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Pentagon Papers at 50: Daniel Ellsberg on Risking Life in Jail to Expose U.S. Lies About Vietnam War — Transcript

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0:00this is democracy now democracynow.org
0:02the quarantine report
0:04i'm amy goodman 50 years ago this week
0:07the new york times began publishing
0:09excerpts of the pentagon papers
0:127 000 pages of top secret documents
0:15outlining the secret history of the u.s
0:17war in vietnam the leak would end up
0:20helping take down
0:21president nixon help end the war in
0:24vietnam
0:25and lead to a major victory for press
0:28freedom
0:28the times expose was based on documents
0:31secretly photocopied
0:33by daniel ellsberg and anthony russo
0:36while they worked as pentagon
0:37consultants at the rand corporation
0:40ellsberg had been deeply involved in the
0:43vietnam war
0:44first traveling to vietnam as a pentagon
0:46analyst in 1964.
0:49but after turning against the war
0:51ellsberg decided to risk his life in
0:54prison to reveal the truth about vietnam
0:57the two men were charged with violating
0:59the espionage act of 1917
1:02as well as theft and conspiracy
1:05this is an excerpt from the 2009
1:08documentary
1:08the most dangerous man in america it
1:11begins
1:12with dan ellsberg it was the evening of
1:15october 1st
1:161969 when i first smuggled several
1:19hundred pages of top secret documents
1:22out of my safe at the rammed corporation
1:27the study contained 47 volumes 7
1:30000 pages
1:34my plan was to xerox the study and
1:36reveal the secret history of the vietnam
1:38war to the american people
1:41the fbi was trying to find out who gave
1:44the new york times a copy of the
1:46pentagon's
1:47secret study powell like like a
1:49thunderclap
1:50you get the new york times publishing
1:52the pentagon papers
1:53and the country is panicking
1:56this is an attack on the whole integrity
1:58of government if whole
2:00file cabinets can be stolen and then
2:02made available to the press you can't
2:04have orderly government anymore
2:06a name has now come out as the possible
2:08source of the times pentagon documents
2:11it is that of daniel ellsberg the top
2:13policy analyst for the defense and state
2:15department
2:16i think it is time in this country to
2:18quit
2:19making national heroes out of those
2:22who steal secrets and publish them in
2:24the newspaper
2:27in the first year of marriage we're
2:29talking about him going to prison for
2:30the rest of his life
2:39we felt so strongly that we were dealing
2:41with a national security crisis
2:43henry kissinger said that dr daniel
2:46ellsberg was the most dangerous man in
2:47america
2:48and he had to be stopped an excerpt from
2:51the most dangerous man
2:52in america daniel ellsberg and the
2:54pentagon papers
2:56the documentary was co-directed by
2:58judith erlick and rick goldsmith
3:00the nixon administration would go on to
3:02take extraordinary
3:04measures to silence and punish ellsberg
3:07including breaking into his
3:08psychiatrist's office
3:10but the government's misconduct led to
3:12charges
3:13against him and anthony russo being
3:16dismissed
3:17to mark the 50th anniversary of the
3:19publication of the pentagon papers
3:21we're joined now by daniel ellsberg who
3:23turned 90 years
3:25old in april over the past five
3:28decades ellsberg has been a leading
3:30critic of u.s militarism
3:32and u.s nuclear weapons policy as well
3:35as a
3:36prominent advocate for other
3:37whistleblowers
3:39oh and he hasn't stopped sharing
3:41government secrets
3:42we're going to talk about one of those
3:44secrets that he said
3:46he's willing to be prosecuted for that
3:48he just
3:49leaked but right now we go to berkeley
3:52california
3:53to the home of daniel ellsberg dan
3:55welcome back to democracy now this is
3:58such a
3:58significant milestone it was half a
4:01century ago
4:01sunday that the new york times started
4:05publishing
4:06the pentagon papers talk about how they
4:10got a hold of those papers
4:12and the decision you made especially for
4:14young people
4:15at what point you went from you know
4:18working for the pentagon going to
4:20vietnam being a part of the war machine
4:23and then turning around and saying i
4:25will spend the rest of my life in jail i
4:28have to
4:29to stop this
4:32well the first trip i made to vietnam
4:34amy was actually in 1961
4:37on a research project looking at limited
4:39war
4:40research and development it was clear in
