The activist and military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, known for having leaked to the press in 1971 the so-called “Pentagon Papers” about the Vietnam War, one of the largest leaks in the history of the United States, died this Friday at the age of 92.
The family confirmed in a statement to which local media had access that Ellsberg died at his residence in Kensington (California) months after announcing to those close to him that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Ellsberg, who worked for the United States Department of Defense, is known for having leaked the “Pentagon Papers” to The New York Times in 1971, in which it was revealed that the Richard Nixon Administration (1969-1974) was deceiving to the public about the Vietnam War and knew that he could not win the conflict.
The publication of the “Pentagon Papers” had a great media impact in the United States and increased public opposition against the war.
Ellsberg went to trial accused of espionage, but the judge declared the process null and void in 1973 after detecting that the government had tapped the defendant’s phone, among other irregularities.
The analyst was part of the Pentagon team that the then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, commissioned in 1967 to prepare a report on the Vietnam War.
As opposition to the conflict grew, Ellsberg, a staunch pacifist, began taking copies of the so-called “Pentagon Papers,” a report of more than 7,000 pages, out of his office, which he handed over to New York Times journalist Neil Sheehan. .
After the Times began publishing the documents, the Nixon Administration obtained a court order to gag the newspaper and stop its dissemination, so Ellsberg began leaking them to other media outlets, such as The Washington Post.
The newspapers managed to get the Supreme Court to allow them to go ahead with publication, a decision considered historic for press freedom in the United States.
Ellsberg’s death coincides with Thursday’s indictment against Jack Teixeira, the young National Guardsman who was in charge of leaking Pentagon documents on the Ukraine war.
Teixeira, arrested on April 13, posted information on the internet that gave details about the plans of the United States and NATO to reinforce the Ukrainian offensive against Russia and pointed out that Washington could have spied on some of its allies, such as Ukraine itself, South Korea and Israel.
Some analysts compared its potential impact to that caused in 2013 by Edward Snowden when he exposed the scope of the massive espionage programs that the United States launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
