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RIP Daniel Ellsberg: “Most Dangerous Man in America” on Leaking Pentagon Papers, Exposing Gov’t Lies — Transcript

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0:00welcome to democracy Now
0:02democracynow.org The War and Peace
0:04report I'm Amy Goodman today we spend
0:07the hour remembering the Life and Legacy
0:10of one of the world's most famous
0:11whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg he died
0:15June 16th at the age of 92 just months
0:18after being diagnosed with pancreatic
0:20cancer his family said he died
0:23peacefully at home in no pain and
0:25released a statement that quote Daniel
0:28was a seeker of Truth and a patriotic
0:31truth teller an anti-war activist a
0:33beloved husband father grandfather and
0:36great-grandfather a dear friend to many
0:38and an inspiration to countless more
0:41unquote his son Robert Ellsberg shared
0:45how his father once said he would want
0:47his gravestone to say he became a part
0:50of the anti-vietnam and anti-nuclear
0:52movement
0:54in 1971 Daniel Ellsberg then a top
0:57military strategist working for the Rand
1:00Corporation risked life in prison by
1:02secretly copying and then leaking 7 000
1:06pages of top secret documents outlining
1:08the secret history of the U.S war in
1:11Vietnam the leak would end up helping
1:13take down President Nixon help end the
1:16war in Vietnam and lead to a major
1:19victory for press Freedom Henry
1:21Kissinger once called Ellsberg the most
1:24dangerous man in America
1:26in 2009 a documentary of the same name
1:29told his story we are going to win
1:39making national heroes out of those who
1:42steal secrets and publish them in the
1:44newspaper
1:50thousands we were killing was
1:52unjustified homicide and I couldn't see
1:55the difference between that and murder
1:57murder had to be stopped this weekend
2:01portions of a highly classified Pentagon
2:03document came the light for all the
2:05world to see brought cries of outrage
2:07from Washington we gotta get this son
2:09yes Kennedy did send then troops in
2:12violation of the Geneva Accord Johnson
2:15did start the build up before he said he
2:17was going to these guys were lying
2:19through their teeth when they were
2:20talking to us and here it is in black
2:22and white there's no way of denying it
2:23the Times building is encircled by armed
2:27guards we are printing tomorrow a top
2:30secret government documents the name has
2:33now come out as the possible source of
2:35the times Pentagon documents is out of
2:38Daniel Ellsberg the top policy analyst
2:40for the defense and state department I'm
2:42prepared to answer to all the
2:44consequences of these decisions Henry
2:47Kissinger said that Daniel Ellsberg was
2:49the most dangerous man in America and he
2:51had to be stopped the study was 47
2:54volumes 7 000 Pages it would take me
2:58months of Xerox we've dropped another
3:00200 000 tons of bombs on end of China
3:03that's 10 hiroshimas one Hiroshima a
3:06week what has remain significant about
3:10the release of the Pentagon papers is
3:13the decision by a public official to
3:17give priority to conscience as compared
3:21to Career Daniel Ellsberg whatever his
3:23intentions gave Aid and comfort to the
3:26enemy
3:33it was a crime from the start carried
3:36out by four presidents and now a fifth
3:38president was doing the same I'm not
3:40going to be part of this system of lying
3:42anymore
3:49pleasantly we were on the wrong side
3:54we were the wrong side
3:58that's the trailer for the most
4:00dangerous men in America Daniel Ellsberg
4:03and the Pentagon papers it was directed
4:06by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
4:09the Nixon Administration went to
4:11extraordinary lengths to silence and
4:13punish Ellsberg including breaking into
4:16his psychiatrist's office he was charged
4:18with violating the Espionage Act and
4:21faced over 100 years in jail but the
4:24government's misconduct led to charges
4:26against him and Anthony Russo being
4:28dismissed Ellsberg said he'd been
4:31inspired to leak the documents by
4:33anti-war protesters in fact shortly
4:36before the New York Times first reported
4:38on the Pentagon papers Ellsberg took
4:41part in an anti-war protest in
4:43Washington D.C on May Day 1971 as part
4:47of an affinity group with Noam Chomsky
4:50and Howard Zinn
4:51over the past 50 years Daniel Ellsberg
