The Pentagon
Arlington County, Virginia
The Pentagon, pictured in January 2008
Shown on District of Columbia map
Type	Headquarters
Coordinates	38°52′15.56″N 77°3′21.46″W / 38.8709889°N 77.0559611°W / 38.8709889; -77.0559611Coordinates: 38°52′15.56″N 77°3′21.46″W / 38.8709889°N 77.0559611°W / 38.8709889; -77.0559611
Built	September 11, 1941 – January 15, 1943
Built by	John McShain, Inc.
Height	Five floors above ground and two floors below the ground (estimated)
In use	1943–present
Current condition	In Service
Current owner	United States Department of Defense
Controlled by	U.S. Secretary of Defense

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.

Designed by the American architect George Bergstrom (1876–1955), and built by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, general contractor John McShain, the building was dedicated on January 15, 1943, after ground was broken for construction on September 11, 1941. General Brehon Somervell provided the major motive power behind the project;^[1] Colonel Leslie Groves was responsible for overseeing the project for the Army.

The Pentagon is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m²), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m²) are used as offices.^[2][3] Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees^[3] and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 mi (28.2 km)^[3] of corridors. The Pentagon includes a five-acre (20,000 m²) central plaza, which is shaped like a pentagon and informally known as "ground zero", a nickname originating during the Cold War and based on the presumption that the Soviet Union would target one or more nuclear missiles at this central location in the outbreak of a nuclear war.^[4]

On September 11, 2001, exactly 60 years after the building's groundbreaking, hijacked American Airlines Flight 77—a Boeing 757-223—was crashed into the western side of the Pentagon, killing 189 people including five hijackers, 59 others aboard the plane, and 125 working in the building.^[5]

History[link]

Construction[link]

1945 map of the Pentagon road network, including present-day State Route 27 and part of the Shirley Highway, as well as the Main Navy and Munitions Buildings near the Lincoln Memorial

The United States Department of War was headquartered in the Greggory Building, a temporary structure erected during World War I along Constitution Avenue on the National Mall. The War Department, which was a civilian agency created to administer the U.S. Army, was spread out in additional temporary buildings on National Mall, as well as dozens of other buildings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In the late 1930s a new War Department Building was constructed at 21st and C Streets in Foggy Bottom but, upon completion, the new building did not solve the department's space problem and ended up being used by the Department of State.^[6] When World War II broke out in Europe, the War Department rapidly expanded with anticipation of being drawn into the conflict. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson found the situation unacceptable, with the Munitions Building overcrowded and the department spread out.^[7][8]

Stimson told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1941 that the War Department needed additional space. On July 17, 1941, a congressional hearing took place, organized by Virginia congressman Clifton Woodrum, regarding proposals for new War Department buildings. Woodrum pressed Brigadier General Eugene Reybold, who was representing the War Department at the hearing, for an "overall solution" to the department's "space problem" rather than building yet more temporary buildings. Reybold agreed to report back to the congressman within five days. The War Department called upon its construction chief, General Brehon Somervell, to come up with a plan.^[9]

Government officials agreed that the War Department building should be constructed across the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia. Requirements for the new building were that it be no more than four stories tall, and that it use a minimal amount of steel. The requirements meant that, instead of rising vertically, the building would be sprawling over a large area. Possible sites for the building included Arlington Farm, adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, and the obsolete Washington Hoover Airport site.^[10]

The site originally chosen was Arlington Farms which had a roughly pentagonal shape, so the building was planned accordingly as an irregular pentagon.^[11] Concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ended up selecting the Hoover Airport site instead.^[12] The building retained its pentagonal layout because a major redesign at that stage would have been costly, and Roosevelt liked the design. Freed of the constraints of the asymmetric Arlington Farms site, it was modified into a regular pentagon.^[13][14]

Southwest view of the Pentagon with the Potomac River and Washington Monument in background (1998)

