Daniel Ellsberg's Website

“Going Underground,” From “Secrets”

From Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, Chapter 29: Going Underground

[Previous chapter on Daniel’s relations with Neil Sheehan]

On Monday evening, June 14, 1971, we went to a dinner parry at the house of Peter Edelman and Marian Wright Edelman. It was jammed with people sitting on the floor and sofas with plates in their laps, and there were two topics of conversation: What the Pentagon Papers were revealing, and who had given them to the New York Times. Patricia and I listened without contributing much. Jim Vorenberg was eating, on the floor, in one corner of the room. Our eyes didn’t meet.

Tuesday morning the third installment appeared. Attorney General John Mitchell sent a letter to the New York Times asking it to suspend publication and to hand over its copy of the study. The Times declined, and that afternoon the Justice Department filed a demand, the first in our country’s history, for an injunction in federal district court in New York. The judge granted a temporary restraining order while he considered the injunction. For the first time since the Revolution, the presses of an American newspaper were Stopped from printing a scheduled story by federal court order. The First Amendment, saying “Congress shall pass no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” had always been held above all to forbid “prior restraint” of newspaper or book publication by federal or state government, including courts and the executive branch. The Nixon Justice Department was making a pioneering experiment, asking federal courts to violate or ignore the Constitution or in effect to abrogate the First Amendment. It was the boldest assertion during the cold war that “national security” overrode the constitutional guarantees of the Bill of Rights.

January 12, 2021 by Michael Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg’s Relations with Neil Sheehan, as Told in “Secrets”

From Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, Chapter 26: To the New York Times

[Here’s a link directly to the most relevant section below]

On February 28, 1971, I was in Washington on a Sunday night to take part in a panel the next day at the National War College. I had dinner with Dick Barnet, Mark Raskin, and Ralph Stavins of the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank. They were working on a book analyzing U.S. involvement in Vietnam in relation to war crimes. As background for their research I had actually given them parts of the Pentagon study, including my own draft of the 1961 decisions, and they had followed my efforts to get it out through Congress.

When they pressed me now on how I was doing, I told them about striking out with Fulbright and McGovern. They said that they thought it was very important that I get it out. They wanted their book out by June, and they were counting on being able to refer to the documentation in the study.

They told me I ought to take it to the New York Times, the same thing Fulbright and McGovern had mentioned. I had always thought of this choice as a backup, though it seemed unlikely that a newspaper would do more than publish some excerpts. But at this point it was looking as though Congress was closed off. Among newspapers, the Times was the obvious choice. It was the only journal of record, the only paper that printed long accounts, such as speeches and press conferences, in their entirety. No other paper would do that. Only the Times might publish the entire study, and it had the prestige to carry it through.

They asked me if I knew anybody at the Times. I told them I knew Neil Sheehan from Vietnam. I didn’t mention that I had also given him top secret leaks in 1968. For that very reason I had tended to stay away from him in recent years. But now all the signs seemed to be pointing me in his direction.

January 12, 2021 by Michael Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg’s Efforts to Release the Pentagon Papers to Congress, as Told in “Secrets”

From Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, Chapter 25: Congress

In late December 1970 I had what turned out to be my next-to-last talk with Senator Fulbright, in his office, about what to do with the Pentagon Papers. He now had nearly everything I had, including NSSM-r and my notes on the Ponturo study of Ton kin Gulf. Norvil Jones had made it clear that there would be no public hearings on the war of the sort he’d envisioned back in May, during the Cambodian invasion. The public concern just wasn’t there anymore, nor was there support for such hearings on the Foreign Relations Committee itself. The war had scarcely been an issue in the November congressional elections. Fulbright himself didn’t disagree with my own urgent concern, after the failed Son Tay raid to rescue American prisoners of war, and the renewed bombing of North Vietnam, that the war would soon be getting larger, but he didn’t see much possibility of mobilizing opposition in Congress until that happened.

