair). He discusses the
matter in his Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon
Papers (2002).
See his memoir (2017); biography by T. Wells (2001).
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