Archiv: Pentagon Papers


15.03.2026 - 22:30 [ Common Dreams ]

As US Attacks Iran, Daniel Ellsberg Speaks to Us Once More

(March 2, 2026)

“Don’t delegate conscience,” Daniel Ellsberg wrote.

“Most people conform and accept,” he noted. “A minority protest, withdraw. A tiny minority resist, take risks.”

“The temptation is strong to obey powerful men passively and unquestioningly,” Ellsberg observed in 1971, the year he turned himself in for giving the Pentagon Papers to the press and faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

He instantly became a pariah among colleagues who’d been his friends at the RAND Corporation, a think tank serving the US war machine. He’d been working there as a strategic analyst before and after a stint at the Defense Department.

“After I released the papers,” he vividly remembered, “some people were afraid to write to me . . . to shake hands with me . . . to receive a phone call from me.” Three years later, his takeaway was: “Accept the risks of freedom and commitment, instead of the risks of obedience and conformity.”

05.07.2023 - 17:07 [ Scheerpost.com ]

Patrick Lawrence: Ellsberg and ‘The Process of My Awakening’

Imagine reading Kerouac, training to a place he writes of, and there meeting one of the novelist’s close friends. In the accounts I have read, the Vietnam War was a major topic of conversation. Ellsberg was still a dedicated supporter; Snyder, who by this time had the sturdy composure of the monks under whom he studied, talked of it from the other side. They liked one another, a little improbably from our perspective. They had lunch together the next day, continuing the conversation begun the previous evening.

A decade later Ellsberg identified the encounter with Snyder with his “awakening.” And so the defense technocrat drove a long way, we have to assume, to thank the poet. There is something in this to love.

22.06.2023 - 20:45 [ New York Times ]

Nuclear Secrets, a Compost Heap and the Lost Documents Daniel Ellsberg Never Leaked

(April 20, 2023)

Daniel Ellsberg — who died Friday at 92 — fully expected to spend the rest of his life in prison after he leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1971. The documents revealed decades of government lies and mistakes about the war in Vietnam, and eventually, they helped end it.

The charges against Ellsberg were ultimately dismissed, but he had a secret: The Pentagon Papers were only supposed to be the beginning. Alongside the documents about Vietnam, he’d copied thousands of pages of other documents about America’s nuclear war planning that he believed would shock the public conscience. But a series of mishaps kept those documents from ever coming to light.

19.06.2023 - 12:24 [ Glenn Greenwald / Nitter ]

It‘s bizarre to watch establishment venues celebrate Daniel Ellsberg while spewing contempt for every cause and value he stood for — from defending Assange and Snowden as heroes to warning Americans that the US Security State always lies us into wars:

19.06.2023 - 11:59 [ New York Times ]

Why the Pentagon Papers Leaker Tried to Get Prosecuted Near His Life’s End

Citing the chilling effect that the creeping expansion of the law has on what information the public gets in a democracy, he expressed disappointment that the Biden administration had not dropped the Espionage Act charges against Mr. Assange.

“It’s clearly overly broad and does not just apply to people like me who had a security clearance. Assange is now feeling the weight of that,” he said, adding: “For 50 years I’ve been saying to journalists, ‘This thing was a loaded weapon looking at you.’”

14.06.2023 - 10:26 [ Daniel Ellsberg / Nitter ]

To @POTUS and @TheJusticeDept: Stop the extradition of Assange. I am as indictable as he is on the exact same charges. I will plead „not guilty“ on grounds of your blatantly unconstitutional use of the Espionage Act. Let‘s take this to the Supreme Court.

(06.12.2022)

10.06.2023 - 18:02 [ Truthout.org ]

Trump Will Face Espionage Act Charges in Mar-a-Lago Documents Case, Report Says

(June 8, 2023)

The Espionage Act is frequently used to target and prosecute federal whistleblowers. Many progressives have called for reforms to the law due to its use against figures like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, who exposed atrocities committed by the U.S. military and civil liberties violations by the U.S. government.

08.03.2023 - 16:04 [ New York Daily News / Nitter ]

„Pentagon Papers“ leaker Daniel Ellsberg, 91, is dying from cancer. Doctors have given him three to six months to live.

(03.03.2023)

08.03.2023 - 16:02 [ Daniel Ellsberg / Nitter ]

To @POTUS and @TheJusticeDept: Stop the extradition of Assange. I am as indictable as he is on the exact same charges. I will plead „not guilty“ on grounds of your blatantly unconstitutional use of the Espionage Act. Let‘s take this to the Supreme Court.