On July 28 Congress authorized funding for a new Department of War building in Arlington, which would house the entire department under one roof,^[15] and President Roosevelt officially approved of the Hoover Airport site on September 2.^[16] While the project went through the approval process in late July 1941, Somervell selected the contractors, including John McShain, Inc. of Philadelphia, which had built Washington National Airport in Arlington, the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, along with Wise Contracting Company, Inc. and Doyle and Russell, both from Virginia.^[17] In addition to the Hoover Airport site and other government-owned land, construction of the Pentagon required an additional 287 acres (1.16 km²), which were acquired at a cost of $2.2 million.^[18] The Hell's Bottom neighborhood, a slum with numerous pawnshops, factories, approximately 150 homes, and other buildings around Columbia Pike, was also cleared to make way for the Pentagon.^[19] Later 300 acres (1.2 km²) of land were transferred to Arlington National Cemetery and to Fort Myer, leaving 280 acres (1.1 km²) for the Pentagon.^[18]

Northwest exposure of the Pentagon's construction underway, July 1, 1942

Contracts totaling $31,100,000 were finalized with McShain and the other contractors on September 11, and ground was broken for the Pentagon the same day.^[20] Among the design requirements, Somervell required the structural design to accommodate floor loads of up to 150 pounds per square inch, which was done in case the building became a records storage facility at some time after the end of the current war.^[16] A minimal amount of steel was used as it was in short supply during World War II. Instead, the Pentagon was built as a reinforced concrete structure, using 680,000 tons of sand dredged from the Potomac River, and a lagoon was created beneath the Pentagon's river entrance.^[21] To minimize steel, concrete ramps were built rather than installing elevators.^[22][23] Indiana limestone was used for the building's facade.^[24]

Architectural and structural design work for the Pentagon proceeded simultaneously with construction, with initial drawings provided in early October 1941, and most of the design work completed by June 1, 1942. At times the construction work got ahead of the design, with different materials used than specified in the plans. Pressure to speed up design and construction intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, with Somervell demanding that 1,000,000 sq ft (9.3 ha) of space at the Pentagon be available for occupation by April 1, 1942.^[25] David J. Witmer replaced Bergstrom as chief architect on April 11 after Bergstorm resigned due to charges, unrelated to the Pentagon project, of improper conduct while he was president of the American Institute of Architects.^[26]

Construction of the Pentagon was done during segregation in the United States. This had structural consequences to the design of the building. Under the supervision of colonel Leslie Groves, the decision to have separate eating and lavatory accommodations for whites and blacks was made and carried out. The dining areas for blacks were put in the basement and on each floor there were double toilet facilities separated by gender and race. These measures of segregation were said to have been done in compliance with the state of Virginia’s racial laws. The Pentagon as a result has double the standard amount of toilet facilities that would be needed for a building of its size.^[27][28]

President Roosevelt had made an order ending such racial discrimination in the U.S. military in June 1941. When the President visited the Pentagon before its dedication he questioned Groves regarding the number of washrooms and ordered him to remove the “Whites Only” signs. The Pentagon for a long time was the only building in Virginia where segregation was not allowed.^[28]

The soil conditions of the Pentagon site, located on the Potomac River floodplain, presented challenges to engineers, as did the varying elevations across the site, which ranged from 10–40 ft (3.0–12 m) above sea level. Two retaining walls were built to compensate for the elevation variations, and cast-in-place (Franki) piles were used to deal with the soil conditions.^[29] Construction of the Pentagon was completed in approximately 16 months at a total cost of $83 million. The building is 77 feet (23 m) tall, and each of the five sides of the building is 921 feet (281 m) long.^[30]

Protests[link]

Military police keep back Vietnam War protesters during their sit-in on October 21, 1969, at the mall entrance to the Pentagon

