He was 92. The trigger was pancreatic most cancers, his household mentioned.
Ellsberg introduced his prognosis in March, saying on the time that docs had given him three-to-six months to reside and that he had determined to not bear chemotherapy.
He died on Friday at his house in Kensington, California, in keeping with his household.
Considered “the patron saint of whistleblowers” for revealing to The New York Times in 1971 that the US knew the Vietnam struggle was “unwinnable,” Ellsberg spent his life centered on peace and transparency, later co-founding the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an antiwar activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more,” his household mentioned.
“He will be dearly missed by all of us.”
In the late Sixties, Ellsberg was working as a protection analyst for the RAND Corporation when he grew to become disillusioned with US involvement in Vietnam.
As a part of his work with RAND, Ellsberg had entry to categorized paperwork that demonstrated how the US authorities had systemically lied to the general public in regards to the struggle, and Ellsberg felt compelled to disclose the data.
He first approached a number of US senators in hopes that they might enter the papers into public document, however when that wasn’t profitable, he leaked all 7000 pages to The New York Times, which printed them in 1971.
The paperwork revealed damning data in opposition to the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
While officers spoke optimistically in regards to the struggle to the general public and continued to ship troops to Vietnam, they privately knew that the US was dropping, with then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara advising President Lyndon B. Johnson as early as 1967 that American escalation wouldn’t win the struggle and, by some accounts, advocating for withdrawal.
Among different revelations, the report confirmed that President John F. Kennedy had accepted the overthrowing of Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem – whom he and different administrations had beforehand supported – in 1963, in keeping with The New York Times.
In an unprecedented transfer, the Nixon administration barred the Times from persevering with to publish pages of the report after the primary few tales.
Ellsberg then leaked the doc to The Washington Post, which was additionally sued by the federal government. The Supreme Court ultimately dominated in favor of the 2 publications, concluding that the federal government had not made the case for censorship, and full publication of the Pentagon Papers resumed.
Ellsberg admitted to being the whistleblower and confronted 115 years in jail after being charged as a spy below the Espionage Act.
He was ultimately freed after it was revealed that the Nixon administration wiretapped his conversations, leading to a mistrial.
In a letter to his associates that he shared on social media in March, Ellsberg mirrored on his resolution to leak the Pentagon Papers.
“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 (and was).
“Yet in the long run, that motion — in methods I couldn’t have foreseen, resulting from Nixon’s unlawful responses — did have an effect on shortening the struggle.”
The documents also had an impact in other ways.
Along with further stoking the anti-war movement, the disclosures also contributed to a growing distrust of the federal government, a sentiment that would be further encouraged in the 1970s with the Watergate scandal and revelations of abuse by the national security state, such as those captured in the Church Committee report.
Sitting down with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in late March, he expressed, among other things, joy at spending his final days with his family and eating whatever he wanted.
“It’s been an exquisite celebration, it is time to go house and go to mattress,” he said at the time.
Born on April 7, 1931, in Chicago, the Great Depression forced Ellsberg’s family to move to Detroit when he was six years old, according to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A gifted student, he received scholarships to an elite preparatory school and, later, Harvard University.
Following a year of graduate studies in the United Kingdom, he returned to the US to enlist in the Marine Corps to support the US Cold War policy, according to Amherst.
Following his service, Ellsberg returned to Harvard to work on his dissertation in games theory, which led him to join the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, in 1959 to work on nuclear war strategy.
In 1964, he joined the staff of the assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs, according to The New York Times, and worked directly on Vietnam policy.
He turned “from hawk to dove,” the Times wrote, in 1967 when he was in Vietnam as part of the State Department and came to the conclusion that “no change in ways or reallocation of American assets may flip the tide of the struggle”.
Ellsberg returned from Vietnam and rejoined the RAND Corporation after contracting hepatitis, The New York Times reported, but until 1969, he continued to serve as a consultant to the government on the war, during which he had access to the classified documents.
In the over 50 years since the leak, he was a staunch critic of American intervention and nuclear war, conducting lectures, making media appearances and frequently protesting, which have led to arrests.
Ellsberg was among over 100 anti-war demonstrators arrested in front of the White House in 2010 and again in 2011 for rallying in support of Chelsea Manning, a whistleblower who leaked information about the Iraq War to WikiLeaks.
He also openly supported the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last year.
“No organisation actually needs to point out how the sausage is made or laws is made, and so they favor to be the one voice on coverage to the general public,” Ellsberg told NPR.
“The Supreme Court needs to get all of the authority it could from hiding the character of dissension; the small print of arguments that folks have made somehow.”
“It’s an excellent factor that it acquired out. It was essential to be out,” he added, calling such leaks “the lifeline of a republic.”
Ellsberg is survived by his wife, Patricia, his children Robert, Mary and Michael, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
A public memorial, his family said, will be planned in the coming months.
Source: www.9news.com.au
