Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle-blower who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” about the Vietnam War — changing public perceptions of the conflict — died on Friday, his family announced. He was 92.
Ellsberg was a military analyst when he released thousands of documents to US media in 1971 that revealed successive US administrations had lied to the public about the war.
The 7,000 classified pages determined that, contrary to the public assertions of government officials, the conflict was unwinnable.
Photo: AFP
The leak was recounted in the 2017 Hollywood thriller The Post, which detailed the nail-biting behind-the-scenes story of the papers’ publication.
Ellsberg announced in March that doctors had told him on Feb. 17 that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and only about six months to live.
“He was not in pain, and was surrounded by loving family,” his wife and children said in a statement announcing his death.
They highlighted that his last months had been well spent despite his illness.
“He was thrilled to be able to give up the salt-free diet his doctor had him on for five years,” they said.
“Hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppy-seed bagels and lox gave him extra pleasure in these final months,” they said.
The New York Times initially published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers until the administration of then-US president Richard Nixon obtained a court injunction barring the newspaper from continuing to do so on national security grounds. The Washington Post then took up the mantle.
Ellsberg was charged under the US Espionage Act, but the case ended in a mistrial in 1973 after illegal evidence gathering by the government came to light.
Announcing his diagnosis on March 3, Ellsberg reflected on his history-changing actions.
“When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars,” he wrote. “It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed.”
“Yet in the end that action — in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon’s illegal responses — did have an impact on shortening the war,” Ellsberg added.
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