The Pentagon became a spot for protests against the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. A group of 2,500 women, organized by Women Strike for Peace, demonstrated outside of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's office at the Pentagon on February 15, 1967.^[31] In May 1967, a group of 20 demonstrators held a sit-in outside the Joint Chiefs of Staff's office, which lasted four days before they were arrested.^[32] In one of the better known incidents, on October 21, 1967, some 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department (the "March on the Pentagon"), where they were confronted by some 2,500 armed soldiers. During the protest, a famous picture was taken, where George Harris placed carnations into the soldiers' gun barrels.^[33] On May 19, 1972, the American radicals known as the Weather Underground Organization successfully planted and detonated a bomb in a fourth-floor women's restroom in the Pentagon. They announced it was in retaliation for the Nixon administration's bombing attacks on Hanoi during the final stages of the Vietnam War.^[34]

On March 17, 2007, 4,000 to 15,000 people (estimates vary significantly) protested against the Iraq War.^[35] The protesters marched from the Lincoln Memorial, down Washington Boulevard to the Pentagon’s north parking lot.

Renovation[link]

From 1998 to 2011, the Pentagon underwent a major renovation, known as the Pentagon Renovation Program. This program, completed in June, 2011, involved the complete gutting and reconstruction of the entire building in phases to bring the building up to modern standards, removing asbestos, improving security, providing greater efficiency for Pentagon tenants, and sealing of all office windows.^[36]

As originally built, most Pentagon office space consisted of open bays which spanned an entire ring. These offices used cross-ventilation from operable windows instead of air conditioning for cooling. Gradually, bays were subdivided into private offices with many using window air conditioning units. With renovations now complete, the new space includes a return to open office bays, a new Universal Space Plan of standardized office furniture and partitions developed by Studios Architecture.^[37]

September 11 attacks[link]

Security camera footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon^[38]

9/11 anniversary illumination

On September 11, 2001, the 60th anniversary of The Pentagon's groundbreaking, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed into the Western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 64 people on the airliner were killed as were 125 people who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse.^[39] At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and several offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore the area hit, on the side of the Heliport Entrance facade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed.^[40][41][42]

It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches thick and 2,500 pounds each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out.^[40]

Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project", and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by September 11, 2002.^[43][44][45]

When the damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt, a small indoor memorial and chapel were included, located at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a memorial of 184 beams of light shone up from the center courtyard of the Pentagon, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, an American flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and the side of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After the attacks, plans were developed for an outdoor memorial, with construction underway in 2006. The Pentagon Memorial, which consists of a 2 acres (8,100 m²) park with 184 benches, according to the victims' ages, from 3 to 71, was opened to the public on September 11, 2008.^[46][47][48]

Shootings[link]

On March 4, 2010 at 6:40 pm, two police officers working for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency were shot at near an entrance to the Pentagon and fired back with their pistols at the suspect. The officers were slightly injured but were treated in a hospital and released. The suspect, identified as John Patrick Bedell (aged 36) died at the hospital. No clear motive was established.^[49]

On October 19, 2010 shortly before 5 am, an unidentified gunman shot at the south side of the building, shattering, but not penetrating windows on the third and fourth floors. The offices behind those windows were vacant due to renovations. The Pentagon Reservation was locked down as authorities swept the area for evidence, and the building was reopened about 5:40 am. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is leading the investigation into the incident.^[50]

Earthquake[link]

On August 23, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Mineral, Virginia shook the Pentagon.^[51] The building suffered minor damage, with flooding from broken pipes.

Layout[link]

Aerial view of the Pentagon

The Pentagon building spans 28.7 acres (116,000 m²), and includes an additional 5.1 acres (21,000 m²) as a central courtyard.^[52] It has five façades, listed starting with the north side and moving clockwise: the Mall Terrace Entrance façade, the River Terrace Entrance façade, the Concourse Entrance (or Metro Station) façade, the South Parking Entrance façade, and the Heliport façade.^[42] On the north side of the building, the Mall Entrance, which also features a portico, leads out to a 600 ft (180 m) long terrace that is used for ceremonies. The River Entrance, which features a portico projecting out 20 ft (6.1 m), is located on the northeast side, overlooking the lagoon and facing Washington. A stepped terrace on the River Entrance leads down to the lagoon; and a landing dock was used until the late 1960s to ferry personnel between the Bolling Air Force Base and the Pentagon.^[52] The main entrance for visitors is located on the southeast side, where the Pentagon Metro station and the bus station are located. There is also a concourse on the southeast side of the second floor of the building, which contains a mini-shopping mall. The Pentagon's south parking lot is located on the southwest side of the Pentagon, and the west side of the Pentagon faces Washington Boulevard. The building contains no marble because Italy, which was the main source of marble during World War II, was an enemy country to the US^[53] until September 1943, several months after completion.