4:55remained a leading critic of U.S
4:57militarism and U.S nuclear weapons
4:59policy as well as a prominent advocate
5:02for other whistleblowers
5:04he wrote A Memoir Secrets A Memoir of
5:08Vietnam and the Pentagon papers as well
5:10as the 2017 book the Doomsday Machine
5:14Confessions of a nuclear war planner
5:17today we'll feature our interviews with
5:19Ellsberg over the years about Vietnam as
5:22well as Ukraine China and the threat of
5:25nuclear war we begin with our most
5:28recent interview which was April 27th
5:31when Ellsberg joined us from his home in
5:34Kensington California he talked about
5:36how he went from being a military
5:38analyst to a whistleblower and why he
5:40risked going to jail in an effort to end
5:43the Vietnam War just yesterday was my
5:46wife's birthday and
5:48we recalled that it was on April 17
5:511965 not everyone can remember their
5:54first date like that but that was the
5:57first SDS March against war and I was
6:00working in the Pentagon on the war
6:02pursuing the war she was going to
6:05interview people in a nationwide
6:06interview program she had and she
6:08induced me to carry her you were heavy
6:11phonograph around with her tape recorder
6:14to interview people and I marched up to
6:17the White House hoping carrying that
6:19recorder and hoping that I would not be
6:21in any picture of the Washington Post
6:23where my colleagues at the Pentagon
6:25would say what is protesting the war on
6:28my one day off from the war during this
6:30but the next day I induced her to go to
6:32the cherry blossoms and that was our
6:34first date and we've been together ever
6:36since so that was 57 years ago she
6:39really was the one who exposed you is
6:42this right to
6:45um The anti-war Movement by forcing you
6:48to carry her tape recorder I mean you
6:49were protesting right outside where you
6:52worked you'd gone from Rand Corporation
6:54to the Pentagon
6:57actually it was right outside the
6:59Lincoln Memorial where we heard the
7:00speeches and then we marched toward the
7:02White House and around the White House I
7:04went back that evening to the Pentagon
7:06where I was working having gotten her to
7:07promise to meet me the next day to go
7:09see the cherry blossoms but I was very
7:12much in sympathy with what I was hearing
7:14on that uh Stadium from eye of stone and
7:18others above the War I felt at that time
7:21as a cold warrior that we were picking
7:24the wrong place to plant the flag on
7:27this one this was a loser and I was not
7:29enthusiastic about our getting involved
7:31in it but that was my job and I did it
7:34all too well if I were asked what
7:37regrets I have today they would have to
7:39do with doing a job I was asked to do
7:42that I knew was wrong for the country
7:45and I did it to the best of my ability
7:47the war was carried on by people who
7:49acted like that
7:50so I want to talk about what you decided
7:53to do and how seminal how key the
7:56anti-war movement was to your thinking
7:59not only meeting Patricia but also
8:03seeing those War resistors uh what were
8:06called draft Dodgers the drafter sisters
8:09who said they'd rather be in prison than
8:12uh on the front lines in the war in
8:15Vietnam
8:17well many many people when Pentagon
8:19papers came out a lot of people on the
8:21Eddie War movement said what's new about
8:23this is what we've been saying all along
8:24which was true which was we had taken up
8:27of her French a French neocolonial role
8:31an imperial role essentially against the
8:34self-government of Vietnam and
8:36sovereignty of Vietnam and we're doomed
8:38to suffer the same fate as the French
8:40essentially to keep killing people and
8:42losing people until we finally decided
8:44to go home and leave them ruling their
8:47own home well
8:49that was not inside the Insiders who
8:51were pursuing the war and dropping the
8:53bomb with millions of tons of bombs it
8:55came to be even later than this knew the
8:58same thing and we're doing it uh
9:00likewise the question was what to do
9:02about it
9:04all the people I was working with in the
9:06government by that time felt everyone I
9:08could think of felt the war was hopeless
9:11essentially it was hopelessly stalemated
9:13and there was no coming out the words
9:15hope stalemate was taboo on the year I
9:18came back from Vietnam with hepatitis in
9:211967 after two years here Lyndon Johnson
9:24had said no official is to use the word