4:42one week they're talking
4:44to counterpart military officers who
4:47were advising
4:48vietnamese and who were looking at the
4:49war closely and reading their reports
4:51that it became very clear that the war
4:54under a corrupt tyrannical dictator
4:58no denziem who had a pretense
5:02of elections in which he tended to win
5:04102 percent of the voters in
5:06some districts was failing
5:10uh against a group that was led by
5:13communists who had evicted the french
5:15from the northern part of the country
5:17some years earlier and had that cachet
5:19of liberators of the country
5:21from occupation and we had the us had
5:24artificially carved out
5:26a part of that country as an
5:28anti-communist country which we
5:29supported very lavishly
5:31uh as if for example britain had
5:34supported the confederacy very lavishly
5:37in our civil war and in fact in surprise
5:39supplied
5:40all of their uniforms their bullets
5:43their rations
5:43for everything which is what we did for
5:45the puppet army in south vietnam
5:47it was very clear then that that was an
5:49extremely unpromising
5:51place to plant the flag against
5:54communism or
5:55for imperialism in that country as in
5:58as uh imprudent as it had been for the
6:00french
6:01to try to reconquer that country and we
6:04had supported the french from 45
6:06on until 54 and then took over the
6:08burden
6:09of suppressing that country and
6:11effectively occupying it ourselves
6:13so i was very surprised in 61 when i
6:16learned that president
6:18uh kennedy had taken the alleged advice
6:22of the chairman of the joint chiefs of
6:24staff maxwell taylor and walt rostau a
6:27major policy figure that all that was
6:29needed
6:30was uh advisers that he didn't need to
6:32send combat troops uh and that
6:34progress would be made if we simply went
6:36through the geneva conference
6:38of 1954 ceiling of advisors to about 600
6:42went up to a thousand and maybe several
6:45thousand in the end there were twelve
6:46thousand advisors there
6:48but that that was enough to keep that
6:50country
6:51in our control essentially that turned
6:54out to be a lie
6:55when i read the pentagon papers years
6:57later that was in 61
7:00i was reading those documents in 67 and
7:02i was particularly interested to
7:04see what their advice had actually been
7:07and what it turned out was that the
7:08president
7:09had been lying and that there and they
7:12backed him up in lying
7:13and that their advice actually was that
7:15advisers would not
7:17be enough to stem the nationalist forces
7:20we were fighting
7:21and that the only possibility was to
7:23send troops
7:24immediately and indeed that those didn't
7:27have a lot of promise that we would do
7:28better than the french
7:29but nothing less would do the job in
7:32other words
7:33i'd been lied to the whole country had
7:35been lied to the congress had been lied
7:36to
7:37as to what the situation was well that
7:39was arc typical
7:41of the entire 30-year conflict which was
7:43really from 1945 to 75
7:46the recent burns novik
7:49piece series about the war starts with
7:52the statement
7:53that was begun by decent men with honest
7:56motives
7:57that was not true for a single day of
7:59that war
8:00however decent they may have been in
8:02other contexts these uh
8:04smart men generally as smart as we have
8:06today
8:07managed to lie to the public every day
8:09of the war and
8:10in bad faith actually pursue a war that
8:13they saw had very little likelihood
8:15of helping anyone but leading just to an
8:18escalating stalemate which is what
8:20actually happened
8:21for the next 20 years of the war or so
8:23from 60 15 years
8:25from 61 to 75. so when i became aware
8:29that that was repeating itself that
8:30history
8:31which in the pentagon papers ends in 68
8:35with president johnson's departure
8:39and now we were in 69 and i was made
8:41aware that president nixon was following
8:43exactly in the footsteps of his
8:45predecessors
8:46while telling the public in his election
8:48campaign and otherwise
8:49he was getting out and in fact he
8:52planned to get the us
8:53troops out u.s troops out slowly
8:57throughout his first term uh hopefully
9:00sooner but if necessary as it turned out
9:03to be
9:04over a matter of years and to pursue the
9:06war indefinitely through his
9:08second term in the air backing up
9:11president tu the
9:12puppet leader former general in vietnam
9:16and his army the army that we supported
