65 Facts About Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was born on April 7,1931 and is an American political activist and former United States military analyst.

Daniel Ellsberg is known for having formulated an important example in decision theory, the Ellsberg paradox; for his extensive studies on nuclear weapons and nuclear policy; and for voicing support for WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden.

Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 7,1931, the son of Harry and Adele Daniel Ellsberg.

Daniel Ellsberg's parents were Ashkenazi Jews who had converted to Christian Science, and he was raised as a Christian Scientist.

Daniel Ellsberg grew up in Detroit and attended Cranbrook School in nearby Bloomfield Hills.

Daniel Ellsberg's mother wanted him to be a concert pianist, but he stopped playing in July 1948, two years after both his mother and sister were killed when his father fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the family car into a bridge abutment.

Daniel Ellsberg studied at the University of Cambridge for a year on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, then returned to Harvard for graduate school.

Daniel Ellsberg served as a platoon leader and company commander in the 2nd Marine Division, and was discharged in 1957 as a first lieutenant.

Daniel Ellsberg returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows for two years.

Daniel Ellsberg began working as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation for the summer of 1958 and then permanently in 1959.

Daniel Ellsberg concentrated on nuclear strategy and the command and control of nuclear weapons.

Daniel Ellsberg completed a PhD in economics from Harvard in 1962.

Daniel Ellsberg worked in the Pentagon from August 1964 under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs John McNaughton.

Daniel Ellsberg then went to South Vietnam for two years, working for General Edward Lansdale as a member of the State Department.

On his return from South Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg resumed working at RAND.

Daniel Ellsberg experienced an epiphany attending a War Resisters League conference at Haverford College in August 1969, listening to a speech given by a draft resister named Randy Kehler, who said he was "very excited" that he would soon be able to join his friends in prison.

Daniel Ellsberg's actions spoke to me as no mere words would have done.

Daniel Ellsberg put the right question in my mind at the right time.

In late 1969, with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague Anthony Russo, Daniel Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers.

Shortly after Daniel Ellsberg copied the documents, he resolved to meet some of the people who had influenced both his change of heart on the war and his decision to act.

Daniel Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Daniel Ellsberg shared the documents with The New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan, who wrote a story based on what he had received both directly from Daniel Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.

Meanwhile, while eluding an FBI manhunt for thirteen days, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the documents to The Washington Post.

Two days prior to the Supreme Court's decision, Daniel Ellsberg publicly admitted his role in releasing the Pentagon Papers to the press.

Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to seventeen other newspapers in rapid succession.

On June 28,1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of The New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston.

Daniel Ellsberg tried to claim that the documents were illegally classified to keep them not from an enemy but from the American public.

Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Daniel Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events.

On May 22,2021, during the Biden administration, The New York Times reported Daniel Ellsberg had released classified documents revealing the Pentagon in 1958 drew up plans to launch a nuclear attack on China amid tensions over the Taiwan Strait.

Daniel Ellsberg told The New York Times he copied the classified documents about the Taiwan Strait crisis fifty years earlier when he copied the Pentagon Papers, but chose not to release the documents then.

Daniel Ellsberg assumed the Pentagon was involved again in contingency planning for a nuclear strike on China should a military conflict with conventional weapons fail to deliver a decisive victory.

In releasing the classified documents, Daniel Ellsberg offered himself as a defendant in a test case challenging the Justice Department's use of the Espionage Act of 1917 to punish whistleblowers.

Daniel Ellsberg noted the Act applies to everyone, not just spies, and prohibits a defendant from explaining the reasons for revealing classified information in the public interest.

Daniel Ellsberg later supported the whistleblowing efforts of British GCHQ translator Katharine Gun and called on others to leak any papers that reveal government deception about the invasion.

Daniel Ellsberg testified at the 2004 conscientious objector hearing of Camilo Mejia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Daniel Ellsberg is a member of Campaign for Peace and Democracy.

Daniel Ellsberg criticized the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who had exposed American war crimes in Iraq.

In September 2006, Daniel Ellsberg wrote in Harper's Magazine that he hoped someone would leak information about a potential US invasion of Iran before the invasion happened, to stop the war.

Daniel Ellsberg called for further leaks following the release of information on the acceleration of US-sponsored anti-government activity in Iran that was leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh.

Daniel Ellsberg pointed out that under Article VI of the US Constitution, treaties, including the United Nations Charter and international labor rights accords that the United States has signed, become the supreme law of the land that neither the states, the president, nor the congress have the power to break.

In November 2007, Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed by Brad Friedman on his blog in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

Daniel Ellsberg participated in the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition founded by Edmonds, and in 2008, he condemned many US media outlets for purportedly ignoring articles about Edmonds's allegations regarding nuclear proliferation published in The Sunday Times.

On December 9,2010, Daniel Ellsberg appeared on The Colbert Report where he commented that the existence of WikiLeaks helps to build a better government.

On June 10,2013, Daniel Ellsberg published an editorial in The Guardian newspaper praising the actions of former Booz Allen worker Edward Snowden in revealing top-secret surveillance programs of the NSA.

In June 2010, Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed regarding the parallels between his actions in releasing the Pentagon Papers and those of Manning, who was arrested by the US military in Iraq after allegedly providing to WikiLeaks a classified video showing US military helicopter gunships strafing and killing Iraqis alleged to be civilians.

Daniel Ellsberg said that he fears for Manning and for Julian Assange, as he feared for himself after the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Daniel Ellsberg expressed hope that either Assange or President Obama would post the video, and expressed his strong support for Assange and Manning, whom he called "two new heroes of mine".

In 2012, Daniel Ellsberg became one of the co-founders of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Daniel Ellsberg is a founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

In December 2015, Daniel Ellsberg publicly supported the Tor anonymity network, referencing its utility for whistle blowing in general for the maintenance of democracy via the First Amendment.

In 2020, Daniel Ellsberg testified in defense of Assange during Assange's extradition hearings.

Daniel Ellsberg has spoken out vociferously against the threats to press freedom from such whistleblower prosecution.

On November 16,2011, Daniel Ellsberg camped on the UC Berkeley Sproul Plaza as part of an effort to support the Occupy Cal movement.

In December 2017, Daniel Ellsberg published The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Daniel Ellsberg said that his primary job from 1958 until releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was as a nuclear war planner for US presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.

Daniel Ellsberg concluded that US nuclear war policy was completely crazy and he could no longer live with himself without doing what he could to expose it, even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Daniel Ellsberg therefore copied two sets of documents, planning to release first the Pentagon Papers and later documentation of nuclear war plans.

Daniel Ellsberg's aircraft were equipped with Mark 28 thermonuclear weapons with a yield of 1.1 megatons each, roughly half the explosive power of all the bombs dropped by the US in World War II both in Europe and the Pacific.

Daniel Ellsberg then asked what might happen if he gave such launch orders and the sixth plane succumbed to a thermonuclear accident on the runway.

Daniel Ellsberg claimed that every president since Truman, with the possible exception of Ford, threatened the use of nuclear weapons.

Daniel Ellsberg is the recipient of the inaugural Ron Ridenhour Courage Prize, a prize established by The Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation.

Daniel Ellsberg received the 2018 Olof Palme Prize and the 2022 Sam Adams Award.

Daniel Ellsberg's first marriage was in 1952 to Carol Cummings, a graduate of Radcliffe whose father was a Marine Corps brigadier general.

In March 2023, Daniel Ellsberg wrote that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which had progressed beyond medical treatment.