The Pentagon compared to several large structures

  The Pentagon, 1414 ft or 431 m

  RMS Queen Mary 2, 1132 ft or 345 m

  USS Enterprise (CVN-65), 1122 ft or 342 m

  Hindenburg, 804 ft or 245 m

  Yamato, 863 ft or 263 m

  Empire State Building, 1453 ft or 443 m

  Knock Nevis tanker, 1503 ft or 458 m

The concentric rings are designated from the center out as "A" through "E" (with in addition "F" and "G" in the basement). "E" Ring offices are the only ones with outside views and are generally occupied by senior officials. Office numbers go clockwise around each of the rings, and have two parts: a nearest-corridor number (1 to 10) followed by a bay number (00 to 99), so office numbers range from 100 to 1099. These corridors radiate out from the central courtyard, with corridor 1 beginning with the Concourse's south end. Each numbered radial corridor intersects with the corresponding numbered group of offices (for example, corridor 5 divides the 500 series office block). There are a number of historical displays in the building, particularly in the "A" and "E" rings.

Floors in The Pentagon are lettered "B" for Basement and "M" for Mezzanine, both of which are below ground level. The concourse is located on the second floor at the metro entrance. Above ground floors are numbered 1 to 5. Room numbers are given as the floor, concentric ring, and office number (which is in turn the nearest corridor number followed by the bay number). Thus, office 2B315 is on the second floor, B ring, and nearest to corridor 3 (between corridors 2 and 3). One way to get to this office would be to go to the second floor, get to the A (innermost) ring, go to and take corridor 3, and then turn left on ring B to get to bay 15.^[54]

It is possible for a person to walk between two points in the Pentagon in less than seven minutes.^[55]

Just south of the Pentagon are Pentagon City and Crystal City, extensive shopping and high-density residential districts in Arlington. Arlington National Cemetery is to the north. The Washington Metro Pentagon station is also located at the Pentagon, on the Blue and Yellow Lines. The Pentagon is surrounded by the relatively complex Pentagon road network.^[56]

The United States Postal Service has established six ZIP Codes for The Pentagon, to which the place name “Washington, D.C.” is assigned, even though The Pentagon is actually located in Virginia. The Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the four service branches each have their own designated ZIP Code.^[57]

The Pentagon, south parking lot side

Security[link]

The Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) is a United States government agency composed of sworn federal police officers, the United States Pentagon Police and civilian CBRN technicians, and non-sworn civilian anti-terrorism investigative and physical security personnel, and is responsible for the protection of the Pentagon. The Department of Defense created the PFPA after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The new agency absorbed the Defense Protective Service (DPS) and assumed its role of providing basic law enforcement and security for the Pentagon and Department of Defense sites in the 280 acre (1.1 km²) "Pentagon Reservation" and greater National Capital Region (NCR). PFPA was also charged with providing force protection against the full spectrum of potential threats through robust prevention, preparedness, detection, and response measures. The United States Pentagon Police is the primary federal law enforcement arm of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.

Services[link]

The Pentagon has over 20 of its own fast food operations, including Subway, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Panda Express, Starbucks, Sbarro, among others.^[58] A multibranded KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell restaurant opened in 2003, when renovations to the food court were completed.^[59] Food services are managed by the Navy Exchange. The Center Courtyard Cafe reopened in the spring of 2008,^[60] replacing the "Ground Zero Cafe" snack bar that was previously there.