9:19and managed
9:20with u.s air power and he virtually
9:22achieved that
9:23he almost did actually by 73
9:26he did get the american troops out
9:28people thought the war is over
9:30but from the point of view of bombing
9:32generating refugees
9:34torture uh deaths in vietnam
9:37it was going on as before and would have
9:39done so
9:40right through 1977 and later
9:43had not the president been forced to
9:45resign for acts he took
9:48in the process of assuring his policy
9:51and ensuring his staying in office
9:53namely he kept his own policy of
9:56threatening
9:56nuclear war even and threatening major
10:00escalations such as mining iphone and
10:02mining hanoi and bombing hanoi which he
10:05did do
10:06and going into the so-called sanctuaries
10:08other countries
10:09other sovereign countries like like laos
10:12and cambodia all of which
10:14he did do he did everything but the
10:15actual carrying out of nuclear weapons
10:17which he discussed
10:18at the highest levels and uh telling the
10:21people that he was getting out of the
10:22war
10:23all this time another big lie as we
10:25started with
10:26and i put out in 1969 to the senate
10:31uh and then to the newspapers in 71
10:34evidence that five
10:35previous four previous presidents had
10:38made similar
10:39lies and escalations and threats and had
10:42the war had gone on they preferred a
10:45bloody
10:46escalating stalemate to the humiliation
10:49of ending the war the only way it could
10:51be ended which was
10:53granting the southern communist-led
10:55forces
10:56a role in the government and stopping
10:58the bombing of the north
10:59but two nixon was so beholden
11:03to president tune win von tube that he
11:06had to keep him in there
11:07even when that was the only thing
11:08dividing us in keeping the war going
11:11in 1971 and 72. we learned much later
11:15the two regarded himself as having
11:17elected
11:18nixon and he was right in doing so
11:22uh in the last days of 1968 nixon's
11:25people
11:25at his orders which we learned many
11:27years later
11:29was telling to hold on don't negotiate
11:32we will give you better terms and indeed
11:34he had in mind giving him better terms
11:36and he did
11:37we'll keep you in power even though this
11:40communists are demanding as a part of
11:41the negotiations
11:43the two personally not be part of the
11:45elevator and that's what we were
11:47fighting for
11:48and that's what tens of thousands of
11:50americans
11:51and millions of vietnamese died to keep
11:54two in power as long as nixon was which
11:57did happen
11:58nixon left before two did and two left
12:01in 75
12:02it would not have happened had not nixon
12:06been faced
12:07with impeachment for the crimes he took
12:09to keep
12:10the war going and keep it hidden crimes
12:13mainly against me
12:14to keep me from putting out new
12:16documents that would incriminate him
12:18like the nuclear threats the other city
12:20was making and in process of that he
12:23burglarized my former psychoanalyst
12:24office
12:25he sent 12 cuban assets of the bay of
12:28pigs
12:28up to incapacitate me totally on the
12:31steps of the capital
12:32on may 3rd he overheard me on legal on
12:36illegal warrantless wiretaps when all
12:39this began to come out
12:40as a result of truth-telling by john
12:43dean to the prosecutors
12:45alex butterfield telling the truth about
12:48the paping of the oval office which is
12:49essential
12:51elliot richardson and ruckel's house
12:53refusing the president's orders to fire
12:55the special prosecutor
12:57filed president special prosecutor
13:00demanding the tapes
13:01the supreme court including three nixon
13:03appointees
13:04ruling unanimously they had to give them
13:06over all these steps were individually
13:09essential to facing the president with
13:12resignation or impeachment and when he
13:15chose resignation
13:16the war became endable that's why that's
13:19why president uh
13:20rather henry kissinger called me the
13:23most dangerous man in america because he
13:25feared
13:26i had documents documents that would
13:29tell the truth
13:30about the lies he and his boss were
13:32telling now
13:33this was even after you'd released
13:37the pentagon papers i want to go back to
13:38that documentary the most dangerous man
13:40in america daniellesberg and the
13:42pentagon papers this excerpt focusing on
13:44how the nixon white house
13:46responded to your leak it begins with
13:49john dean who served as white house