As for the Pentagon Papers, Fulbright seemed sympathetic to my desire to find some way, apart from immediate hearings, to bring them to bear on the continuing war. He mentioned a number of ways in which it would still be possible to get the papers out with relatively little damage to me, though that wasn’t my major concern. He raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird for the papers. He didn’t have to limit himself, he said, to requesting them from Laird, as he had done several times so far. He could demand them.

At this point Norvil revealed what I take it had been his real worry from the beginning. He thought that the committee, even if it got the papers from Laird by request or subpoena, couldn’t put them out to the public on its own, without administration approval. Even more, the chairman couldn’t do it on his own because he and the committee were supposed to safeguard for the Senate as a whole classified material, which they got all the time and for which they had storage facilities. If Fulbright leaked the papers or went ahead and distributed or published them, he could be charged with having jeopardized the ability to get classified material from the executive, not only for the committee or himself but for the entire Senate. Jones also mentioned that the committee members, and in particular its staff members, were often accused of leaking. It was easy for me to guess that Jones himself didn’t want to be accused of this. He had often shown great concern that I not reveal to anyone that I had given the papers to Fulbright.

Fulbright told me that he had asked Laird several times now for the study, but it seemed unlikely that he was going to get it. It was becoming clear to me that Jones was not going to encourage Fulbright to stick his neck out by releasing or using what I’d given him. Fulbright himself said to me, “Isn’t it after all only history?” I said, well, yes, but it seemed to me quite important history. It was also a history that wasn’t over yet. He said, “But does it really matter? Is there much in there that we don’t know?” He asked if I would give him an example of a revelation that would make a big splash.

January 12, 2021 by Michael Ellsberg

Ellsberg’s Archive at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst

Daniel Ellsberg’s papers have been acquired by the University of Massachusetts – Amherst and will be managed by its Special Collections and University Archives at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

A week of activities in October 2019 marked the official launch of the archive and provided opportunities to engage the UMass community on subjects of special interest. Here are links to media coverage and videos:

—A video of Ellsberg’s Boston conversation with journalist Charles Sennott about whistleblowing, co-sponsored by UMass – Amherst and WGBH. (10/23/19)

—An article in the Boston Globe about the archive acquisition. (9/24/19)

—A video of Ellsberg discussing the collection. (9/24/19)

—A video of his talk at the Friends of the Libraries’ 21st Annual Fall Reception: “The Ethics and Risks of Threatening Omnicide.” (10/31/19)

—Two articles, here and here, about archive launch week events. (9/25/19 and 9/20/19)

—An interview with past@present, the UMass History Department’s blog. (10/28/19)

Ellsberg has also joined the University of Massachusetts – Amherst community as a Distinguished Researcher at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library and as a Distinguished Research Fellow at the university’s Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). Here are videos from two presentations at PERI in October 2019:

—A panel discussion with Ellsberg, Gar Alperovitz and Janaki Tschanner following a showing of “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” a documentary film about Ellsberg. (10/28/19)

—A lecture applying economic insights to the psychology of war planning: “The Dollar Auction, Unendable Wars, and Gambling with Catastrophe.” (10/29/19)

Ellsberg comments, “I am grateful that my papers will be going to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an institution that is dedicated to the values of openness, equity and social justice. This collection, which represents my life’s work, will now be available to scholars seeking understanding of some of the most consequential events of the past half century.”

April 12, 2020 by Michael Ellsberg

Soviet American News January 1990 “There is a Solution”

https://archive.org/details/danielellsbergth00rayc

Interview with Daniel Ellsberg published in January 1990 edition of The Soviet American News. On Nuclear Weapons, the potential for peace, and perestroika.

August 14, 2018 by Misha Steier

Daniel Ellsberg interviewed by New York Magazine

Andrew Rice interviewed Daniel Ellsberg for a profile in New York Magazine.

Here are some passages:

“Keeping secrets was my career,” Daniel Ellsberg says. “I didn’t lose the aptitude for that when I put out the Pentagon Papers.” This might come as a shock, considering that the former Defense Department analyst is best known for leaking classified information nearly half a century ago, thus bringing about a landmark legal precedent in favor of press freedom and, indirectly, hastening the end of both the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration. But for many years, even as Ellsberg beat prosecution, became a peace activist, and wrote an autobiography titled Secrets, he still had something remarkable left to disclose….