The Pentagon Athletic Center (PAC), a fitness center for military and civilian staff, opened in 2004^[61] adjacent to the north side of the Pentagon, replacing the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club (POAC) which had operated for 55 years in a structure between Route 110 and the parade grounds. Each year, the Pentagon grounds are a major focus for hosting the Marine Corps Marathon and the Army Ten-Miler running events.

There is a Meditation and Prayer Room in the Pentagon, which was dedicated on December 14, 1970, by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird.^[62]

In conjunction with the 1976 American Bicentennial,^[63] the Pentagon began offering guided tours to the general public. Tours were suspended after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but are currently available on a pre-arranged basis to the general public.^[64]

Other uses[link]

The Pentagon and its parking lots are used as a staging area for a number of large events, including the Army Ten-Miler, the Marine Corps Marathon and Rolling Thunder motorcycle ride. In 2005 the Department of Defense organized the "America Supports Your Freedom Walk" in the parking lot, an event held to show solidarity with the departments current and former employees.^[65]

The roads of the Pentagon Reservation are routinely used daily by thousands of commuters between Arlington, Virginia and Washington, DC.

See also[link]

• Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe—Structure with similar purposes for NATO.

Military of the United States portal

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Pentagon

• The Pentagon website
• Popular Mechanics, March 1943, "Army's Giant Five-by-Five" one of earliest World War Two articles on the Pentagon
• Pentagon Force Protection Agency
• Pentagon Renovation Program
• The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases
• Navigating the Pentagon
• The Pentagon: Relocation Information and The Pentagon Q&A
• Great Buildings Online – The Pentagon
• How the Pentagon Got Its Shape – The Washington Post, May 26, 2007
• A House Divided: Pentagon Trivia Fact retrieved June 13, 2008.
  • Satellite image from Mapygon
• The Construction of The Pentagon—Somervell's Folly

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Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg in 2006
Born	(1931-04-07) April 7, 1931 (age 81) Chicago, Illinois
Education	Harvard University (PhD) Cambridge University
Employer	RAND Corporation
Known for	Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg paradox
Children	Robert, Mary (1st marriage) Michael Ellsberg (2nd marriage)
Website
"Daniel Ellsberg's Website"

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, (born April 7, 1931) is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006. He is also known for a fundamental contribution to decision theory, the Ellsberg paradox.

Early life and career[link]

Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931, the son of Adele D. (née Charsky) and Harry Ellsberg.^[1] His parents were Jewish and had converted to Christian Science, and he was raised in a Christian Science atmosphere. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Cranbrook Kingswood School. His mother had wanted her son to be a concert pianist but he stopped playing in July 1946 when she was killed in a car crash, together with his sister, after his father fell asleep at the wheel of the car in which the family was traveling and crashed into a culvert wall.^[2]

Ellsberg attended Harvard University on a scholarship, graduating with A.B. in economics in 1952, summa cum laude. He then studied at the University of Cambridge on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and one year later he returned to Harvard for graduate school. In 1954, he left Harvard for the U.S. Marine Corps.^[3] He served as a platoon leader and company commander in the Marine 2nd Infantry Division, and after satisfying his two year Reserve Officer commitment was discharged from the Corps as a first lieutenant in 1957.^[3] He rejoined Harvard as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows for two years, until 1959. He then began as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he concentrated on nuclear strategy.^[3]

He completed his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1962.^[3] Ellsberg's dissertation in the field of decision theory was based on a set of experiments that showed that, in general, decisions under conditions of uncertainty or ambiguity may not be consistent with well defined subjective probabilities. This finding, now known as the Ellsberg paradox,^[4] formed the basis of a large literature that has developed since the 1980s, including such approaches as Choquet expected utility and info-gap decision theory.

Ellsberg served in the Pentagon from August 1964^[5] under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (and, in fact, was on duty on the evening of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, reporting the incident to McNamara). He then served for two years in Vietnam working for General Edward Lansdale as a civilian in the State Department.