13:51counsel to president nixon
13:53i think that there is probably some good
13:55justification
13:57for the strong feelings nixon had he
13:59would make a decision
14:00in the national security council and the
14:02next day read it on the front page of
14:04the new york times or some other
14:05newspaper
14:06this makes it virtually impossible to
14:09govern
14:10just because some guy is going to be a
14:12martyr we can't be in a position
14:14of allowing the fellow to get away with
14:16this kind of wholesale thievery or
14:17otherwise it's going to happen all over
14:18the government
14:19i just say that we've got to keep our
14:21eye on the main ball the main balls
14:22ellsberg
14:23we got to get this son of a [ __ ] the
14:26leak of the pentagon papers changed the
14:29nixon white house
14:30it really is what some of us have called
14:32the beginning of the dark period
14:34i mean it was rough and tumble before
14:36but it got down and dirty
14:38so it's really a defining event for the
14:41nixon presidency
14:42and this is when eagle krogue bud kroge
14:45was selected to head up
14:47the so-called plumbers unit i was
14:50summoned to the oval office
14:52by the president john ehrlichman and i
14:54met with him
14:56there was some suspicion that dr
14:58ellsberg had
14:59access to the more recent war plans
15:02that had been developed by the nixon
15:04administration and would be able to
15:06release those documents
15:08i came from that meeting feeling very
15:10strongly that
15:11i was dealing with a national security
15:13crisis and i was to take any means
15:15necessary to respond to it
15:29the president had decided to set up a
15:31special investigations unit
15:34in the white house staff
15:42[Applause]
15:48did daniel ellsberg work alone was he
15:51working with some other people was it
15:52part of a conspiracy
15:54and it was in that context that a
15:56proposal
15:57was made by e howard hunt to get
15:59information that could be used to
16:01discredit dr ellsberg
16:03a covert operation ought to be
16:05undertaken to examine
16:07all of the files still held by dr
16:09ellsberg's psychiatrist
16:10dr lewis fielding this went to john
16:13ehrlichman
16:15underneath that proposal were two lines
16:17approved for the line disapprove of the
16:19line
16:20he wrote his large e after approve
16:23and then put in under your assurance it
16:25is not traceable
16:31and that's an excerpt from the most
16:33dangerous man
16:34in america daniel ellsberg and the
16:36pentagon papers the documentary
16:38co-directed by judith ehrlich and
16:41rick goldsmith also dan the new york
16:44times had a special
16:45section uh called uncovering the secret
16:48history of the vietnam war
16:50on the publication of the papers you
16:53leaked to them they had it yesterday
16:55and among the quotes they highlight
16:57which is
16:58so important is
17:02the contrast of what was being said
17:04publicly
17:05and what was being said privately so you
17:08have the war grows in secret
17:10in 1963 defense secretary robert
17:13mcnamara at a white house news
17:14conference says
17:15we were viewed in great detail the plans
17:18of the south vietnamese and the plans of
17:19our own military advisors for
17:21operations during 1964 we have every
17:24reason to believe
17:26they will be successful but on the same
17:29day december 21
17:311963 mcnamara said in a memo
17:34to president lyndon johnson the
17:36situation is very disturbing
17:38current trends unless reversed in the
17:40next two to three months
17:42will lead to a neutralization at best
17:44more likely a communist controlled state
17:46in 1964 you have johnson saying in a
17:49televised address we still
17:51seek no wider war but in the pentagon
17:54papers
17:55it says on february 1st 1964 the united
17:59states embarked
18:00on a new course of action on that date
18:02under direction of the american military
18:04establishment an elaborate program of
18:06covert military operations against the
18:08state of north vietnam
18:10was set in motion now i want to focus on
18:13your getting the pentagon papers dan
18:15explain what this was this is before
18:18kissinger and nixon were afraid you were
18:20going to have another leak around
18:22nuclear issues about the report
18:25in your safe that only a few people had
18:29and your decision to xerox them
18:32to include your children i think robert
18:35ellsberg your 13 year old child at the
18:37time helped you do this
18:39and why you decided to do this and
