Daniel Ellsberg on leaking the Pentagon Papers and helping to end the Vietnam War

    This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official history of the Vietnam War that was leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. The Pentagon Papers revealed that multiple U.S. presidents and top government officials had been lying about the Vietnam War to the American people and to Congress. To mark the anniversary of America’s most famous exposé, we are rebroadcasting my 2015 Vermont Conversation interview with Daniel Ellsberg about war, conscience, and whistleblowers. Ellsberg is a former Marine who served in Vietnam and was an advisor on the Vietnam War to Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Lyndon Johnson. When the New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers on June 13, 1971, the Nixon administration frantically tried to stop the publication. The Times appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the newspaper could publish the documents. The revelations about official secrets and lies led to a collapse of American support for the war. For leaking the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was charged with theft, conspiracy and violations of the Espionage Act, but his case was declared a mistrial when evidence surfaced about the government-ordered wiretappings of his phone and break-ins of his psychiatrist’s office. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger referred to Ellsberg as “the most dangerous man in America.” But many view Daniel Ellsberg as a hero who risked his career, and even his personal freedom, to help expose the deception of his own government in carrying out the Vietnam War. "Daniel Ellsberg deserves only praise for his heroic conduct," declared Floyd Abrams, an attorney who represented the New York Times in the case. Ellsberg is now 90 years old and remains active in the peace movement. Ellsberg and I spoke in 2015 at a conference in Washington, D.C., about the lessons of the Vietnam War. The legendary whistleblower told me that he would like to be remembered with this simple epitaph: “He was a member of the anti-nuclear and anti-Vietnam protest movements.”