After serving in Vietnam, Ellsberg resumed working at RAND. 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.^[6] These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. It was because Ellsberg held an extremely high-level security clearance and desired to create a further synthesis from this research effort that he was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents.^[7]

Disaffection with Vietnam War[link]

By 1969 Ellsberg began attending anti-war events while still remaining in his position at RAND. He experienced an epiphany attending a War Resisters League conference at Haverford College in August 1969, listening to a speech given by a draft resister named Randy Kehler, who said he was "very excited" that he would soon be able to join his friends in prison.^[8]

Ellsberg described his reaction:

And he said this very calmly. I hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to continue and get larger. Thousands of young men were dying each year. I left the auditorium and found a deserted men's room. I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. The only time in my life I've reacted to something like that.^[8]

Decades later, reflecting on Kehler's decision, Ellsberg said;

Randy Kehler never thought his going to prison would end the war. If I hadn't met Randy Kehler it wouldn't have occurred to me to copy [the Pentagon Papers]. His actions spoke to me as no mere words would have done. He put the right question in my mind at the right time.^[8]

The Pentagon Papers[link]

In late 1969—with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague Anthony Russo and the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy—Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers. They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, as an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance".^[9]

Shortly after Ellsberg copied the documents, he resolved to meet some of the people who had influenced both his change of heart on the war and his decision to act. One of them was Randy Kehler. Another was the poet Gary Snyder, whom he'd met in Kyoto in 1960, and with whom he'd argued about U.S. foreign policy; Ellsberg was finally prepared to concede that Gary Snyder had been right, about both the situation and the need for action against it.^[10]

Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators — among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war — to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on the record before the Senate. Ellsberg told U.S. Senators that they should be prepared to go to jail in order to end the Vietnam War.^[11]

Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Ellsberg also shared the documents with New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan under a pledge of confidentiality. Sheehan broke his promise to Ellsberg, and built a scoop around what he'd received both directly from Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.^[12]

On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the Times published the first of nine excerpts and commentaries on the 7,000 page collection. For 15 days, the Times was prevented from publishing its articles by court order requested by the Nixon administration. Meanwhile, Ellsberg leaked the documents to The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.^[13][14] On June 30, the Supreme Court ordered publication of the Times to resume freely (New York Times Co. v. United States). Although the Times did not reveal Ellsberg as their source, he went into hiding for 13 days afterwards, suspecting that the evidence would point to him as the source of the unauthorized release of the study.^[15]

On June 29, 1971, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska entered 4,100 pages of the Papers into the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds—pages which he had received from Ellsberg via Ben Bagdikian—then an editor at the Washington Post. These portions of the Papers were subsequently published by Beacon Press.^[16]

Fallout[link]

The release of these papers was politically embarrassing not only to those involved in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but also to the incumbent Nixon administration. Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14, 1972, shows H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Nixon:

"Rumsfeld was making this point this morning... To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing.... It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong."^[17]

John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, almost immediately issued a telegram to the Times ordering that it halt publication. The Times refused, and the government brought suit against it.

Although the Times eventually won the trial before the Supreme Court, prior to that, an appellate court ordered that the Times temporarily halt further publication. This was the first time the federal government was able to restrain the publication of a major newspaper since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War. Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to seventeen other newspapers in rapid succession.^[18] The right of the press to publish the papers was upheld in New York Times Co. v. United States. The Supreme Court ruling has been called one of the "modern pillars" of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.^[19]

As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally.^[20] Aides Egil Krogh and David Young, under the supervision of John Ehrlichman, created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.^{[citation needed]}

Fielding break-in[link]

In August 1971, Krogh and Young met with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Liddy recommended a "covert operation" to get a "mother lode" of information about Ellsberg's mental state in order to discredit him. Krogh and Young sent a memo to Ehrlichman seeking his approval for a "covert operation [to] be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg’s psychiatrist." Ehrlichman approved under the condition that it be "done under your assurance that it is not traceable."^[21]

On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Lewis Fielding's office – titled "Hunt/Liddy Special Project No. 1" in Ehrlichman's notes — was carried out by Hunt, Liddy and CIA officers Eugenio Martinez, Felipe de Diego and Bernard Barker. The "Plumbers" failed to find Ellsberg's file. Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding's home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg and Russo's trial in April 1973.