18:41include your kids
18:44well the great journalist i f stone
18:47once said all government's official
18:50lie and nothing they say is to be
18:53believed
18:54that doesn't mean that everything they
18:56say is a lie it means that anything they
18:58say
18:59may be a lie and it's never the last
19:02word they are always misleading
19:04one audience or another and you have to
19:07back that up use your common sense back
19:09it up with other sources
19:11nothing illustrates that better in
19:13writing than the pentagon papers but of
19:15course it's still
19:16true today what you're quoting uh
19:19could have been written about
19:20afghanistan and in fact it was when the
19:23washington post got the afghan papers a
19:25couple of years ago
19:27somewhat lower levels they illustrated
19:29that uh the
19:30act almost identical quotes have been
19:32saying about afghans
19:33during the 20-year war that we have so
19:36far
19:37experienced there and it could be
19:39another 20 wars
19:41years even with u.s troops out of the
19:43country as nixon got u.s troops out of
19:45the country
19:46in 73 but planned to continue the war
19:49with air power
19:50and i think also there's a plan right
19:52now to continue the war in afghan
19:54killing afghans creating refugees
19:58indefinitely from bases outside
20:00afghanistan
20:02but again in both cases you have people
20:04speaking quite reasonably and
20:05realistically
20:06inside about the lack of progress while
20:09outside the public is reassured
20:11that tax money can still be given to
20:13congress to be buy
20:14uh beans and bones and boots and troops
20:18for our puppet allies over there
20:20indefinitely
20:21now when i'd learned that uh year by
20:24year in the pentagon 64-65 and i was in
20:27vietnam
20:28from 65 to 67 it was very clear
20:32that these lies were persisting in the
20:34interests
20:35of keeping a war going there was always
20:37an alternative
20:38to getting higher as the joint chiefs
20:40tended to want
20:42with no real prospect of success or
20:44getting out
20:45somehow lowering the cost and the
20:47president chose each time not to do
20:50the latter not to be subject to charges
20:52of losing the war
20:53or ending it but of uh keeping it going
20:56with some promise of winning
20:58a totally illusory promise on the
21:01outside
21:02not confirmed on the inside i saw that
21:05no one
21:06i saw from reading the pentagon papers
21:08that the president
21:09had president after president had gotten
21:12quite realistic reports
21:14from people inside not from everybody
21:16many liars
21:17but a lot that were realistic enough to
21:19let him know that he did have the choice
21:22of getting out in fact he would have had
21:23a lot of support for doing it
21:25but he would have been the one who will
21:27born the brunt of charges that he had
21:29lost the war had he done what the joint
21:30chiefs wanted
21:32which was he knew correctly i think was
21:35very foolish which would have led to
21:37nuclear war with the chinese
21:38in the case of the vietnamese um he
21:41chose not to do that
21:42and chose instead to stalemate keep the
21:45war going
21:46so
21:49i saw then that it no longer paid to be
21:52a president's man giving him the truth
21:54about realities
21:55he had that he knew it's not a matter of
21:58treatment
21:59speaking truth to power power was
22:01getting the truth
22:02and choosing not to be the fall guy for
22:06hojimen city becoming saigon
22:09as eventually didn't happen that wasn't
22:11going to happen under his term
22:13so the only way i could see was having
22:15congress
22:16take steps in the end by the way they
22:18did under the extraordinary
22:20circumstances of
22:21watergate but for years that didn't seem
22:23very promising either
22:25congressman after congressman whom i
22:27showed these realities
22:29chose again to let me put it out
22:31eventually and not to take the risks of
22:33going to prison or
22:34condemnation of putting on i couldn't
22:36get anybody to put them out
22:38finally i mean this is a critical point
22:41dan uh
22:42talk i mean the senators who were known
22:44as the anti-war senators you went to
22:47one after another and while some
22:50apologetic
22:52just said they couldn't do it on their
22:53own well
22:55yes as frequently said just yesterday as
22:58i keep reading these things
23:00i read every other time they didn't
23:02accept the papers
23:04one of them mcgovern even said he
23:06couldn't accept them because they were