(06.12.2022)

19.12.2022 - 18:31 [ Daniel Ellsberg / Nitter ]

To @POTUS and @TheJusticeDept: Stop the extradition of Assange. I am as indictable as he is on the exact same charges. I will plead „not guilty“ on grounds of your blatantly unconstitutional use of the Espionage Act. Let‘s take this to the Supreme Court.

(06.12.2022)

18.12.2022 - 05:35 [ Defend Assange Campaign / Nitter ]

Pentagon Papers‘ Daniel Ellsberg: „Stop the extradition of Assange. I am as indictable as he is on the exact same charges. I will plead „not guilty“ on grounds of your blatantly unconstitutional use of the Espionage Act. Let‘s take this to the Supreme Court“ #FreeAssangeNOW

13.12.2022 - 18:54 [ Daniel Ellsberg / Nitter ]

To @POTUS and @TheJusticeDept: Stop the extradition of Assange. I am as indictable as he is on the exact same charges. I will plead „not guilty“ on grounds of your blatantly unconstitutional use of the Espionage Act. Let‘s take this to the Supreme Court.

(06.12.2022)

06.12.2022 - 03:35 [ WikiLeaks / Nitter ]

New: The Pentagon Papers‘ Daniel Ellsberg reveals he received a „backup“ of the „Chelsea Manning information“ prior to publication: „I am as indictable as Julian Assange.. I‘d be happy to take that one to the Supreme Court“ [18:00]

27.11.2022 - 15:57 [ Freedom of the Press Foundation ]

The extradition of Julian Assange must be condemned by all who believe in press freedom1

(June 17, 2022)

There is some historical irony in the fact that this extradition announcement falls during the anniversary of the Pentagon Papers trial, which began with the Times publication of stories based on the legendary leak on June 13, 1971, and continued through the seminal Supreme Court opinion rejecting prior restraint on June 30, 1971.

In the months and years following that debacle, whistleblower (and FPF co-founder) Daniel Ellsberg became the first journalistic source to be charged under the Espionage Act. What many do not know is that the Nixon administration attempted to prosecute Times reporter Neil Sheehan for receiving the Pentagon Papers as well — under a very similar legal theory the Justice Department is using against Assange.

01.07.2021 - 17:53 [ Consortium News ]

Revealing the Pentagon Papers in Congress — 8: Why Gravel Did It

This is Part 8 of Consortium News’ multi-part series on the 50th Anniversary of the late Sen. Mike Gravel obtaining the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg and the consequences Gravel faced for revealing the top secret documents in Congress, just hours before the Supreme Court decided the case on June 30, 1971, a half century ago today.

19.09.2020 - 10:48 [ Global Research ]

Good Ellsberg, Bad Assange: At Extradition Trial, Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Dismantles False Narrative

16.9.2020 Opponents of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange often hold up Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg as an example of someone who was responsible for a good leak. They insist WikiLeaks is not like the Pentagon Papers because supposedly Assange was reckless with sensitive documents.

28.02.2020 - 23:33 [ Andrew P. Napolitano / Antiwar.com ]

Punishing the Free Speech of Julian Assange

WikiLeaks revealed – in partnership with major international publications, including the two involved in the Pentagon Papers Case – videos of American troops murdering civilians and celebrating the murders (a war crime) as well as documentary proof of American complicity in torture (also a war crime).

15.12.2019 - 20:15 [ Outline ]

We Have Just Been Handed the Pentagon Papers of Our Generation

Earlier this week, we learned that our leaders also knew the war was a fiasco, doomed to fail. But, unlike many of us, they chose not to speak out. Instead, as The Washington Post revealed in a series of stunning articles based on what it has labeled the Afghanistan Papers—a trove of previously classified documents that it is calling a “secret history of the war”—dozens of consecutive generals and senior US officials had repeatedly lied about, omitted, and obfuscated the facts to give an illusion of progress in that war.

27.05.2019 - 20:11 [ Democracy Now ]

Daniel Ellsberg: Espionage Charges Against Assange Are Most Significant Attack on Press in Decades

As the Justice Department charges WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, we speak to Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, he was charged with violating the Espionage Act for leaking a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications. At the time, Ellsberg faced over 100 years in prison. He tells Democracy Now!, “There hasn’t actually been such a significant attack on the freedom of the press 
 since my case in 1971.”

18.04.2019 - 17:51 [ WikiLeaks ‏/ Twitter ]

Alan Dershowitz on Pentagon Papers in 1971 and WikiLeaks releases in 2010. „… there is no constitutional difference between WikiLeaks and the New York Times.“