Trial and mistrial[link]

On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,^[6] Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:

I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.^[6]

He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.

On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.^[22][23]

On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense.^[24] During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.^[23]

Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had lost records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."^[23]

As a result of the revelation of the Fielding break-in during the trial, John Ehrlichman, H R Haldeman, Richard Kleindienst and John Dean were forced out of office on April 30, and all would later be convicted of crimes related to the Watergate scandal. Egil Krogh later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and White House counsel Charles Colson pleaded no contest for obstruction of justice in the burglary. "The court concluded that Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman had violated the Halperins' Fourth Amendment rights, but not the terms of Title III. The Halperins were awarded $1 in nominal damages in August 1977."^[25][26]

Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.^[27][28] In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity".^[29]

Later activism and views[link]

Video interview with Daniel Ellsberg at Roskilde Universitets Center, Denmark, 2004-10-26. (Unedited, the first 10 seconds are black.)

Reflecting on his time in government, Ellsberg has said the following, based on his extensive access to classified material:

The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t stay in the government at that level, or you’re made aware of it, a week. ... The fact is Presidents rarely say the whole truth—essentially, never say the whole truth—of what they expect and what they’re doing and what they believe and why they’re doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters.^[30]

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events. During the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he warned of a possible "Tonkin Gulf scenario" that could be used to justify going to war, and called on government "insiders" to go public with information to counter the Bush administration's pro-war propaganda campaign, praising Scott Ritter for his efforts in that regard.^[31] He later provoked criticism from the Bush administration for supporting British GCHQ translator Katharine Gun and calling on others to leak any papers that reveal government deception about the invasion.^[32] Ellsberg also testified at the 2004 conscientious objector hearing of Camilo Mejia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.^[32]

He is a member of Campaign for Peace and Democracy.

Ellsberg was arrested, in November 2005, for violating a county ordinance for trespassing while protesting against George W. Bush's conduct of the Iraq War.^[33]

In September 2006, Ellsberg wrote in Harper's Magazine that he hoped someone would leak information about a potential U.S. invasion of Iran before the invasion happened, to stop the war.^[34] Subsequently, information on the acceleration of U.S.-sponsored anti-government activity in Iran was leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh. In November 2007, Ellsberg was interviewed by Brad Friedman on his Bradblog in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. "I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers", Ellsberg told Friedman.

In a speech on March 30, 2008 in San Francisco's Unitarian Universalist church, Ellsberg observed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't really have the authority to declare impeachment "off the table". The oath of office taken by members of congress requires them to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". He also argued that under the U.S. Constitution, treaties, including the United Nations Charter, become the supreme law of the land that neither the states, the president, nor the congress have the power to break. For example, if the Congress votes to authorize an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, that authorization wouldn't make the attack legal. A president citing the authorization as just cause could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and it is the duty of congress to impeach the offending president regardless of any agreements that may have been made.^[35]

On June 17, 2010, Ellsberg was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on the Democracy Now! program regarding the parallels between his actions in releasing the Pentagon Papers and those of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was arrested by the U.S. Military in Kuwait after allegedly providing to the WikiLeaks web site a classified video showing U.S. military helicopter gunships strafing and killing Iraqis alleged to be civilians, including two Reuters journalists. Manning reportedly claims to have provided WikiLeaks with secret videos of additional massacres of alleged civilians in Afghanistan, as well as 260,000 classified State Department cables. Ellsberg has said that he fears for Manning and for Julian Assange, as he feared for himself after the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers. WikiLeaks initially said it had not received the cables, but did plan to post the video of an attack that may have killed 140 Afghan civilians in the village of Garani. Ellsberg expressed hope that either Assange or President Obama would post the video, and expressed his strong support for Assange and Manning, whom he called "two new heroes of mine".^[36][37]