23:07illegal
23:09senator mcgovern who ran for president
23:11then that was the opposite of the truth
23:13of what he had actually said to me
23:15each one of the presidents and and
23:17congress persons
23:19fulbright mcgovern later representative
23:22pete mccoskey in the house
23:24senator matthias in the state each of
23:26them anti-war
23:28effective anti-war people within the
23:29congress each
23:31enthusiastically said they would use the
23:33papers
23:34and then and assured me that my name
23:36didn't have to come out and they would
23:38pull the constitution off the wall and
23:40say the speech and
23:41clause here i can't be questioned about
23:44anything i give here we won't have to
23:45give your name
23:46to each i said i prefer not to be named
23:49but that's not a consideration i'm
23:51preferred
23:52ready to go to jail on these things if
23:53there's any reason you have to call me
23:56uh to authenticate how you got the
23:57papers and so forth
23:59each one eventually after thinking about
24:02it
24:02turned back and looking back at it when
24:05neil sheehan from the times told me
24:07you shouldn't put it out in congress the
24:09way i wanted to it should only come out
24:11in the times and he knew we had
24:12some conflict about that i thought it
24:15should come out
24:16in the congress so it could get subpoena
24:17witnesses get people under oath
24:19bring witnesses against documents i
24:21thought it was very much preferable
24:23to it coming out in the newspapers first
24:26he on the other hand kept saying no dan
24:27it's got to come out in the newspapers
24:29and i frankly thought well he's a little
24:31influenced there by getting a pulitzer
24:33prize and so forth i wasn't
24:34i wasn't convinced and he was right
24:37actually
24:39later when the papers did come out both
24:42senator mansfield the majority leader
24:44senator fulbright the foreign affairs
24:47leader chairman
24:48said we now have to have hearings and i
24:50braced for these
24:52didn't happen in fact it was nixon who
24:55wanted hearings
24:56and tried to get congressman a bear to
24:58hold hearing because
25:00for the reason in both sides they did
25:03incriminate mainly democrats nixon
25:05wanted it
25:06even though it also made participants
25:08look bad
25:09the senators didn't want it because we
25:12have so much to talk about in so
25:14little time but i want to get to that
25:15point where you and
25:17tony rousseau your co-conspirator who
25:19was working at the rand corporation
25:21uh said let's do it and you decided to
25:24xerox that
25:267 000 page report how did you do it
25:29um how did you get the papers out and
25:32then
25:32the story of going underground the story
25:35many times but
25:37it involved i asked tony if he knew
25:39someone with a xerox machine
25:40his then woman friend linda sinai now
25:43linda resnick
25:44in california uh played the crucial role
25:47of immediately saying
25:48yes you can use my xerox machine i
25:51charged 10 cents a page
25:53used up all my savings at that time but
25:56i kept that going tony helped me for a
25:58number of nights and i kept on by myself
26:02and at first taking a suitcase or a
26:04briefcase rather
26:05out of this pentagon papers past the
26:07guards
26:08was very nerve-wracking uh all they had
26:11to do was ask to open that briefcase and
26:13i'd be
26:14in the soup uh but eventually god used
26:17to be they're not asking they they then
26:19didn't ask
26:19briefcases very much the current people
26:22i think don't thank me for the fact that
26:24they now do have to open their
26:26briefcases but uh we did get them out
26:29uh xerox all night collate stuff make
26:32several copies of each
26:34bring them back in the morning so that
26:36the jury couldn't be convinced in the
26:38end that wasn't why i did it but
26:40it was no significant uh deprivation of
26:43any
26:44uh owner of such information by our
26:47taking it was only
26:48overnight and i was the only person
26:50authorized to read it at that point
26:52though i was charged with conversion and
26:54theft actually
26:55so that went on for really tony
26:58stayed for seven or eight times then he
27:01was doing other things
27:03and i did it by myself for much of the
27:05next year on and off
27:07because i would always think there's
27:09very little chance this will have any
27:10effect
27:11on the war the uh it ends in 1968
27:14the war uh under nixon has started under
27:1769. i mean the report ended in 68.