9:27or hunted the word stalemate and yet
9:30that's what it was so the war continued
9:34people did their jobs and it went on as
9:37though that judgment had not been made
9:38and eventually what I really noticed was
9:43that there were people who felt much as
9:44I did
9:45and who were doing an awful lot more
9:48about it than I was doing namely these
9:51were young people who you shouldn't have
9:53to be an expert you didn't have to have
9:55a PhD in international relations uh as
9:58somebody uh to to see the truth about
10:00the war in Vietnam as somebody said you
10:02don't have to be an ichthyologist to
10:04know when a fish stinks and these young
10:07people refused to go
10:09to be drafted uh
10:11to uh when they could have gone to
10:14Canada or Sweden or gotten a deferment
10:18or joined the Air Force National Guard
10:20like George W H W bush somehow gotten
10:24under the fighting but no they chose to
10:26give it a strong a resistance as they
10:30could non-violently in the footsteps of
10:33Rosa Parks in the South and Martin
10:35Luther King and others and to say no
10:38this is wrong you have to do this over
10:41our bodies we will not participate in
10:44this because it's wrong and I realized
10:47when I met young men like this like Bob
10:51Eaton and Randy Keeler were on their way
10:53to prison simply to make the strongest
10:56message they could
10:58which I believed as well that the war
11:01was wrong
11:02I realized I could think of doing what
11:05they did too instead of just talking to
11:07insiders who felt as I did but agreed
11:11there was just nothing you could do
11:12about it as long as the president wanted
11:14to carry on the war and his subordinates
11:16wanted to keep their jobs under their
11:18president uh that they could in fact
11:22dissociate themselves Road and denounce
11:24the war openly very recently we've seen
11:28uh very many comments that the what the
11:31Pentagon paper showed was that the war
11:33was not winnable actually that had and
11:37that's why I gave the Pentagon papers
11:39and that was the effect of them actually
11:41none of the people who went to prison to
11:44protest the war did so because they
11:46thought the war was not winnable
11:49they did it because they swore they
11:51thought the war was wrong and that's
11:53something I think that people have not
11:56succeeded have not been willing to
11:58recognize all these years not just to
12:01the war not just that the US had taken
12:03on some Noble measure that wasn't quite
12:06energetic enough to pursue or had others
12:09or was easily distracted from or
12:11something like that but that our country
12:13was like so many other countries capable
12:16of doing wrong and killing people
12:19without good reason and uh in effect an
12:24imperial kind of operation like that of
12:26the Japanese
12:27or the French after the Japanese or the
12:30Chinese before either of them and those
12:32are the footsteps we were walking in
12:33well I think to this day the very idea
12:36that the U.S is in some ways comparable
12:39to those Empires that it is an Empire is
12:42it to move and a very unfortunate one
12:44because it makes it impossible to
12:46understand what's going on why are we
12:49doing this what's what's happening uh
12:52why in the world are we in this position
12:53of every time after time of fighting
12:57against the self-determination or the
12:59nationalism of other countries and
13:01taking on those uh murderous tasks as
13:05opposed to dealing with problems at home
13:07I think of our country as a covert
13:10Empire where covert is a term of Art in
13:14the Pentagon and the CIA in particular
13:16and I worked with CI people in Vietnam
13:19my immediate boss there was a retired
13:21CIA General Edward Lansdale and the word
13:24covert means plausibly deniable
13:28it means not just secret I'm doing
13:32something that I don't tell you about
13:33but that I plant evidence suggests that
13:36I'm doing something different and I'm
13:38not doing it somebody else is doing it
13:40and the person above me is somebody else
13:43layer after layer to prevent the
13:46president from holding any
13:47accountability for what's happening I
13:49think we not only
13:51feel we need and do
13:54be able to plausibly deny that we are an
13:57Empire that we run other people's
13:59governments other people's police Fords
14:01that we decide who goes to jail and who
