American Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1971 unveiled confidential Vietnam war planning documents – the “Pentagon Papers” – died Friday, June 16 at the age of 92, his family announced in a statement. “He died of pancreatic cancer, which he was diagnosed with on February 17. He did not suffer and was surrounded by his beloved family,” his wife and children said.
The whistleblower, whose story inspired an American TV movie in 2003 and a feature film by Steven Spielberg in 2017, had himself announced in March that he had incurable cancer and that he only had “three to six months to live”.
“Hot chocolates, croissants, cakes, poppyseed and smoked salmon bagels gave her extra pleasure during her final months,” her family said in the statement. “He also took the opportunity to rewatch his favorite movies, including rewatching his favorite movie, Butch Cassidy and the Kid, several times,” they added.
The inspiration of a TV movie and a feature film
A former analyst for the State Department and the Pentagon-linked Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg rose to fame in the early 1970s after leaking 7,000 classified documents, the “Pentagon Papers”, which disclosed that several US governments had lied to the public about the Vietnam War. These documents revealed in particular that, contrary to the assertions of various American officials, the Vietnam war could not be won by the United States and that Washington had nevertheless played the card of military escalation.
Revelations that had changed the opinion of Americans on this conflict of decolonization and the Cold War, from 1955 to 1975, a real trauma for both countries with 58,000 American soldiers killed and some 3.8 million civilian deaths and soldiers on the Vietnamese side. In 1969, increasingly revolted by the situation in Vietnam, where he had visited the scene of the conflict, Ellsberg had obtained a 7,000-page report.
Working for the Rand Corporation, he had photocopied the report page by page with the help of a couple of friends. The story, which led to the lies being exposed in the New York Times and then the Washington Post, is told in Steven Spielberg’s film, Pentagon Papers, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, nominated for an Oscar in 2018. Another film for American television, The Pentagon Papers follows the journey of Ellsberg, played by actor James Spader, from the Rand Corporation to his aborted trial for espionage.
The New York Times had begun publishing these documents, before the administration of Republican President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) obtained an injunction from a federal court to prevent them from doing so, on the grounds of national security. The Washington Post had taken over, despite the risks of political, economic and legal reprisals. Daniel Ellsberg won the Olof-Palme Prize for Human Rights in 2018.