The Doomsday Machine is being published at an alarmingly relevant moment, as North Korea is seeking the capability to target the United States with nuclear missiles, and an unpredictable president, Donald Trump, has countered with threats of “fire and fury.” Experts on North Korea say that the risk of a nuclear exchange is higher than it has been in recent memory. Ellsberg, as one of the few living members of the generation of theorists who devised our nuclear strike doctrines, has been grappling with such possibilities for much of his life. “It is kind of astonishing,” he says, “that people will put up with a non-zero chance of this happening.”….“It’s like living on Vesuvius — that’s what humans do,” Ellsberg said. “That’s why I think we’re likely to go.”…. Continue Reading

November 29, 2017 by Michael Ellsberg

The Secret History of the Bomb: Daniel Ellsberg interviewed in Esquire

Rick Perlstein interviewed Daniel Ellsberg in Esquire. Here are some highlights pertaining to Kim Jong Un and nuclear weapons:

Ellsberg: The war games we run against North Korea, which have been leaked, are always described as involving “decapitation.” And there have been news stories about the South Koreans developing a special “decapitation team.” Now, what can we expect? First, we can be virtually certain that Kim Jong Un has made provisions so that it would not paralyze his system just to kill him. That’s true of every nuclear state. But now let me add something that’s much less obvious. I’m pretty convinced—this is speculation, but it’s based on history and experience—that Kim has, in fact, also made provisions for massive retaliation if he is killed. A “dead hand” system….

The American people are being led to believe that they have to fear a surprise attack from Kim, which is crazy. It would be an act of self- annihilation if he did that. What he wants is a deterrent. Trump is threatening to do something crazy. Now, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that it’s totally incredible. Both sides are cultivating an image of impulsivity and backing it up with a readiness to use massive force. It really does have a chance of blowing up, and that’s the theme of my book. We should not be talking about or threatening or preparing to go to war against Kim Jong Un any more than he should be preparing to go to war against us. What does that leave? Negotiation.

November 23, 2017 by Michael Ellsberg

The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis – Quemoy

[Referenced in Chapter 2 of The Doomsday Machine]

The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis: A Documented History
by Morton Halperin, 1966

From Daniel Ellsberg:

I consulted with my friend Morton Halperin when he began the research for this study, I believe, in 1963. Having participated myself in the Cuban Missile Crisis a few months earlier, I spent most of 1963 and the first half of 1964 doing research on nuclear crises at the RAND corporation in Santa Monica, California, for which Halperin was a consultant. When I joined the Defense Department as a full time employee in August 1964, as special assistant to the assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs (ISA), my purpose was really to pursue my investigation of this subject, in the hopes of reducing the chance of nuclear war in the future. When Halperin completed his study at the end of 1966, my draft notes on the offshore islands crisis of 1963 were a product of my consultation with Halperin in February 1963. In the mid 60s the crisis over Quemoy and Matsu, Offshore Islands in the Taiwan Strait, which is variously described as the Offshore Islands (OSI) Crisis, the Quemoy Crisis, or in the title of Halperin’s study “The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis,” was not generally perceived as having been a nuclear crisis, despite the fears expressed publicly by politicians and commentators that it could possibly have erupted into nuclear war. What Halperin discovered in his classified (Top Secret) study, was that the nuclear dimensions of this confrontation were taken very seriously by the Eisenhower administration, and in particular the military advisers and commanders involved. Indeed, Christian Herder, who succeeded John Foster Dulles as secretary of state, was reported to have said later, “The Cuban Missile Crisis is often described as the first serious nuclear crisis, those of us who lived through the Quemoy crisis definitely regarded that as the first serious nuclear crisis.” The reasons for this will be obvious every few pages of this study.

November 23, 2017 by Ellsberg.Net