14:04gets shot in that country and second we
14:06deny the means we do to keep it a covert
14:09Empire assassination is paramilitary
14:12military buildups
14:14and even overt Wars in some cases as in
14:18Vietnam or Iraq Dan I wanted to go to
14:23that decision you made after giving your
14:2513 year old son Robert a copy of
14:28thoreau's essay on civil disobedience
14:31the Civil Disobedience you engaged in
14:34this is a clip from that 2009
14:37documentary the most dangerous man in
14:39America Dan Ellsberg and the Pentagon
14:42papers
14:43it was the evening of October 1st 1969
14:46when I first smuggled several hundred
14:49pages of top secret documents out of my
14:52safe at the Rand Corporation
14:54[Music]
14:56the study contained 47 vitamins seven
14:59thousand pagers
15:02my plan was to Xerox the study and
15:05reveal the secret history of the Vietnam
15:07War to the American people
15:10the FBI was trying to find out who gave
15:13the New York Times a copy of a
15:15pentagon's secret study Powell like a
15:18like a Thunderclap you get the New York
15:20Times publishing the Pentagon papers and
15:23the country is panicking
15:35my name has now come out as the possible
15:38source of the times Pentagon documents
15:40it is that of Daniel Ellsberg for top
15:42policy analyst for the defense and state
15:44department I think it is time in this
15:47country to quit making national heroes
15:50out of those who steal secrets and
15:53publish them in the newspaper
15:57the first year of marriage we're talking
15:59about him going to prison for the rest
16:00of his life
16:03[Music]
16:09we felt so strongly that we were dealing
16:11with a national security crisis Henry
16:13Kissinger said that Dr Daniel Ellsberg
16:15was the most dangerous man in America
16:17and he had to be stopped
16:20so that a clip from the most dangerous
16:23man in America by Judith Ehrlich and
16:26Rick Goldsmith I remember when we had
16:28you on Dan so many different times
16:30beginning 27 years ago you were one of
16:33our first guests on democracy now but
16:36when this documentary came out you and
16:39Patricia your wife came on the show with
16:42the directors
16:43um this goes to that point where you
16:47understood the stakes of what you were
16:49going to do you brought your two little
16:51kids 13 year old Robert 10 year old
16:54married to help you not that they
16:56completely understood what you were
16:57doing
16:59Xerox the 7 000 pages of the secret
17:02history of Vietnam
17:05U.S involvement in Vietnam
17:08that's right I
17:10hadn't really meant to bring my my
17:13daughter but on the second occasion at
17:15all she was only 10 but um she'd
17:18complained about being left in the car
17:19when I went up to do some last minute
17:21xeroxing with Robert and once she was up
17:25there she complained about being given
17:27nothing to do so we gave her scissors
17:30and win by mistake the police came to
17:33the door for the second time during this
17:35project because the owner of a shop had
17:38not turned the key correctly and it set
17:41off an alarm in the police station so
17:43when the police arrived at the door they
17:45found my son who is 13 at that time Mike
17:50Robert was running the Xerox machine and
17:53I was collating on the floor or various
17:57copies we were making and Mary who was
17:5910 was cutting top secret off the tops
18:02and bottoms of the pages with the
18:04scissors kind of a family project so
18:07they uh so
18:09innocent it was and they they left but
18:12my objective with my son in particular
18:14was to let him see that there were times
18:17when the best thing you could do you
18:20really needed to say no to a government
18:22policy even at the risk of prison and I
18:25wanted him to see that I had not gone
18:28off my nut as I would be described uh
18:32shortly I was sure that I was not acting
18:35as a traitor or fanatically or
18:36hysterically I was just assuming
18:38something in a business-like way that I
18:41felt had to be done even though it had a
18:43risk I wanted to plant that idea in his
18:45life and it took hold as it did with my
18:49daughter
18:49son is the editor-in-chief of orbless
18:52books the Catholic Seminary
18:55Liberation theology publishing house and
18:59my daughter is head of violence against
19:01women project a worldwide project at
19:03American University both of them having
19:05been arrested at various times
19:07I wanted them to know this because you