On December 9, 2010, Ellsberg appeared on the Colbert Report where he commented that the existence of WikiLeaks helps to build a better government.^[38]

On March 21, 2011, Ellsberg along with 35 other demonstrators were arrested during a demonstration outside the Marine Corps Base Quantico, in protest of Manning's current detention at Marine Corps Brig, Quantico.^[39]

On November 16, 2011 Ellsberg camped on the UC Berkeley Sproul Plaza as part of an effort to support the Occupy Cal movement.^[40]

Awards and honors[link]

Ellsberg is the recipient of the Inaugural Ron Ridenhour Courage Prize, a prize established by The Nation Institute and The Fertel Foundation.^[41] In 1978 he accepted the Gandhi Peace Award from Promoting Enduring Peace. On September 28, 2006 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.^[42]

Personal life[link]

Ellsberg has been married twice. His first marriage, to Carol Cummings, the daughter of a Marine Corps Brigadier General, lasted 13 years before ending in divorce (at her request, as he has stated in his memoirs titled "Secrets"). Two children (Robert and Mary) were born of this marriage. In 1970, he married Patricia Marx, whom he had dated earlier; they have one son, Michael Ellsberg, who is an author and journalist.^[43][44]

Books[link]

• Daniel Ellsberg. 2002. "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers." New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03030-9
• Daniel Ellsberg. 2001. 978-0-8153-4022-5 "Risk Ambiguity
• "Dissent: Voices of Conscience"-(publishers catalog P.1) by Ann Wright, Susan Dixon (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, January 2008 – Publisher: Koa Books
• "Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental" by Marc S. Gerstein, Michael Ellsberg, (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, June 2008 – Publisher: Sterling Publishing
• "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State" By Norman Solomon, Foreword by Daniel Ellsberg, September 2007 – Publisher: Polipoint Press
• "Protest and Survive" by E. Thompson, Dan Smith, Introduction by Daniel Ellsberg, 1981 – Publisher: Monthly Review Press

Movies[link]

• The Pentagon Papers (2003) is a historical film directed by Rod Holcomb about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg's involvement in their publication. The movie, in which he is portrayed by James Spader, documents Ellsberg's life, starting with his work for RAND Corp and ending with the day on which the judge declared his espionage trial a mistrial.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) documentary by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.^[45]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Jack Anderson
• Thomas Andrews Drake

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Official name of the Pentagon Papers: "History of United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy, 1945–1967".

• The New York Times version of Pentagon Papers: June 13, 14, 15 and July 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 1971. Late in this year this edited version was published in the book "The Pentagon Papers as published by N.Y. Times", Bantam Books, Toronto – New York – London, 1971.

• "United States-Vietnam Relations 1945–67, Department of Defense Study", 12 vols., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1971. This is the official and complete edition of the Pentagon Papers, published by the Government after the release by the press.

• UNGAR, Sanford, "The Papers and the Papers. An account of the legal and political battle over the Pentagon Papers", E.P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1972.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daniel Ellsberg

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Daniel Ellsberg

• Official website
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, official website of the documentary film (Nominated for Academy Award 2010 – Best Documentary Feature)
• Zinn Education Project: A Teaching Guide for the Most Dangerous Man in America
• Daniel Ellsberg at IMDB
• The Truth-Telling Project – Project formed by Ellsberg for whistleblowers
• Travels of John Interview – More Dangerous Than Julian Assange?
• Reason Magazine Interview – June 1973
• "Top Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers" a resource site that supports a currently-playing docu-drama about the Pentagon Papers. The site provides historical context, time lines, bibliographical resources, information on discussions with current journalists, and helpful links.
• Democracy Now! Special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press: Mike Gravel and Daniel Ellsberg (audio/video and transcript)
• 2006 Right Livelihood Award Recipient Daniel Ellsberg
• Daniel Ellsberg/William Kristol debate Iraq war in 2003 on C-Span
• NNDB page on Daniel Ellsberg
• Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks Iraq War Docs (YouTube)
• Daniel Ellsberg: "Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist" – video report by Democracy Now!