According to his family, Daniel Ellsberg died “peacefully” at his home in California from complications from cancer.
The former Pentagon employee worked for the Rand Corporation think tank when, in 1971, he first leaked parts of a top-secret document from the US Department of Defense to the New York Times – the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War. The approximately 7,000-page document showed that several U.S. administrations lied to the public and to Congress about wartime operations, particularly those of President Lynden B. Johnson from 1963 to 1969.
The “Most Dangerous Man in America”
Ellsberg held that Vietnam War unwinnable and hoped that the publication of the document would bring about a quicker end to the war. The government of US President Richard Nixon reacted angrily, Nixon’s then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger described Ellsberg as the “most dangerous man in America”.
Ellsberg later turned himself in to justice. He was charged with espionage and treason, which is why he faced up to 115 years in prison. His trial ended in 1973 when all charges against him, including illegal government evidence gathering, were dropped. He has received several awards for his revelations.
In the decades that followed, Ellsberg worked as an author, speaker and anti-war activist. Most recently, he had repeatedly spoken out insistently about the dangers of nuclear war.
qu/wa (dpa, afp, rtr)