Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst and researcher whose 1971 Pentagon Papers leak led to him being dubbed “the most dangerous man in America”, has passed away at his home in Kensington, California, his family said. He was 92.
In a statement late Friday, his family said he died due to pancreatic cancer, the BBC reported.
“Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an anti-war activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more. He will be dearly missed by all of us,” the statement read.
The infamous leak of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 government pages which exposed the extent of Washington’s involvement in the Vietnam War — led to a Supreme Court case as the administration of former President Richard Nixon tried to block a publication in The New York Times.
The papers contradicted the government’s public statements on the war and the damning revelations they contained helped bring an end to the conflict and, ultimately, sowed the seeds of President Nixon’s downfall, said the BBC.
The Pentagon Papers created a First Amendment clash between the Nixon administration and The New York Times, which first published stories based on the papers — cast by government officials as an act of espionage that compromised national security.
The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of the freedom of the press.
Ellsberg was charged in federal court in Los Angeles in 1971 with theft, espionage, conspiracy and other counts.
But before the jury could reach a verdict, the judge threw out the case citing serious government misconduct, including illegal wiretapping.
The judge said that in the middle of the case he had been offered the job of FBI director by one of President Nixon’s top aides.
It also emerged that there had been a government-sanctioned burglary of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.
Before reaching the Pentagon, Ellsberg had worked for the Defense and State Departments.
The Marine Corps veteran with a Harvard doctorate continued his quest to hold the government accountable years after the Pentagon Papers leak.
During an interview in December 2022, he told the BBC that he was the secret “back-up” for the Wikileaks documents leak.
In the Wikileaks case, Julian Assange’s organisation published more than 700,000 confidential documents, videos and diplomatic cables, provided by a US Army intelligence analyst, in 2010.
Ellsberg told the BBC that he felt Assange “could rely on me to find some way to get it (the information) out”.
In a March 2023 email obtained by the Washington Post, Ellsberg wrote: “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. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed.”
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