19:10reckon recognized
19:13be among the last
19:15who were spending
19:18yes I thought they'd otherwise just see
19:20me through heavy glass you know in a
19:24prison and would have the the way that
19:27Julian Assange has had to grow up with
19:29his young sons in his Total Security
19:32Prison in belmarsh for having
19:35facilitated truth-taking of the same
19:37kind that I've done as a matter of fact
19:40his is the first prosecution of a
19:43journalist for putting information out
19:45and it will not be the last if he
19:47successfully extradited over here so he
19:50has a couple children who've seen him
19:52literally only in prison and uh better
19:55than not seeing him at all that's
19:57certainly the case but
19:59what he uh I reveal this year that I had
20:04the information
20:05from Julie Assange essentially that
20:08Chelsea Manning had given the Sun and
20:10which was later put out in the papers I
20:12had that before the papers before the
20:15newspapers had the meaning that I was as
20:17in writable right now as I'm talking to
20:20you as any of the people who've been
20:23indicted by this justice department
20:24because they're working with a law whose
20:27plain language
20:28is on the one hand
20:30unconstitutional from the point of view
20:32of the First Amendment but red properly
20:35just says that Anyone who reads or
20:38handles or stores a piece of paper that
20:41has been marked to be protected are
20:43classified by the government is subject
20:46to imprisonment that implies even to
20:48readers of the New York Times and very
20:51definitely to journalists like Charlie
20:53savage or the Publishers or Julian
20:56himself in other words in that respect
20:58we've gone backwards since that day that
21:01was after all mine was the first
21:04prosecution of anyone foretelling the
21:06truth to the American people and there
21:09have been several dozen since and the
21:11first one of a journalist actually is I
21:14think just preceding the first one of a
21:16reader before we get there so this this
21:19law the Espionage Act very much needs to
21:21be repealed or rescinded in such a way
21:24that it does not serve like a British
21:26official Secrets act which was a perfect
21:29law foreign Empire Dan even before the
21:34Pentagon papers were published in the
21:36times but after you had given the secret
21:40the top secret report to the times you
21:43were trying to end this war any which
21:45way we're broadcasting this show on May
21:48Day on May 1st and it was May 1st 1971
21:53that you led a small affinity group that
21:56included what Howard Zen the late great
21:59historian and gnome Chomsky to
22:02Washington to protest the War I think
22:05Howard would get arrested later that day
22:07but can you talk about
22:09that moment that protest with Howard
22:13gnome and others
22:15well the idea was that if they won't
22:17stop it was rainy Davis's idea that if
22:20they won't stop the war we'll stop the
22:21government and so they had they had
22:24about 25 000 people which was not enough
22:28actually to do it but we were into
22:30Affinity groups and as you say I was in
22:33a very uh privileged one privileged for
22:36me with uh Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky
22:38and Marilyn young and Fred a number of
22:42others Mitch Goodman
22:44commercial protection and we did in fact
22:47get beaten over the head on the streets
22:49and several times and got the advantage
22:51of testing field testing their pepper
22:55sprays directly into the face which is
22:57very effective if I can I'll give a
22:59little uh curb for it here it is very
23:02disorienting indeed and then and then we
23:06again we thought it was pretty much over
23:08when they began uh just clearing the
23:12streets of Georgetown by arresting
23:14everybody there including to their fault
23:16a number of congressmen's children who
23:19were shopping in Georgetown 13
23:22000 were people were arrested and put in
23:24RFK Stadium without any warrants without
23:27any paperwork as to why they've been
23:29arrested what they were there so in the
23:31end they were paid a small uh Indemnity
23:34for having done that Daniel Ellsberg
23:36Pentagon Papers whistleblower speaking
23:39in April he died June 16th at the age of
23:4292 just months after after being
23:44diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

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