Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was born on April 7, 1931, in Chicago, IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry. He attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, MichiganMichiganMichigan is a state of the United States nearly surrounded by the Great Lakes and made up of the Upper and Lower peninsulas; its capital is Lansing and its largest city is Detroit. It was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, as the 26th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 10,077,331.Open the full entry, on a full scholarship and graduated first in his class.⁠[1][2]

He attended Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry on a four-year full scholarship and received a B.A. summa cum laude in economics in 1952; his senior thesis on the theories of von Neumann and Morgenstern led to articles in the Economic Journal and the American Economic Review. After graduating he spent a year studying economics at King’s College, University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry, on a fellowship.⁠[2][1]

In 1953 he volunteered for Marine Corps officer candidate training, and from 1954 to 1957 he served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps as a rifle platoon leader, operations officer and rifle company commander, including six months with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Suez Crisis.⁠[2][1]

From 1957 to 1959 he was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He was a summer consultant at the RAND Corporation in 1958 and from 1959 worked there as a strategic analyst, applying decision theory to national security problems.⁠[2][1][3]

His 1961 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics gave rise to the literature on what became known as the “Ellsberg Paradox.” In 1962, while at RAND, he received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University with a dissertation titled Risk, Ambiguity and Decision.⁠[2][1]

In mid-1964 he joined the U.S. Department of Defense as special assistant to John T. McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; his first full day on the job was August 4, 1964, and his work concerned the U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry military effort in Vietnam.⁠[2][1][4]

In mid-1965 he transferred to the U.S. Department of State and worked on pacification from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, first under Edward Lansdale and later under Deputy Ambassador William Porter. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry’s biography states that during this period he came to believe the war could not be won. He left Vietnam and returned to the United States in June 1967.⁠[2][1]

In July 1967 he returned to the RAND Corporation and worked on the history of decision-making in Vietnam commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamaraRobert McNamaraRobert McNamara (Robert Strange McNamara, 1916–2009) was an American business executive and government official who was president of the Ford Motor Company, served as U.S. secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, and was president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.Open the full entry, the study later known as the Pentagon Papers. Classified top secret and running to about 7,000 pages in 47 volumes, it was officially the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, titled United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967. It was written by 36 analysts and completed in 1969, five days before Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry’s inauguration. In 1968–1969 he also served as a consultant to Henry KissingerHenry KissingerHenry Kissinger (1923–2023) was a German-born American diplomat and political scientist who served as US national security adviser from 1969 to 1975 and as the 56th secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, the first person to hold both posts at once. He led the opening to China, détente and arms control talks with the Soviet Union, the Vietnam ceasefire negotiations and shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, and shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho; his role in Chile, Cambodia, South Asia and East Timor drew lasting criticism.Open the full entry.⁠[1][5][6][2]

In 1969 he took a copy of the report out of RAND, and in October of that year he and his colleague Anthony J. Russo Jr. began photocopying it. In November 1969 he gave the study to Senator J. William Fulbright, and over about 18 months he offered it to several members of Congress without bringing about public hearings. In 1970 he left RAND for a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.⁠[3][1][2][4]

In March 1971 he met The New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan and then gave most of the study to the paper. On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the documents; after the courts enjoined the paper, he passed them to The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is an American daily newspaper founded in Washington in 1877, known for its role in the Pentagon Papers case and the Watergate investigation. Run by the Meyer–Graham family for eighty years from 1933, it has been owned personally by Jeff Bezos since 2013.Open the full entry and eventually to 19 newspapers in all.⁠[6][2][5]

On June 14, 1971, Attorney General John Mitchell ordered The New York Times to stop publishing; when it refused, the government obtained an injunction. In New York Times Co. v. United States, oral arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States began on June 26, 1971, and on June 30 the Court ruled 6–3 in the newspaper’s favor, allowing publication to continue.⁠[6]

The federal government charged Ellsberg and Russo under the Espionage Act of 1917, along with counts including conspiracy and theft of government property. Ellsberg faced 12 federal felony counts carrying a possible 115 years in prison; Russo was charged on three counts.⁠[6][4][2]

To stop leaks, Nixon’s staff set up a White House Special Investigations Unit known as the “Plumbers.” Working for John Ehrlichman, with E. Howard Hunt as the planner, the unit broke into the Beverly HillsBeverly HillsBeverly Hills is an incorporated city in Los Angeles County, California, known for its film-industry residents, Rodeo Drive shopping district and hotels. Incorporated on January 28, 1914, it covers about 5.71 square miles and recorded 32,701 residents in the 2020 census. It operates under a council–manager system. The Metro D Line extension reached Wilshire/La Cienega in May 2026.Open the full entry office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in search of material that could damage him.⁠[6][1]

The trial opened in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, and lasted about four months. In May 1973, before closing arguments, federal judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo “with prejudice” on grounds of government misconduct, which included the break-in, illegal wiretaps and the destruction of relevant documents.⁠[6][1][4][2]

After the case was dismissed he devoted himself to peace activism and academic work, campaigning against the neutron bomb and the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles, and was arrested about 70 times for nonviolent civil disobedience, some 50 of them over nuclear weapons. In 1992 he launched Manhattan Project II with Physicians for Social Responsibility, and he was a fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.⁠[1][2][7]

In 2004 he founded the Truth-Telling Project to encourage officials to expose government deception, and in 2012 he co-founded the Freedom of the Press Foundation.⁠[7][8]

In 2006 he received the Right Livelihood Award “for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk,” and in 2018 he received the Olof Palme Prize.⁠[7][1]

On June 13, 2011, the National Archives and Records Administration and the John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon presidential libraries released the report in full; about 2,384 pages, or 34%, were opened for the first time compared with Senator Mike Gravel’s edition. The press release states that the copy behind the 1971 media leaks was made by Ellsberg and Russo, and that Part VI on negotiating initiatives, which they did not leak, had been declassified by the State Department in 2002.⁠[5]

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on February 17, 2023, and died early on the morning of June 16, 2023, at his home in Kensington, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, at the age of 92. His family held a public online memorial, a “Celebration of Life,” on October 22, 2023.⁠[9][1]

His wife was named Patricia; his children included his sons Michael and Robert and his daughter Maria, and he had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.⁠[10][9]

His books include Papers on the War (1972), Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002) and The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017); his doctoral dissertation was later published as Risk, Ambiguity, and Decision. The posthumous book Truth and Consequence was co-edited by his son Michael Ellsberg and Jan R. Thomas.⁠[1][2][9]

Daniel Ellsberg: Official website: https://www.ellsberg.net/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

RAND Corporation: Official website: https://www.rand.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]