27:21at the end of 68 and then under under
27:24johnson
27:25and then nixon was not incriminated
27:27directly at all in fact he's
27:29not mentioned in the eisenhower years a
27:30little oddly
27:32but uh so he was happy to have those out
27:35what he was worried about
27:36was what else i might put out and he had
27:38reason to worry about that
27:40that wasn't just paranoid so that he had
27:42to try to stop me to do it and that took
27:44illegal means in those days so i want to
27:48jump forward to 1973 because then we
27:50have to i want to talk about the new
27:52release
27:53uh that showed that we almost went to
27:55nuclear war in 1958
27:57but um and that was taiwan china
27:59particularly relevant now
28:01as uh biden makes his nato summit
28:05appearance and then goes on to meet with
28:07um putin
28:08but i just wanted to end with the trial
28:11in 1973 of you and tony russo
28:14and how it ended up in a mistrial the
28:16trial that could
28:17lead to you being in prison for life for
28:20treason
28:20as a you know just like if julian
28:22assange came to the united states and
28:24faced a trial
28:25but in the end talk about what happened
28:28what scuttled this
28:29well i was facing a possible 115 years
28:32in prison
28:33assange by the way faces 175
28:36but it comes to about the same thing
28:38less for me now
28:39at this point as i face similar charges
28:42because what i've done in the last month
28:44is exactly as indictable as anything the
28:47obama or trump
28:49or biden administration has indicted for
28:52in the last several months i've put out
28:53information
28:54that was clearly held continually held
28:57from the american people
28:58wrongly at a top secret level or saying
29:01that i've done it i've said here it is
29:03let's test whether criminalizing the
29:06release
29:07of any or all top-secret material or
29:10secret or confidential material
29:12no matter when that's the way the law
29:14the plain law
29:15of the law uh law exists let's test
29:18whether that law is constitutional
29:20in the us of a uh with the first
29:23amendment other countries have the law
29:25including britain they don't have the
29:27first amendment
29:28and by strong means if the supreme court
29:31were the first time
29:33to address this issue it's very hard for
29:35them to find
29:36that broad sweeping word
29:40of the first amendment we're going to
29:42get to that but the trial
29:43how it ended up how it ended up in
29:46america well they ended up
29:47first of all because the
29:50[Music]
29:52gene john dean revealed to the
29:54prosecutors on april 17th
29:57almost the day that the president had
29:58returned to bombing of north vietnam it
30:01sent the order out
30:02he then gets the word that john dean has
30:04revealed to break into my former
30:06psychoanalyst's office and uh obviously
30:09illegal at that time although now after
30:129 11
30:13it might be illegal but then illegal
30:16then word of illegal wiretappings came
30:19out
30:20overhearing of me which they'd been
30:21denying for two years
30:23eventually the word that the president
30:27the judge himself judge matthew byrne
30:29had been offered
30:30during the trial by the president and
30:33then by
30:34john ehrlichman had been offered the
30:36post of the fbi directorship which was
30:38in a
30:39transition state at that point something
30:41he'd wanted all his life
30:43when we learned that afterwards it
30:44really meant i was going to lose
30:47he was not going to get that job if i
30:49was acquitted on 12
30:50felony counts so he would have given
30:52instructions that would have
30:53hung me up for some years to say the
30:55least when that came out we moved for a
30:57mistrial but he turned it down saying
30:59that hadn't influenced him at all
31:01rather foolishly
31:04but the trial went on and uh other
31:07things came out the
31:08illegal wiretapping they couldn't find
31:10the taps
31:12uh the triggers of the illegal
31:13wiretapping of me
31:15because the president had removed them
31:17from
31:18j edgar hoover's private files to white
31:21house files where they couldn't be
31:22gotten so they denied that there were
31:24such
31:24tapes they were afraid correctly that
31:27truman would
31:28hoover would use these illegal acts
31:30ordered by the white house
31:32to blackmail the white house and to let
31:34hoover stay
31:35so when the president when i'm sorry to
31:37keep saying that when the judge
31:39said okay overall pattern of events here
31:43offends
31:43a sense of justice bizarre circumstances
31:48and he dismissed all charges with
31:50prejudice meaning we couldn't be tried
31:52again
31:53that was the first time i think the
31:54federal trial had been
31:56dismissed just before it went to the
31:57jury on such grounds
32:01dan ellsberg pentagon papers
32:03whistleblower extraordinaire
32:05author of the doomsday machine
32:07confessions of nuclear war planner and
32:09secrets in memoir vietnam and the
32:10pentagon papers when we come back
32:12we look at the latest leak that's right
32:16a secret document he exposed showing the
32:18u.s considered attacking china with a
32:20nuclear weapon in 1958
32:22he's willing to go to jail for the
32:24latest leak stay with us
32:33you

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